And so it begins… again

When I was but a wee lad growing up in Pullman, WA, I was not surrounded by much in the way of motorsport. It wasn’t a focus in my family and it wasn’t on our local TV stations. But a friend of mine got hooked on RC cars so of course I did too. The Age of Tamiya was on me.

We were young and didn’t have the patience to save up much money so of course we went low budget. The Grasshopper and the Frog, both buggies, were all we could afford. Classics of the genre to be sure. But when we got the catalog, my eye was drawn not to the buggies but to the rally cars. The Lancias and the Audis and the Lowly Citroen 2CV rally car. Thus was a seed planted in my head.

I would seek out info about this alien sport. As I grew up I subscribed to Road and Track and learned about the Group 2 cars, the Safari Rally, the Paris-Dakar (back when Paris and Dakar where the start and finish of this legendary event). And I started to plan for adulthood.

My first adult used car? An Audi. My first new car? The 98 Subaru 2.5RS, the first of many of that make. In ‘02 I heard from a friend that someone was looking for a driver for a TSD rally. Armed at that point with my 02 WRX I quickly raised my hand. Thus was I pushed into the TSD world. And I’ve been there ever since.

The author working a rally in eastern washington in 2007

In 08 I competed in my first Alcan. A winter event that year. We came in 2nd in class and 3rd overall. Pretty good for the first foray into the north. In 2010 my navigator and I worked the event. I had plans to run again but things kept getting in the way. Until now.

This year my now 18 year old daughter will be navigating for me. We’ll be telling our story here, along with the rest of our team. Our Off-Camber Rally team. Interspersed will be other stories (maybe I’ll go into my short pro rally “career” in a 1987 Subaru RX) and we’ll post photos of the event etc. We hope you’ll join us in this adventure.