25/07/2026
Rally Colorado 2026 Recap!
Overall, we're very happy with finishing the race, but would've been way more stoked if we had kept our 25th out of 67 National & Regional entires instead of going off on the last stage!
The test of endurance started on Thursday when the reconnaissance (recce) car, my 2009 Honda Fit that I've had for over 12 years now, decided to split its torque mount and kill the A/C at the same exact moment (which had been recharged 2 days prior 🙃). While trying to find the torque mount in time to do recce in the Honda Fit on Friday, we realized our options were slim and that we couldn't get the part until after 3 PM that day. We pivoted to doing the recce in my 2015 Ford F-150, which proved to work really well except for calling crests!
We passed scrutineering, which was a huge deal for me as this used rally car was last scrutinized in 2013 and I had to do many updates, including moving the fuel lines. Now the car has the green light for racing to current ARA standards!
Saturday stages were the first rally stages I've done outside of a simulator, and there's a continual flip between 'Why am I doing this, one wrong turn and I could be out all my time invested...' and 'There is nothing that makes me feel more alive!' We felt great on these stages, and prior to mid-day service, I had had my fair share of hard hits that I suspected needed attention, but to my surprise, service picked up zero issues after investigating the car, and we sat around for the 45-minute service. After Saturday service, many stages were cancelled and we only went out for one more run of the first stage.
Sunday was the epitome of hurry up & wait. Before the day started, two of the stages (two passes of the same stage) were cancelled. We drove to multiple stages prior to first service but were multiple times diverted, sent to the next stage, and then ultimately sent back to service. We ended up only getting to do SS10 and SS12. On SS12, I took a yumpy left 3 at a bad angle and had a slow slide off that left the car unable to continue. Chris and I did all the procedures; marking our car as OK, setting up triangles, etc; to sit around and watch cars go by until Chris mentioned something about 'I wish a competitor could just tow us out' (or something like that, I forget). Of course! I hooked the tow rope to the front of my car and held out the other end, and competitor Eric Genack & Elizabeth Austin (559) very nicely tugged us out of the predicament we were in. Unfortunately, on the tug out, we bent the passenger control arm, so we completed the rest of the course at recce speeds.
It is a win in my book to finish and to have a car that we had zero complaints about (except for no A/C). We have to complete 3 more events on the novice restrictor which has us at about just half the power as the rest of the field. We plan to start and complete our next event at Ojibwe Forests Rally August 28/29!
Huge thank you to my service for helping out: Max Stein Sawyer Crosby Gonzalo San Miguel
