RE: The Ranch
Bradney said:
>I want to know what "Rough" is. So often those of us out
>here in CRS country hear about these horribly rough stages
>at Cherokee or Maine or this stage and wonder how bad is it.
> Is it worse than Del-Sur? or Limestone Canyon, if so that
>is really rough.
Having cut my rally teeth on the Big Bend Bash, Chisum Trail, some gnarly Oklahoma divisionals and even the Tostito's Coronado in Arizona I too was left wondering what the complaints of roughness at Cherokee, Maine, Rim and even Prescott prior to 2001 (except for SS2 in 1999 - THAT was a rough one, but so busy and tight there was little chance to gain a ton of speed) were all about. For whatever it's worth, Friday night's stages at last year's Prescott were THE roughest I have ever run - period. The speed one got to hit the rough stuff at had a lot to do with making those four stages so memorable!
While I find STPR a challenging rally it is so for a wholly different reason than those events of my younger days. There's a certain art to running really rough stages fast enough to vye for the class lead without breaking the car straight away. Without trying to cheese anyone off, I noticed that the cars with the thinnest skidplates and/or piloted by the drivers with the freshest, youngest faces were the ones largley missing at the Yavapai Fairgrounds restart Saturday morning. Sad thing is, I fear rallies that benefit a robust over an outright fast car and/or reward an experienced, salty dog driver over a lightweight "hotshoe" are soon to be the province of ClubRally. Of course, if we're looking out for the international future of our young ralliests then maybe that's a good thing.
Halley ...
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