Hey guys. Just signed up for the 2009 Rally. Was wondering if you guys had any input on what you really ought to bring out to the rally. Like do most of you guys have laser jammers, jacks, police scanners, radios, tools, etc...Just wanted some input on what sort of trouble you guys ran into. Maybe having $2k on hand to bail people or brake pads...hell I dont know. just throw some ideas out there! This might be of some help to those preparing themselves for this.

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2001 Honda Prelude
Built. Boosted. Juiced.

Fresh tires, fresh brake rotors, fresh brake pads, fresh turbo, fresh bail money, fresh oil, fresh coolant, fresh spare tires, fresh electrical system, fresh battery, fresh alternator, fresh headgasket, fresh transmission, fresh engine build (though not always helpful!), fresh radiators (and ducting), fresh clutch, hmmm, I think I covered most of the ones I can remember.

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-Mike
Suede Headliners United Member

www.blowneuros.com

What mike said!

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Anand
'08 Golf 20v
AKA 2004(Bone stock A6 4.2)/2008(Roadside Assistance)
Induktion Motorsports

airfreshners

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-P.T.
Suede Headliners United Member

www.blowneuros.com

whats your take on laser jammers and police scanners?

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2001 Honda Prelude
Built. Boosted. Juiced.

Laser Jammers are good, police scanners unless you have frequencies prelisted and someone manning 24/7 it's useless.

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-Mike
Suede Headliners United Member

www.blowneuros.com

so you really come out here with new clutches and alternators to be safe?

on another note. i havent really gotten the low down on what all takes place. like do we race each leg and place for some total points? and then race around a track or some other event? is there a real winner here or does it really come down to who can finish the last leg first? or is this just open free for all if you finish you win because you made it? can anybody shed some light on exactly what this is!

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2001 Honda Prelude
Built. Boosted. Juiced.

"It's not a race, it's a rally."

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-Mike
Suede Headliners United Member

www.blowneuros.com

can you elaborate?

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2001 Honda Prelude
Built. Boosted. Juiced.

the winner of each leg gets the best spot at the parking lot

i highly recommend a good CB & 2-way radio...

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Swim RJ swim!

Or just save your self the trouble.

Corvette

so in the end there is only pride?! awesome.

haha how did you do it all alone on that bike man? did you have a radio on your helmet?

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2001 Honda Prelude
Built. Boosted. Juiced.

theres a lot of bragging and bashing but all in good fun

the ride wasn't all too bad on the bike. I have a Chatterbox radio in my helmet that worked great until the day of rain and it died. It's water "resistant." It's great because it's bluetooth so I get GPS, music, cell phone & 2-way radios with all of the other cars. No one could hear me talking at over 50mph but they eventually figured out what I was talking about. sometimes...

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Swim RJ swim!

what kind of racing did you guys get into?

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2001 Honda Prelude
Built. Boosted. Juiced.

There was/will never be racing on public roads. That would be illegal this isn't like the movie 'Cannonball Run' or '32hours7minutes'

As for setting up your car. Freshly maintiained vehicle, with top level Radar detector(sponsor RadarsForRent.com, provided some for this years rally), CB Radio, 2way GRS Radio, and optional would be police scanners and laser jammer (this past year jammers provided by Laser Star).

Note: Never was on any rallies just my observation.

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The Volvo

haha

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2001 Honda Prelude
Built. Boosted. Juiced.

Again, Mike is dead on with this... Simply going out and buying the top of the line $600 Digital Trunk Tracking scanner really won't get you too far unless you A) know what you are doing with it; B) have spent quite a bit of time programming it; and most importantly C) have someone to listen to it and know what they are listening for.

Regarding scanners in general, they are a great tool to have, in fact, we ran three separate ones in the car this year (each scanning a different freq. band or service), and they certainly worked for basic knowledge (cop pulled someone over @ this mile marker, Becky's husband is trying to beat her up and they are in a domestic standoff in the trailer park, Quickie Mart is out of Donuts, etc), but to maximize their efficiency they take a lot of time before hand (sorting through each state/county's frequencies, many of which run trunked systems now, many which are multi-site, and then figuring out which talk groups you think are valuable, alpha tagging, and depending on the scanner, GPS coordinate tagging as well). What makes this much tougher is, while you know where you start the rally and where you end, your daily routes are given to you that day, so, unless you are quite proficient with your scanner and computer based software, daily re-programming is a bit of a chore.

