Two Guys Rally

Mistakes Not To Make #3

Failing to sleep has a number of effects on the body that can cause you to lose it on your race day. For one thing it slows your reactions (eventually). However most importantly, at least in Rally, it makes focusing (not optically but mentally) that much harder. 

Rally is an endurance race for both the cars and drivers. Physical demands aside, staying mentally sharp all day requires sleep. The focus this sport requires can be witnessed in such a silly way as the number of times a driver blinks. WRC Drivers are known for their few and far between blinks (Mikko Hirvonen anyone?). They blink about ten times less often than normal (while driving of course). That requires so much focus (on the road). Not sleeping will make you lose that edge way sooner in the day.

So rest up for you, your co-driver’s (they need rest too), your car’s and your wallet’s sake. 

What Not To Eat Pre-Rally

Having encountered food poisoning this weekend, you cannot be too careful about the food you eat before a rally. Why let something you eat end your race weekend?

Things to watch out for:

• Uncooked Eggs - They are more prevalent than you think. Some examples include Caesar Salad and Hollandaise sauce. Uncooked eggs can get quite dangerous.
• Room Temperature Meat - Meat is delicious and bacteria also think it is delicious. Room temperature meats go bad much faster than refridgerated meat (unless they’re cured…beef jerky for example). 
• Unwashed Fruit - Certain pesticides can cause some major intenstinal drama. There is a simple solution to this one though: wash the fruit!
• Names You Cannot Pronounce - Exotic foods, especially ones you’ve never had, have a much better chance of not being prepared correctly and causing some pain to you. 

 By the time you’re of age to race you should know what sits well with you in general, so you may not want to stray far from the list of foods you know. But there are some good rules to follow: eat only hot foods and wash fruit yourself… maybe then you won’t end up sick on race day.

Why WRC Cars Use Thin Snow Tires

Watch this and look at how thin the tires/wheels are. Link for RSS.

In most cases the wider the tire the more traction is achievable. However in really snowy enviroments (ie Rally Sweden) thin tires can get more traction than wide ones. How? This works because the thin tire is putting a much higher pressure (PSI) onto the snow surface compared to the wide tire. This makes the snow compress and the tire/wheel sink down into the snow. Wouldn’t this just slow you down? Going straight…sure, but the problem in snow is stopping and turning, not going fast in a straight line. Snow builds up around the outside of the wheel and infront of it, so when the car needs to corner/stop it pushes against the snow. This increases the possible traction. This is the same concept as using ruts in motocross or with your car in mud. You can apply much greater cornering forces without losing traction.

There is yet another reason they use thin snow tires. The snowy rallies in the WRC are in areas that also develop a nice layer of ice under the snow. They use this ice to increase traction, mostly for straight line acceleration, and when I use acceleration that means in both directions (hint braking and throttle+). They use the ice by putting metal studs into the tire. The studs work just like cleats for grass sports. They dig into the ice (again because there is a ton of pressure applied to them thanks to the mass of the car) and allow force to be transmitted through them. But in order for the studs to get close to the ice the tire has to dig through the snow, and so that’s yet another reason thin snow tires are used in the WRC.

Helmets: Oh So Many Choices!

Helmets are so varied in design and cost, so how do we know what helmets are good and what are not? A lot goes into that assessment but I hope I can shed some light on the topic.

Why Wear a Helmet?
Helmets are easy to use items that can save your life in a crash (seatbelts are more important though!) so you might as well get one for spirited driving. It does not take much force (ie, acceleration) to damage your brain. We perceive the world through that wonderous organ, so damaging it will affect how we live in most every way. It could affect your life so much as to end it! So keeping your head safe is a good idea. Side note: I wear helmets in pretty much every sport I do…lacrosse, snowboarding, auto racing, cycling to name a few. I’ve worn helmets often enough that I feel naked without them when doing those activities.

How Should It Fit?
Helmets should be snug, especially at first as they will only get looser. The helmet should not rotate/move freely on your head. However, it should not squeeze you so tight that it will cause pain and eventually headaches (I’ve had that happen before I knew better!). 

