We missed Desert Storm this year (and some much needed points) and have had the itch to get sideways ever since our little fiasco in Nevada last year. This weekend Team TM/FM will be defending their Group 2 title win last year this weekend at the High Desert Trails rally. The car seems to be in good shape with some help from a few friends–we’d love to show you exactly what was done, but it’s a bit top secret at this time. Let’s just say “bullet-proof” is a good term… more to come.

Full write up soon!
4th Max attack
3rd G2 on Saturday
1st G2 on Sunday
Novice Driver of rally
Novice Co-Driver of rally
Max Attack “Recovery” Award 26 seed to 4th place!

Well the car, driver, co-driver, recce vehicle, service vehicle and service crew made it… All of the aforementioned being GVB and myself…

We are dead tired, but pulled in to see one of the big boy cars sitting in the lot… It was a quick jolt… Damn, we’re here!

Recce tomorrow and then the kids from the EC are going to lay it down!

Also, Rally America just released a news bulletin for the Oregon Trail Rally today, and it has a blurb about us! Check it out at http://www.rally-america.com/events/2010/Oregon/news/bulletins/662/

Made our way through beautiful norcal after driving all night… Many thanks to Eddie FioRally for letting us pilage some parts off his car in Long Beach last night…

Had a quick lunch in Shasta and made a quick stop in Weed, CA (stop by and say hi to our man Stacy at the Weed store…)

We are just north of Medford… Lots of nice gravel roads right off the freeway. I’m thinking we need to test out the new fuel pump… Hmmm

Got flagged at tech last night for not having 20 total lbs of fire extinguishing power… Headed to the not-so-friendly confines of the Indio Super WalMart where GVB proceeded to lose his mind… 40 minutes of waiting in line and we were out the door…

Headed to service area now to set up and then recce.

Tired.

It’s been a long couple of days, but I have a feeling we will be just fine when we light up the first special stage…

After what seemed like an endless day of prep we are finally making our way to Indio…

Quick shakedown and GVB is liking the new shifter… And it’s one helluva difference with new tires!

A special thanks to Charlies Garage for the exhaust help… Enjoy the caronas fellas.

Running around getting last minute stuff together for plan B… Like the exhaust… Tires… You know, the basics.

Another night at RALLY HQ–another 50 things we need to do… We got the steering rack back in but are awaiting the parts shipments to finish out a few things under the car…. GVB made short work of the exhaust repair. We also thought we should clean the air filter out a bit…