Since 2005, I have made a point of making it up to Prescott for the rally. The organizers and sponsors have built a solid rally around some of the nicest roads in the region and competitors often refer to Prescott as the one event they don’t want to miss each year. Having not been out to a rally since Prescott 2007, Vanessa and I were eager to get up to Prescott on time Friday morning, to help our friends Kris and Christine Marciniak of rallynotes.com with things during the event.

Despite not being a competitor in the event, each year has been a rewarding experience as a volunteer in some respect.

Funny story: In 2001, I had watched a show on Speedvision (back before they became NASCRAP TV) featuring rally racing in North America. They closed this show by saying they would “See you next month, from Prescott, Arizona.” I was excited and took time off my new job to drive up to Prescott to see rally first hand. I drove all over Prescott, trying to find a rally car, evetually finding a nice lady in a bait shop up in the woods somewhere who called up another local to ask where this was for me. Turns out the rally would be on TV that day, as it had been run two weeks earlier. Damn it!

2005 – Four years had gone by since my failed rally expedition to Prescott and I had settled for the minimal WRC coverage provided, often well after 9pm on Sunday nights, by Speedvision. Going about my day-to-day, a friend of mine from 2GNT.com who had seen me sharing rally videos with the community contacted me to see if I might be able to help some of his friends at a rally in Arizona. His friends were Kris and Christine of rallynotes.com and this was their second ever stage rally, and first time at Prescott. I remember getting a bunch of az2gnt friends together to head up there and make sure Ze Neon was well cared for at service. We had a blast. AzDave made a nice video of things. From that weekend on, I was hooked. I began to look for a rally car project of my own. Something with AWD. Something Mitsubishi/DSM. My search for this AWD Mitsubishi product is what lead me to the Galant VR4 upon which this entire site is based, so I guess you could say that Kris and Christine are the reason this site even exists.  Pictures I took back in 2005, hosted on az2gnt.net.

2006 – This was a really memorable year at the event. Kris actually proposed to Christine at a turn around between stages at the rally. Their parents were on hand to see them in this new obsession of going fast on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. Convenient! I remember sharing how I was going to propose to Vanessa in the days before the rally and assuring her (despite not having a clue what Kris was up to), that when the time was right, Kris would break out the bling. A little while before they got to the location where Kris was going to pop the question, no doubt all anxious about how to be smooth with the delivery (I know I was when I was in his shoes), Christine casually mentions that I told her I was going to propose to Vanessa! The weekend was unforgettable. We also met Jake and Kevin of WTF Racing that weekend, as they were part of the newly named “Red Army” of rallynotes.com volunteers.

2007 – Vanessa was getting together with Bill Rogers of Motorsport Memories to do some photography out on the stages, so I was going to spend the weekend working service with our friend Dan while V was out shooting pictures with a photography veteran. Due to a late start (we were half an hour out before we got a call that a rally team needed a 4G63 headgasket, so we went back to get one I had in the garage), we ended up not making it in time for the team meeting, so Christine suggested we all just go do photography. (They had plenty of help this year.) So Dan and I got to stand around and watch the cars going by from all the best locations. It was great! Somewhere on First View, I met Scott Sykes who owns the rallyarizona.com domain, which would later become the home base for our developing rallyx community in Arizona.

2008 – A week before the rally, Christine tells me they’re kinda short on volunteers and, to make things worse, Eddie/Erik and Dick/Marie don’t have any service crew, so it was pretty much going to be just V and I handling all three teams! I’m all for it, but it would be better to have more help, so I posted up the need on azawd.org, az2gnt.net, and after four years or so of membership, my first post ever on the infamous VWvortex. The weekend was great. Cooler weather, some rain, and we met some new faces who are even interested in some rallyx action when Dave and I can get something going this fall.

Until 2009…

In the glovebox:

• Local Motors’ Rally Fighter in Phoenix
• Organizing Arizona Rallyistas!
• Update: Evolution of a Blog