One of the most unusual and challenging forms of auto racing is coming to New Hampshire.
It is the New England Forest Rally.
Competitors will race down forest roads near Berlin and in Maine at speeds around 100 miles per hour.
Correspondent Chris Jensen has the details.
SOUND OF CAR CRASHING.
That’s what happens when things go really, really wrong in rally racing.
But more about that later.
For most of us forest roads are driven slowly. With caution.
But this Friday and Saturday some three dozen teams in the New England Forest Rally will be driving down forest roads as fast as they can.
Most automobile racing takes place at racetracks where the drivers can practice for lap after lap.
They pull into the pits for repairs.
No so with rally racing.
Drivers race down 10 to 15 mile competitive sections, called stages.
The team that covers all the stages in the shortest time wins.
This helter-skelter kind of racing involves a high-velocity blend of dirt, mud, daylight dark, dust and some very important guessing.
“We sometimes joke that we flirt with the laws of physics and when you flirt sometimes you get slapped.”
That’s Marc Goldfarb of Atkinson.
He’s what’s called the co-driver for Andrew Comrie-Picard of Toronto.
By a slim margin they’re leading the Rally America National Championship.
Goldfarb
“The complexity of the rally sport is huge. It is car preparation, strategy, logistics, the service crew is vital, the driver and car are going up against physics and nature.
For example, the teams have to have mechanics who must be able to travel throughout the area to meet the rally cars for any needed repairs.
Vehicles compete in different classes largely depending on horsepower and modifications.
Tim O’Neil is a former national rally champion.
He runs a rally school in Dalton and will be competing later this week.
“I would say they are probably going between 60 and 100 for most of the rally. And, then the hairpin turns, like any tight corner, junction or any type of sharp corner you are going to slow down to 30 or 40 miles per hour for those tight corners.”
Before the event rally officials give each team notes on what to expect during each stage.
Then, the teams are allowed to drive each stage once in a regular car so they can make more notes.
Inside the car during the race, it’s a team effort. ..a driver and a co-driver.
SOUND OF MARC GOLDFARB GIVING INSTRUCTIONS TO ANDREW COMRIE-PICARD.
That’s Goldfarb, the co-driver in a race earlier this year, giving instructions to Comrie-Picard.
His rally shorthand describes what’s ahead.
Marc Goldfarb:
“In a rally car the driver is dealing with the present, what he can see. The present corner. The co-driver is already provided with that information. So the co-driver deals with the upcoming corners, the things the drivers can’t need but must know. At 100 mph on dirt you need a lot of time to slow down. So, that is where the notes come in.”
It is a violent workplace with the car rocking from side to side if not sliding.
It is noisy, too, as as rocks and dirt flail at the undercarriage.
And says Goldfarb, despite the notes, driving can still get tricky.
“You may have gone out and done a reconnaissance, we call it a recce, on the course before hand but that may be a dry clear day that you’ve done that. The actual event is going to be at night, it is going to be in rain, in may be in fog, snow. So, you may come out of a corner and you had a long straight and now there is a big puddle in your braking zone. A rock may have been pooled out by a previous competitor. In New England you have other hazards. Deer and moose.”
And often just a few feet away there are trees or huge drops.
As the old saying goes it is not speed that kills, it is violent deceleration.
The drivers wear helmets. Racing harnesses hold them tightly in place.
They sit inside a roll cage they hope will keep them safe in case of a crash.
Given the circumstances rally racing has a good safety record.
But bad things can happen.
That racket at the beginning of this report comes from a crash during a rally in Colorado in 2005.
It starts as co-driver Christian Edstrom talks to Subaru factory driver Travis Pastrana
SOUND OF PASTRANA CRASH INCLUDING “ARE YOU ALIVE.”
Neither was injured.
However, in 2003 two highly respected and well-liked competitors were killed in Oregon when they hit a tree.
Pastrana, who won the forest rally last year and was the national champion in 2006 and 2007 will be here.
The rally starts Friday at the Sunday River Resort in Bethel, Maine.
On Saturday morning, the teams are going to show off their cars on at the Fraser Paper Mill in Berlin.
Then around 9, they begin a 15-mile stage starting near the paper mill.
Then, they turn around and race in the opposite direction before they head north on Route 16 past Errol and into Maine for the rest of the racing.
There is no charge for spectators.
For NHPR news this is Chris Jensen
SOUND OF GOLDFARB TALKING TO COMRIE-PICARD