For an autoracing helmet moving the helmet should move your head if you’re not resisting the movement. So if you leave it in a certain position on your head it should stay there. Other sports have other requirements for helmets, for example Lacrosse helmets are strapped to your head quite snugly as they are expected to be struck…often.

Ratings?
There are various certifications for helmets, the most famous of which are the ratings produced by Snell. Snell is a not for profit organization that tests all sorts of helmets. If you’re curious about how they test helmets YouTube does not fail in that regard! There can be various ratings so check your sanctioning body for acceptable ratings.

But why does it matter? For a few reasons: 1) you will never be allowed to race in any respectable sanctioning body without a certified helmet and 2) the certification guarantees a certain level of protection.

Weight?
Weight, believe it or not, affects the safety of the helmet. Weight added to your head means more momentum above your neck. That means a larger force applied to your neck in the event of a crash (this is also why the HANS device was invented). So a really massive helmet will injure you in a crash where no helmet would not.

Fatigue matters, especially in Rally! Extra weight that your neck has to carry will speed up how fast you fatigue. So the lightest helmet possible, with the same protection level, is preferred. However in order to keep it as safe at the same weight, special materials need to be used. Unfortunately for all of us this drives the cost up, but I think it is something worth spending money on.

Full Face vs Open Face
Rally is a motorsport which commonly uses open face helmets, while most of the other motorsports use full face helmets. If you’re curious to the difference visually, here is me wearing a full face helmet and mark wearing an open face helmet (facebook links do NOT require login).  There are pros and cons to each of them: 

Full face helmets provide a lot more protection to your face (teeth and nose) but come with the downside of trapping more heat and adding weight. While open face helmets provide less protection to the front of your head but cut down on weight and heat. But there is one unique thing in Rally that makes open face helmets dominant: Co-Drivers.

Rarely will a Rally co-driver wear a full face helmet. Why? Because they need to scream at the driver and a piece infront of the mouth muffles the critical sounds that much more. So it almost makes more sense for the driver to be wearing a full face (Sebastian Loeb) while the co-driver dons the open face.

Do you have a favorite helmet brand/style/color?

Things To Check After A Rallycross

Rallycross is tough on your car, and right after the racing you should check some things to make sure your car wont die on the way home. Here they are:

• Check Your Airfilter - Dust in an engine will kill it and fast. Check to make sure your air filter isnt clogged or compromised. If it is compromised, you should check the inside of your intake system and engine.
• Check Your Suspension - Something you should have done before the rallycross because now you have something to compare it to visually. Make sure your suspension arms aren’t bent and all the bolts all still there. Even with a suspension failure you might not notice it in the heat of racing. I once ripped a rear wheel off of a VW and we thought we only had a flat.
• Check Your Oil - Let your hot car sit for 10 minutes post race and check your oil. Make sure your oil is at a good level. If the oil is gone check your oil pan. You might have a puncture and leaking oil.
• Check Your Tire Pressure - Just like with your suspension, you might not notice low pressures or flats. Its easier to change your tire surrounded by rally crossers with all sorts of tools, rather than on the side of a highway.
• Listen to Your Car On The Way Back - New sounds in your car could indicate something gone awry. So listen, your car will tell you things if you listen to it.

What do you do after a rallycross? Making checklists and bringing them with you will help you if you get nervous at races (I do to begin with). They allow you to focus on something other than whats racing through your mind. So keep your car well kept, it will repay you by not breaking as often.

Training Tip: Approaching Raceday

Motor sports are a lot like most sports in that they require training to be good at. One part of race training is conditioning your body. Exercise like weightlifting, running, biking and swimming are great ways to get in shape for raceday. However, training like mad in the days preceeding a race can have its downside. One of which is DOMS: Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. 

