We pieced the car back together with its new suspension bits after it had been sitting on jackstands for nearly 3 months, and accomplished a battery relocation in there somewhere too. We were just in time for the Detroit Region SCCA's Rallycross Season Opener at Crystal Motor Speedway. Weather was perfect for a Sno*Drift shakedown, as a lot of snow had been falling in the days leading up to the event.We had a very competitive class in Modified 2WD with Jon Armstrong and Burke Davis driving Burke's recently rolled-over Civic and Nathan Usher in his new-to-him rally GTI. Even so, the IC Engineering GTI handily took the top two positions, and I even managed to edge out Sean for the win. The course was a lot of fun, with high and low-speed sections going in and out of the oval track at the Speedway. The GTI performed flawlessly, and the hydraulic handbrake made a world of difference in the times that the car was capable of. The fact that not only did the car make it to the event and back, but also took the two fastest times of the day looked very promising for the upcoming Sno*Drift rally. Now if only the heater worked a little better...Results here (PDF)
I don't really remember what happened for a while, but I know that the car was up on jackstands in Sean's garage for a while, and at some point it was at my house to weld in some trigger teeth for the Terratrip, and at another point I was trying to figure out the car's ultra-messy wiring and pulled a few pounds of unnecessary wire out among other things. The next thing I know, it's September and we're going to another rallycross, this time at the Calhoun County Fairgrounds in Marshall, MI to do a shakedown before the Lake Superior Performance Rally.This rallycross was a lot of fun, as we were getting the GTI into third gear pretty regularly and the car was driving great. I was actually leading in the morning session just by virtue of not hitting too many cones, and Sean was just behind. Halfway through the afternoon runs though, we discovered that the car was leaking fuel and with Jon Armstrong (the Tech Chief) right behind us, we couldn't really just keep running. Luckily, Jon offered up his super awesome rallycross Civic for both of us to drive, so we finished out our runs in a much louder, higher-powered car. I managed to hit enough cones on my last run to drop from 1st to 3rd, but Sean took the win and fun was had by all.
And of course thanks to Jon Armstrong for the car donation!
The first event that the car saw under new ownership was the Eastern States Rallycross Championship on May 22, 2010, held at the Lenawee County Fairgrounds in Adrian, MI. Just prior to this event, we pulled the GTI into my garage, replaced the master cylinder and re-ran all of the brake lines, including the installation of a hydraulic hand-brake and a proportioning valve. I don't have pictures of this, but they're somewhere. Driving the GTI to the event was really the shakedown to prove that the brakes still worked. It leaked fluid all over the hatch floor...but it was just a loose fitting, so we tightened it up and all was well. The car was great for this event, with Sean taking 4th of 10 and I was a bit behind in 6th. Results are here (PDF). This was my first experience racing a FWD car, so that's my excuse. Here's a picture:
