AKA Rally 2007 - Salt Lake City to Atlantic City

[MPD47]

Day 1 - The Salt Flats

We previously stayed in a hotel in Wendover which was described to me as a “bad acid trip” from another rallier, but it was “the closest thing to the flats”. Needless to say I spent all night trying to figure out if I was going to have a seizure from the neon lights or walk into a mirror. Vegas on crack for sure. Scared the hell out of me. Anyway, we woke up near dawn (not early enough IMO if we go back we plan on being there before sun rise as sun rise on the flats is incredible) and headed out the 4 miles to the two main race tracks on the flats, where they had graded a new “AKA Rally 3 Mile Course” next to the International course.

All of the ralliers did not join in on this event, a few could not pass tech (4 point belts are not allowed, batteries must be tied down, basically, your basic autoX tech), and a bunch just “didnt want to run” who knows why.

A shot of some of the cars who went to the Salt. (again, not all those in attendance for the Rally).

Heading in at sunrise:

Jason’s Z Coupe

Chris modded e39 M5 (thanks John for ruining the shot!)

Jay on his 600RR, yes, he is insane and did the whole rally on the bike. He also strapped gas cans down where the extra seat is so he had a longer range and only had to do a quick, side of the road refill rather than find a gas station.

Nowell’s Twin Turbo Z

That small mountain that looks like an Island straight ahead is 40 miles away. The guy who runs the events out there told 3 of us a story about this couple who thought they could drive out to it, got stuck in the deep mud that is towards the end of the flats about 30 miles out, he tried to walk back in the middle of the day, she stayed in the car… they found him dead when setting up for an event and went looking for his car and found her dead in the car… eeeeeh!

Brent’s Twin Turbo Z hit the top time for the day with 183mph (MPH was measured by radar at the 2 mile mark).

The 330i hit 138mph, due to altitude when I shifted into 5th I LOST speed, :lol:

Alicia and I spent a bunch of time taping up her 996 (that she picked up in SLC the day before) and playing with the wing adjustments to try and help her pick up a few mph. Unfortunately the car ended up throwing a misfire on cylinder 1 and ended up needing a coil pack so it only managed 152mph that day. (She picked up 4 mph after taping, adjusting the wing, and folding in the mirrors).

The day ended with a leisurely 100 mile drive back to Salt Lake City for the first night of partying.


Oh and with Chris throwing his AC belt while cruising at 160. :lol: We ended up back at a BMW dealer where they fixed his car, and he convinced them to clean and vacuum mine… they even detailed my engine bay!

You can view the rest of the salt flats photos here:
http://www.akarally.com/gallery2/v/aka2007/saltflats/?g2_page=1

[micah]

that looks like it was an experiece for sure, i hope to do a rally someday

[OneFastMonkey]

Looks sick.

[MPD47]

Day 2 - SLC to Billings MO

Day 2 started out typically enough, everyone ripping out of the hotel and onto the highway in the pursuit of showing who is who on the first “real” day of the rally. I was EXTREMELY hungover from the night before, so while everyone was prepping cars and getting ready to leave, I slept in mine. PT ended up driving the first hour or so while I continued to sleep, drink gaterade, and put down advil. I woke up as other Rally participants were being pulled over outside SLC. So needless to say we were cruising at 60mph when the biggest asshole sheriff in the state pulls us over, starts yelling at me (I wasnt even driving) and orders us to follow him or “it’s felony evasion”. Well, as you can imagine, this didnt fly with me. I politely ask him questions as he screams at me in the middle of the street in front of his superior officer and then tell his Supervisor how appalled I was at the less than professional treatment I received from one of his officers. He said he’d review the tape, doubtful, but it was fun getting the guy even more pissed off while his superior listened to me and ordered him to give me back my information (license, reg, etc). Anyway, after that we were off. About 2 hours behind the M5’s who had somehow squeaked past the police. We ended up wanting to get gas, food, and make a Wal Mart stop so Dave in the Cayenne Turbo and my car decided to just lag behind for a bit and do that. We ended up lagging behind a lot of bit because Dan Conner disappeared for 30 minutes while we were out in the cars ready to go… this was the start of him doing this everytime we stopped the car and eventually led to us telling him to “find another ride to Atlantic City”. More on that later…

So eventually we catch up with a smaller group, Alicia in the 996, Brent in the TT350z Ragtop and a few other cars… when we hit a loose gravel construction zone… This doesnt bother me as I’m in a beat up 330i, and Alicia cant stand going 5mph through it (it was rated at 50mph people just cared about their paint) so we hop the right lane when there isnt construction going on, and head out ditching the rest of the group to catch the M5’s, the bike, and the STI swapped GC8.

