SCCA Rally Trials in a Ford Focus!

I gave the Civic a well-deserved break this weekend after it’s 100K Milestone Road Trip Laguna Seca Adventure, and drove a Ford instead.

Photo by: Hong Jin Cho

For SCCA Rally Trials, a cage is required which my Civic does not have since my interior is still stock. As the event got closer and closer I began to think that I wouldn’t even be able to participate because I had no time to prepare my car for Rallycross only and no one had an extra driver opening in their car for Trials. But then this all changed when a very gracious gentleman by the name of David Moss gave me the opportunity to drive his car alongside him at the event.

Photo by: Jim Pickering

I had only met David once at a Rallycross earlier in the year where he managed to take first over me my a mere second or two. After this day I knew we had very similar driving styles and were equally fast in FWD cars. So when he offered me the chance to drive his caged Focus at the Rally Trials, I jumped on the opportunity.

We both had excellent drives but due to some mechanical issues had to finish the day with a couple DNF’s. Overall the event was an incredible amount of fun and we got the majority of our runs in despite 1) An injector wiring malfunction (duct tape fixed) 2) me somehow popping the serpentine belt off coming over the finish line (and David, Carl our shared Co-driver and myself triple teaming the stripped belt back on with screwdrivers and dirty sweat to get a more runs) and then an electrical problem which eventually ended our day (which ended up being a loose wire that kept grounding the electrical system and shutting down the car).

Even though it always sucks to break down, it was fun learning how to fix problems on the fly and to keep the race going. Repairs are equally as important as driving in a stage rally so it was good practice to learn a few things about quick maintenance without being stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Through the difficulties both David and I pulled some great drives and Carl was consistent and punctual as my very first co-driver. Check out the video below to see how similar we drove and how close our runs were all day:

After Rally Trials were over we had a little fun playing musical cars on the Rallycross course:

a HUGE THANK YOU to David Moss for trusting me with his race car and Carl Payne for Co-driving. Can’t wait for the next one!