Ridge Rally 2024 - Volunteering

This one was a first for me. Ridge Rally, is the 2nd closest rally to me, with Prescott being the closest. So I knew that I should start getting acquainted with this event near Tehachapi, CA, as it'll likely be an event I can attend annually.

I signed up to volunteer at this event with a friend of mine, who had no prior experience with the sport or even working on cars. I shared with him my plans to get a ham radio license in order to open up more volunteering opportunities at rallies, and we ended up getting our technician licenses.

Initially, I didn't even expect us to get any radio assignments, since we got our licenses so close to the start of the event. It turned out to work in our favor and we were placed in service doing comms with Kevin Mount, the chief scrutineer. I personally enjoy being at service because you get to see and hear all of the challenges and stories firsthand, all while hanging out with cool folks.

Kevin, was awesome and honestly, didn't seem to need too much help. He was out there making burgers, providing us with a cozy RV to hang out in, inspecting DNFed cars, setting up the radio so we can all listen in, and the night before, he was scrutinizing the cars at tech inspection. Meanwhile, we were marking off cones, directing service traffic, and relaying messages in person for the most part. We made a few radio transmissions, and honestly, I was kind of relieved that we didn't have to talk too much on the radio. I think it was good that we spent the time at service during this event to just listen and get a better understanding of how ham radio works during a rally instead of being placed in a vital position from the start.

The service area was atypically compared to other rallies that I've attended. All of the service spots were on one side of a closed road. Because of this, it was hard to communicate information like you normally would if it were shaped like a square. I drove my car up and down the road to communicate messages to the teams as needed.

Brian McNamara was working timing control for service, another familiar face from when I was on the east coast. You could hear his signature enthusiasm when only a few cars started lining up for the start of the rally, yelling into the desert, wondering why so few are excited to get out and onto the stages. So, we hopped in the car to start corralling the teams over to time control. There were 32 entries, and 11 of which being novices according the the service park rumor mill.

After most cars already left, one car came back. It was BMW E36 with a sheared caliper bolt. Since there is not much to do in the service park while the cars are gone, having a car come back is kind of exciting. Asking "What's wrong?" and "How can we help?" are natural responses. The team didn't have all the tools to fix their problem, so darting up and down the service park to find tools was our mission. They obtained everything they needed to get back and running and left for the stages. They may have DNFed, but at least they still could go out and enjoy the rally!

We had lunch before cars started coming into service so we were available once they arrived. We were informed that a car rolled and their crew needs to be ready to recover the vehicle when the stage is clear, so found the crew and relayed that message. Another team had a co-driver with a medical emergency, but the car completed the stage without any offs.

After the cars in service were rolling in, we got to see the recovered car after the roll over on stage. It was a beautiful Civic hatch that took a little tumble and got damaged on the rear quarter panel. While we were hanging out there, we also heard from the crew of the team with the medical emergency. They basically said, the car and the driver are fine, and he would like to continue the rally if only he had another co-driver to fill in. Luckily for him, I brought my equipment with me, and I ask them to sign me up! Kevin was okay with it, he looked over my equipment and gave me a green light!

Time to co-drive!

To be completely honest, I was a little nervous. Mainly because I haven't co-drove in 7 years. I got in the car and we were off the next stage while it was still hot. During transit, I got acquainted with my driver, Ralph Kosmides. It turned out that I was sitting in the car with a 90's, early 00's, rally veteran. He was clearly experienced and comfortable with what he was doing, which was relieving for me. I quickly got to business though and figured out his preferences with pace notes and reviewed the notes his former co-driver left. I also warned him that I haven't done this in a while, so he wouldn't have high expectations of me.

Taking the transit up to the stage gave me a hint of what I would be in for. There were massive ruts going up to Jawbone Canyon. It made sense now why there were a lot of keep lefts/rights written into the notes. Once we started, it all clicked. I was like I never took any time off. Our communication was great and the stage was exciting. All of the ruts really kept me on my toes, it seemed like preserving the car and watching out for them were just as important as calling turns. Halfway into the stage, we start descending into the canyon. It started getting less rutty and dry. There was more vegetation and shade, and it started getting a little more technical.

