Heli-flick Rally: 100 Acre Wood Rally Recap

----- This blog post was written by Jeff Hueser of Heli-Flick racing for Flatirons Tuning  -----

What a rally to talk about with so many names and amazing drivers showing up to ARA 100 Acre wood!

As fate would have it, I was in Missouri for quite some time before I showed up for the race. About 3 weeks before the race, as planned, I loaded everything up and went to my Dad's house north of KC to do some last minute things to the car (like change the driveshaft and, you know, repaint the whole car and put the new livery on it as well), not really knowing where my work would send me for the 2 weeks leading up to the race. My company ended up sending me to Rolla, MO of all places, just to sit the whole time and not fly a single day!  While I don't love sitting on my keester when working, that gave me time to work on the little things on the car like window breakers, build a glove box for notes, wash and cuddle it. After my 12 days of sitting in Rolla for work, I finally made it down to Salem and started unloading everything and getting ready. Gotta say when you see the Subaru Team show up to the same motel, that kinda motivates you! 

Next was the craziest Recce I've ever been on and what an adventure. Let's see - there were downed trees which took lots of people to come together and move or overcome (aka drive over). Also there was the stupid deep water crossings that blocked most as well as muddy deep ruts that added to the challenge; Dylan and I crossed the impassable river in the truck (yup that was nerve racking for sure).

Day one was amazing with the crazy amount of fans that came out to Potosi for the first stage and Parc expose. There were so many people there; it was awesome and amazing to watch the best rally guys rip the first stage while standing on your car waiting for your turn. With a completely different drive train replace for this race it was an uncertainty - what would or could happen without proper testing (which i don't have the privilege to)?  But the shakedown stage is where we get to find out what happens when we try and go faster...

Shakedown was very interesting as it was our first time in the car together and getting to go (or learn to go) fast on exactly 2 passes then go straight to racing haha. Shakedown went well, or as well as it could have, and we got to see some local CO peeps as well as Ken Block and his team testing, which is always awesome. So after the start it was time to start figuring out how to use these Cusco diffs to their potential and go fast like the Browns! Well we started off conservative and then got faster as we learned how the roads and the set up could let us go faster stage after stage. Sorry to the fans that I could not get a good Heli-flick on the hair pin corners as I found out that with full diffs it is hard to swing the car around - I will do better next time!  We started 32nd and on day one and by the end we were in line at 26th, which for us was good progress. The night stages would turn from decent stage times to worse as we got in the dust of the leading car and could not see anything at times; our friends the Rethy's #890 would have the unfortunate turn of events on a L2 that we almost missed and went into the ditch they missed - sorry guys!

Day 2 on the other hand was a better day for us and there was nothing wrong with the car. We started off not-so-fast but picked up speed each stage and started to get in a rhythm and aligned on notes. The stages were rough and technical and suited the car very well (aka not that many long straight sections); the ole girl only has 119HP she's not that fast!  At that point we started learning a few techniques and carrying more speed and momentum through the corners. We were just so happy to get to send it off the cattle jump twice! The second time was extra special because we had our loved ones there watching and cheering so loud so we had to go big! 

After that last stage we were done and heading back to Salem and what a rally - we had tons of fun and when we rolled up and parked at the awards area, we got out, gave our friends the Rethy's high fives and found out later that we got 2nd in class and 12th overall -  WOW!  That was crazy to hear; the field was packed with so many amazingly fast drivers and to find that out was pretty awesome!  Rally is such a crazy sport with all the ups and downs, the travel, hotels, parts, fuel, upgrades, entry fees, etc. It's funny that most of us do it with NO return at the end of a race, no matter how good you performed, but we love the sport and the chance to drive seems to carry us.  

So thank you all that make it happen and that have helped us all along the way. I wanna say thanks to all the guys at Salta (Steve Bis and the whole Salta family) Rally.build, Flatirons Tuning, Federal Tires, Hi-Ball Energy, Ryan Mckay for always helping work on the car and co-drive, Dylan Stevens for co-driving the last 3 races, Dave and Mike Brown for being at every event that I go to and they still give me tips every time, Aaron McConnell for getting me into this crazy sport that we all love so much.

- Jeff Hueser #474

(Photos courtesy of Noggs Photograhy and Matthew Thomas Jones Photography)