Antenna(s) choice is also key for a scanner, as a 61" VHF-Low band whip will not give you good (or even decent) UHF reception, and like wise a 7" UHF stubby won't even begin to pick up VHF-High from any distance, let alone low band stuff. Any "one" antenna won't be perfect (however, it will certainly work!) for an entire cross-country adventure as every state's system is different, however, many are switching to state-wide UHF (700/800Mhz) trunked systems.

The more you listen to a scanner on a daily basis, the more you will learn that the information they provide doesn't really fall into the "prevention" category, more so after the fact information.

As Justin pointed out, a good CB is always important, this was more useful than the scanners (even though we had a bit of a scanner issue through a few states) overall, and generally speaking, as long as you are respectful to the truckers, they will give you info/help you out. As a couple teams noticed on this years rally, tuning the CB antenna is crucial as well.

The way I see it there are two schools of thought with the rally: 1) Go out there have a great time and what happens happens... 2) Know whats going on, invest a lot of time and effort, and still have a great time. There were cars that came out fully equipped with electronics, and cars that came out with just a radar detector; and tons in between. In the end, you'll always have fun!

And the rally absolutely is not a race, at any point. Be it at a road course event, or on I-80, its just a bunch of people on vacation.... But Leecy is the one with the map, everyone else was just keeping up!

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Anand
'08 Golf 20v
AKA 2004(Bone stock A6 4.2)/2008(Roadside Assistance)
Induktion Motorsports

Completely agree with you on the scanners (and CB too). We had two Radioshack PRO96 digital trunking scanners. I kept up with programming them every morning, pulling everything from radioreference and such. You'd hear some interesting stuff here and there, but most of it is pretty stupid and unrelated. CB's on the other hand -- I'm thinking I could do the whole rally with just the CB. The truckers were the best tool we had out there - they ALWAYS knew what was going on up ahead of you, and would give excellent "bear reports" just off memory for the next 20 miles ahead of you. Even more than that, just talking to them got you a lot of respect, and they were happy to help you out. I specifically remember a group of us trying to catch up to Leecee on some back road in Indiana, just plain STUCK behind a dump truck taking up the whole narrow road. Got on the CB, asked nicely if we could pass, and he apologized and drove off onto the shoulder to let us through. The CB really is priceless for the trip - and if nothing else, listening to the truckers talk is sure to be entertaining....

Dale I think you're just butthurt because your corvette brethren are seeing the light and switching to german...

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Dan

Forgot 1 thing........


Fresh suede on yo' headliner

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---Suede Headliner United Member---

No, actually the reason I say that, is other than a check engine light on, due to crap gas in the midwest that was reset by onstar, I didn't have a single problem with the car. Same can be said for each an every rally I have ever been on. Then again, that would be true no matter what car I took on the rally.

ohhhh also needed is a sense of humor

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Anand
'08 Golf 20v
AKA 2004(Bone stock A6 4.2)/2008(Roadside Assistance)
Induktion Motorsports

This isnt a race, I can't stress that enough, if you wanna do some tite street racing, look elsewhere.

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-Mike
Suede Headliners United Member

www.blowneuros.com

Or when a bunch of trucks said you did something you didnt & everyone wants to get on the radio to "clear" our name, better yet just get on a diff. interstate!!!!!

Dan you talkin bout my switch hahahhaha

I think I'm gonna do the rally next year with a helicopter......

Dont forget the ability to work a 2 way!!!! Some people leave the button pressed in and that just defeats the purpose!

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2005 E46 M3 -- The Blue That STILL Looks Good On You

or.... <add super muffled sound here>talkintodatwowayfromlessthanhalfaninchawayand youunderstandnothing</muffled sound>

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Anand
'08 Golf 20v
AKA 2004(Bone stock A6 4.2)/2008(Roadside Assistance)
Induktion Motorsports

soooooo true......

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2005 E46 M3 -- The Blue That STILL Looks Good On You