We made it through okay, and Ralph asked me to air down the tires a bit after we finished that stage. That was a good move because the next stage was the same stage, just ran in reverse. The suspension felt a little less rough and the car had more traction around turns. We ran it 30 seconds faster in reverse.

What I forgot to mention, is that Ralph's car is very similar to my former Subaru. We both had naturally aspirated 2.5L GC Subaru Imprezas. The main difference was that Ralph's car had a massive driveline upgrade. It had a dogbox gearset and limited slip differentials all around. My car had a stock driveline. The difference was pretty significant. His car powered through turns, while mine was a lot less consistent and predictable. I started to regret not upgrading my car's driveline back when I still had it, but I know in reality, it was not in the budget back then.

After that second stage, Ralph was hearing an unusual noise from the car. He tried to turn left and right, speed up and slow down, but we weren't certain what it was. Apparently, they were having issues with the rear differential the night before. Luckily, we were heading back to service again after those two stages. The crew looked over the car and determined that the noise was coming from the rear differential. At this point, the team called it, and decided to retire from the rally.

This was a new one for me. Really? We're not going to pull the differential cover off and check? We're not going to try to ask everyone in the service park if they can pull off their differential and sell it to us? What if we just send it as-is and see what happens?

That's my default state of mind when it comes to these things during a rally. "I've made it all this way, and what ever happens at this point, happens." I asked them what led them to this decision, and the answer was, a mature one, you could say. Ralph was really experienced, and so was his crew. So, I was eager to hear their wisdom. Essentially, they said, it wasn't worth making matters worse.

At first, I didn't quite understand. I thought, "How much worse can it get if you can't finish the rally?" It's almost like admitting defeat and not even trying to persevere. I let it settle though and tried to look back at my past rallies.

There were two events that I can recall where I was driving, where I probably should have called it. One of them cost me a lot of time, and it was my last rally as a driver. It was Sandblast 2018, my engine would cut fuel randomly during shakedown. We couldn't figure it out and it only happened at high load. We ended up starting the rally anyway, and we ended up soft rolling the car by the end of it. If I would have just called the rally before it started, I would have only had to replace the engine. Instead, I had to replace the engine and do extensive body work after the roll. It wasn't worth it and it wasn't fun. I should have cut my losses instead of digging myself into a hole. I didn't understand that back then. I was young and inexperienced, but I had the motivation to press forward.

At this event, I started to see a more down-to-earth perspective on rally. Of course I knew that we aren't getting paid to do this, and we're not going to turn out to be professionals doing this. What I wasn't thinking about was all of the stuff that happens before and after a rally. I think that's what really makes or breaks people. How much effort does it take to prep for a rally, and what's the damage to your wallet or time schedule afterwards? Minimizing all of that extra effort before and after an event is the key to having fun and coming back over and over again.

As cool as it is to see WRC service crews take a mostly wrecked car and get it back on the road after 30 minutes, no one wants to be in that situation. Maybe once, to tell a cool story, or to unlock a personal achievement, but doing that all the time is exhausting. That will cause people to leave the sport and do something else. That's probably why I took my hiatus.

A really late finish

We came into service around 5pm. We heard good news that everything with the original co-driver was fine, and I was personally thanked for jumping in. The event was running about an hour late at this point, and service was planned to be an hour long. There were 5 more stages left to go though! After Ralph and his crew packed up and left, there wasn't much left to do besides listen to the ham radio. At one point, there was a team that had a light off, and the driver and co-driver had to wait until the end of the rally until their crew came to pick them up. That must have been miserable.

Eventually, the organizers came to the conclusion that the last stage should be canceled. This was a good decision because the event was already running late, it was dark out, it was cold, and some of the volunteers out on the stages probably wanted to go home by now. The first car to finish the rally came in at 9:55pm, and the awards ceremony started around 11:15pm. We hung out for a bit, and left at around midnight. We had a good time volunteering for the first time, and I felt super lucky to jump into the car with Ralph. I'll be back for sure!

Here's a low-quality video of my experience at the rally. I put together a bunch of clips I was sending to my family and friends and turned it into a Youtube video.