Being sore is a good sign in the day or two after weightlifting or a new workout. It means you were tearing your muscle fibers (small tears, dont worry), and your body will respond by growing more (psst…you’re getting stronger). But those sore muscles wont react the same way your ‘fresh’ muscles would. 

In order to be well rested and relaxed for raceday (or weekend) you should start tapering your exercise down during the week before the race. The beginning of the week may start out just like normal, but you should be stepping the intensity of your workouts down daily. So by the day before the race your exercise is light. Light enough just to keep the blood flowing to your muscles nicely (this actually helps recover you). Not much tearing should be happening then.

Why taper for motor sports? You should taper so that when it comes down to the races your body will do what you want it to. Tired and sore triceps will make turning laborsome and this will fatigue you faster. Fatigue is what your workouts are, hopefully, aimed at combatting. Because it is one of the largest reasons for slower than normal performances and more notably crashes.

Much of race engineering is aimed at reducing the annoyances for the driver(s). One of the annoyances you can easily eliminate from raceday are sore muscles. So please, for your time’s sake, taper your workouts. If you aren’t exercising, also for your time’s sake, you should start.

Mistakes Not To Make #2

Mistakes in racing range from forgetting to secure a piece of paper in the cockpit which turns into an annoyance, to turning the wrong direction with the end result ending up in a tree. Consequences vary but some can be quite serious. One of which can end your race day is forgetting to properly inflate your tires. While this may seem like a no brainer to you, many people, who are not quite as vigilant as you, neglect their tires.

Tire pressure affects the only things that should be touching the ground on your car: the tires. Low pressure, while it may have increased traction it wears faster. High pressure might rob you of the traction you need and causes faster wear because there is a smaller contact patch. But there is a lot more that can go wrong:

• Debeading - Tire debeadings are a pretty bad event for your wheel. The tire’s bead becomes disconnected from the wheel and all the pressure is lost in one violent event. The tire then tends to get shredded up by the surface (especially at higher speeds) and comes off of the wheel. Steel/aluminum wheels don’t have so much traction on surfaces other than rails meant for them. Try to avoid this.
• Money Spent - As a privateer, spending money is on my mind when it comes to racing. Tires are expensive. But there are ways to make them last multiple events (especially in Rally), but improper inflation makes them wear way too fast for that.
• Crashes - While not separate from the money issue (cars cost even more than tires), expecting more traction than your over-inflated tires can offer will result in fighting the car. Fighting the car will fatigue you fast and increase your chances of making a silly mistake like understeering into a guardrail (or spectator! ONOES!)

So take some time to think about your tire pressures. If you know what you’re doing you might even run slightly lower or higher pressures than “ideal” side-to-side or front-to-back. If its a short enough race you might drop the pressure a tad to gain some traction but still last the race in tire wear. So dont forget to think about your tire pressures and the oh so important tire they’re related to. This even matters on your road car!

5 Tools That Any Respectable Car Nut Should Have

Every job has it’s own tool but not everyone can afford that many tools (I know I cannot). So there are a few basic tools that I think every car nut/amateur racer should have:

• Jack and Jack Stands - While hydraulic lifts are neat, the cheap method of working on your suspension or under your car is a set of jack stands (with the jack to lift the car). They’re safe and affordable ($15-40 a pair).
• Ratchet and Sockets - While wrenches are useful, a ratchet with socket ends is much more versatile. You’re much better off trying to tighten a bolt in a tight spot with a ratchet rather than a wrench. Plus the time and annoyance that can go into using a wrench is better left far away from your car…it is going to be stressful enough. Also make sure you have a few different length extensions for those hard to reach spots.
• Slotted Screwdriver - I like to use slightly longer than is necessary screw drivers. You might have to reach through a hole to get a random screw. Slotted screwdrivers are also great for metal fasteners as they usually don’t accept Phillips heads.
• Phillips Screwdriver - Similar to the slotted, a phillips head has an advantage: the wedge shaped interface prevents the driver from slipping out like you find when not careful with the slotted screws. Problem is there is less metal in the head to carry the stress, and they have a tendency to strip if you are not careful.
• Tire Iron/Torque Wrench - While they’re not the same you should have one or the other to secure your wheels. Tire Irons come with your car (along with jacks) so you can put the spare tire on, but a torque wrench to tighten lug nuts is preferred. The torque wrench allows you to precisely tighten lug nuts (remember star pattern!), and that is better for your car.