After a long period of that on a deserted highway, we eventually catch up, and fly by them.

Fuel strapped to the back, Jay is insane.

At this gas stop in the middle of nowhere, some random 10 year old asks if Chris M5 is a Civic… he said “it looks like a modded civic”. :lol:

Also at this gas stop my aggravation with Dan conner continued, he hopped into Nick Black’s e60 M5 without telling any of us, (again, a frequent occurrence with him) so Chris, John, PT and I pull up to the On ramp and make him sweat it out thinking we had left him… Unfortunately for us after tearing the gas station apart we figure out that he has once again left us. So we jump in our cars and begin hauling ass through the empty state of Montana to catch up.

We did make a QUICK stop to watch a helicopter battle a forest fire which was REALLY cool to watch.

And then we continued trying to play catch up:

Until a Montana sheriff crossed the median and pulled us over. IIRC he gave us a 94 in a 75? But was really cool and shot the shit with us and told us there were 7 sheriff’s in the county and if there wasnt one in the next 10 miles we were good to go. :lol:

And off we went to Dinner and Billings MO.

[MPD47]

Day 3 - Billings to Fargo

Day 3 was a lot of this for me:

Nick purchased a WS6 Transmaro Bird specifically for the rally because his 500awhp STI wasnt quite back together. When we took off from the hotel, I blocked traffic so the whole rally could leave together, much to the annoyance of some hillbillie in his rusty 70’s chevy pickup.

WannabeCowboy: YOU’RE BLOCKING TRAFFIC
Me: Yeah I know
WannabeCowboy: I GOT PLACES TO BE
Me: Yeah? That’s nice
WannabeCowboy: Get out of the fuckin way
Me: Yeah? Gofuckyourself

Anyway… a lot of :lol: later we moved from blocking the 3 lanes and were off. I tend to cruise with Alicia, Chris, and the Infamous Racing crew that I ended the day with previously, but when I finished blocking traffic they were no where in sight. Sooooo I saw Nick who I’ve done rallies before and jumped on the back of the group he ended up with. Initially I thought this was a mistake, but it ended up for the best… or so we thought. cue dun dun dun music. We ended up with a group who was braking down to like 60 from 80 on some of the most amazing backroad I’ve ever been on (no pics, sorry). They decided to stop and do something, I dont even remember what because I had no desire to find out. I pulled over, PT checked tire pressures, I checked oil, we ripped a ton of donuts in the dirt near some oil pumps and off we went. As we left I said “If anyone follows us, it’ll be Nick” and sure enough, ripping around the group of cars here comes Nick in the WS6. So off we went, hours, upon hours of WOT, with the occasional bit of braking for a sweeper. Was absolutely insane, until we came up on two cops in front of us, one of which blocked the road and the other whipped behind us. Nick has a photo of them somewhere, but much to our surprise (as we had barely seen anyone and had slowed to 25mph for the 3 towns we went through), we were apparently wanted in the 3 previous counties we went through… OOPS! It came down to, pay cash for these tickets right here, or we take you back and you can collect the rest of them. So $200 each later we were on our way. I then immediately got more tickets in North Dakota and told PT he was driving the rest of the day.

[MPD47]

Day 4 Fargo to Milwaukee

The night before, Nick, PT and I had replaced rotors and pads on the front of the trans am… one of the bleeders was seriously fucked up on the pass front caliper and I was concerned about it but felt good when we rebled the brakes in the morning. Well, needless to say I was wrong, because Nick pulled out of the parking spot and lost his brakes in the parking lot. Geyser of brake fluid. So we pull the wheel back off and inspect… the PO had stripped the bleeder. We try and find another caliper in Fargo… no dice, so we try and helicoil it and get it to seal… I was doubtful, and rightfully so, no dice. So we get a 9/16’s tap, a PCV rubber grommet, teflon tape, liquid teflon, and a large bolt and I goto town on Nick’s caliper. Not only got it to seal, but got a great bleed out of it too, he said his brakes hadnt felt that good all trip. We inspected it at every stop and did the speed limit to Milwaukee (the e39 M5, the Transmaro bird and the 330i). It held great and Nick ended up finishing the rally with that fix as no dealer would get him a caliper due to them claiming “he might not show up” even with his credit card info. Stupid GM dealers.