While there are all sorts of fancy tools, this list should get you going in the right direction. I am curious to hear if you have any key tools that I forgot to mention. So what tools do you use often?

Basic Things To Do Before a Rallycross

You can participate in Rallycrosses (aka RallyX) across the country if you’re a legal driver and you have a car to use. Practically every region of the United States has a competition for amateurs that includes cones and dirt/gravel. So if you want to try your hands at Rally or are thinking about getting involved check to see if there is a RallyX near by.

Either way there are a few things you should do before raceday regarding your car:

• Check Your Oil - checking your oil should be somewhat common, but if you plan on putting your car through the rigors of Rally you should definitely check the levels and the quality. If the oil is degraded/worn out change it. If there isn’t enough, add some more.
• Empty Your Car - get all the crap out of your car. This does a few things, first of all it makes your car safer and second it removes dead weight (yea sure receipts from Taco Bell aren’t that much). Things flying around in your car will only make the day less enjoyable and distract you.
• Check Your Air Filter - RallyX is dirty. Engines don’t like dirt, infact they break when dirt is introduced into them. Check your air filter and make sure to either clean/replace it. You don’t want any of the dust kicked up by other cars to get into your engine, that could cost you thousands to fix.
• Check Your Tire Pressure - your tires are going to take a beating when driving hard, so keeping them AT LEAST at the minimum pressure is required. I would suggest going a couple PSI above recommended (but below maximum) as this will keep the chances of you debeading your tire low. Debeading is when the tire comes off of the rim slightly and all the pressure is lost damaging your wheels and tires on most surfaces.
• Check Your Coolant Levels - Oil isn’t the only part that helps cool the engine, your radiator does quite a bit of work too. Make sure your coolant levels are up to where they should be, and make sure you have anti-freeze in there. Anti-freeze lowers the freezing point AND increases the boiling point of water. So even during the summer you should have it in there.
• Get Some Rest - While you might be excited the night before, try and get some sleep. Racing is mentally exhausting so you should come well rested.

So get out there and go Rally! I know Mark and I will be attending the Finger Lakes Region SCCA RallyX on September 9th. Hopefully we’ll see some of you out there. We’ll be taking pictures and video of the event.

What do you do before a Rallycross?

Mistakes Not To Make #1

There are some mistakes that anyone is bound to make at some point in a racing career. Those mistakes can either cost you time or, at the worst, a crash. Today’s is Forget to Look Ahead.

Looking ahead is not some cheesy term about how bright the future is, but a more practical EYEBALL oriented piece of advice. It means looking further along the track/road than you first would think you should. It means looking past corners as you enter them and onto whatever landmarks you can. There are a few bad things that occur when forgetting to looking ahead:

• Makes Everything Seem Faster - objects that are closer to you seem to be faster when compared to objects that are further away (Mountains vs Trees vs Telephone poles on a highway/train). Feeling fast will more likely scare you than speed you up. Scared people also like coming off the throttle and pressing on the brake even if they should not.
• Fatigues Your Eyes - Looking close to the car requires more eye movement, when compared to looking far ahead at equal speeds, in order to fixate. Keep in mind, you shouldn’t be fixating, I was just using that as a point.
• You Drive Where Your Eyes Are Looking - It is hard to fight that you will drive where your eyes are looking (hence why you keep your eyes on the road). So look where you want to go, forgetting this could make you end up in a place you don’t want to be.

So dont forget to look ahead, even on the road. Look where you want to go, not where you’re going or where you have been. I bet that could even work for a life metaphor. (Soon TwoGuysRally will be a lifecoaching website and not a rally site </sarcasm>)