Ozark Mountain Daredevils The welcome mat is out
for Mason Moyle and Scott Putnam and all of the other rally competitors
for this weekend’s 100 Acre Wood
By David Gee
Photo by Lars Gange, subaru.com/rally
“Located in the heart of the Ozarks
in south central Missouri, the city of Salem and surrounding
Dent Country offer abundant natural resources, warm hospitality, and
a proud Ozark heritage. The Salem area is well known for its many outdoor
recreational activities, and is a favorite place to stay for visitors
to the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. Many of our visitors were so
attracted by the natural scenery, beautiful weather and small town living,
they decided to call Salem home.”
If you Google “Salem, Missouri” (I
know you actually wouldn’t, but let’s just pretend for a moment,
ok?) the first thing that would pop up in return is a folksy little
website containing that preceding paragraph.
Well, a little rowdier crowd is about
to call Salem home, at least for three or four days, and you can forget
about hunting and fishing and camping as some of the preferred activities
in these parts during this period of time.
No, these visitors for the 2010 “Rally
in the 100 Acre Wood” will be bringing 300-plus horsepower, turbocharged
Rally cars, and their recreation will involve mashing the gas and flying
over the gravel roads in the surrounding woods at speeds of over 100
miles per hour.
“Yeah. I was talking to some people
who have competed here and they say it’s like driving on a video game
– you’re going so fast,” says teenager Mason Moyle, a second-year
Rally America driver, jumping up to the Open Class for the second time.
“You get to go sideways a lot and it’s really fun. That’ll be
exciting and will mark my first time on gravel in a turbo.”
“I absolutely love it,” added veteran
co-driver Scott Putnam, who will be sitting alongside Moyle, pace notes
in hand, calling out the corners. “The roads are smooth, it’s very
fast and flowing, easy to get into a rhythm, and it’s just a nice
area to be in. Very pleasurable.”
Ken Block has certainly had his pleasure
with the event, as he has won it the last four years in a row! In a
Subaru, that is. This year, he will bring his Monster World Rally Team
Ford Fiesta to this scenic rally.
“Block loves this event and has dominated
it obviously,” Putnam said. “The reason for that is he’s got a
little looser driving style and he exploits that.”
What are some of the advantages of increasing
your horsepower by over 200, as did Mason Moyle with his jump in class,
and how can he exploit his Turbocharged Subaru Impreza?
“There’s room coming out of the turns
to play with,” explains Putnam. “If he makes a slight error or goes
into a corner too hot, he will have some room to recover at 100 Acre
Wood. You can use the power of the car to keep you on the road. Basically
you get a little more sideways and the wheels will keep you on the road,
whereas with the Open Light Class car you just kind of hung on and prayed.
You didn’t have the ability to alter your trajectory.”
“I’m excited to see how fast this
car can actually go,” said young Moyle, who notched a 9th place finish on one stage at Sno*Drift before a DNF ruined his rally.
“All the testing we’ve done with the Turbo has been on snow and
ice. Gravel will be fun to try. I think 100 Acre Wood will be a better
showcase of the car’s capabilities.”
Photo by Lars Gange, subaru.com/rally
And what of the capabilities of Scott
Putnam? Sure, he has been at this for years and has victories to his,
and his driver’s credit, but it’s been a little while since he has
been in a Rally car.
“Sure there’ll be a little rust to
shake off but I don’t think it’ll be all that great. It’s been
about three or four months. One time when I was running with Lauchlin
O’Sullivan I went nearly a year between races and then had to climb
into a professionally-prepared Open Class car and immediately go full
bore. That was a little stressful, but this shouldn’t be that big
of a deal. 100 Acre Wood is very smooth and the recce the day before
gets you into the flow of calling notes. It should be good.”
100 Acre Wood
Salem, Missouri
February 26-27 www.100aw.org
Set in the picturesque Ozark
Mountains about three hours outside of St. Louis, the roads around Salem
are twisty, dry and fast, making it an ideal spot for the rally drivers
to showcase their considerable car control skills.
Friday Stage Miles – 39
Saturday Stage Miles -66.8
Total Stage Miles – 105.8
Saturday will also feature a spectator
friendly Super Special Stage at Potosi Lions’ Park. Super Special
Stages is a great way to watch an entire competition stage from start
to finish from a single vantage point. Prior to the Super Special fans
will get a chance to meet drivers and take pictures of cars at the Potosi
Parc Expose.
Scott Putnam on:
Calling out the corners in an Open
Class car
It’s more of a sense of pace and timing.
You have to process information more quickly especially when you get
into tighter, twistier sections. You just have to be on your toes more.
Working with a younger, less experienced
driver
The biggest difference is there are probably
less repeated notes. When you’re going through the more challenging
sections and stages I simply won’t have time to repeat stuff. He’s
got to be able to assimilate information more quickly as well. And,
I have to get it out more quickly.
The weather
Coming from Minneapolis I would like
it to be sunny and 70! If it’s raining, like it has often in the past,
the roads will be fine though I’ve yet to be in a rally car that didn’t
leak. It’s kind of a personal thing. Two years ago when I was running
there was snow. No one was expecting that and we brought one set of
snow tires and had to run with them the entire weekend. Right now it
looks chilly but I don’t expect we’ll have snow.
What he tells his drivers if they
are going 11/10ths
I tell ‘em ‘you might want to back
off a bit. In the case of young drivers who haven’t yet had accidents
or off road excursions, they just might not have a lot of respect for
what it’s like to roll or hit a tree. Until that happens to a driver,
you tend to go down the stage with careless abandon where you just kind
of make this assumption that nothing bad is going to happen. Once you
have that accident, you come to the realization that this is a little
more serious and if you do screw it up, it gets expensive in a hurry,
not to mention dangerous. I tend to emphasize you have to keep the car
under control and all times, don’t just chuck it into a corner and
see what happens. If you’re not in control, slow down and preserve
the car – and your co-driver!. Speed will always come. That’s the
thing with a progressing driver; if you keep the car under control,
the speed will come.
Past events at 100 Acre Wood
Back in 2007 Lauchlin O’Sullivan and
I ran into quite severe fog and that is a little intense. We still went
through it and won the stage, but with the reduced visibility, the driver
and the co-driver have to act as a team even more than usual. When I
look up from the pace notes, I have just a split second to try to figure
out where we are. You just have to become more cohesive, and it requires
a lot better coordination between the driver and co-driver.
When in the fog, what he will have
his driver call out
I will have him announce “there was
your 3-right , that was your 2-left, you know just kind of give me some
feedback as to where we are in the notes. Because otherwise I’m looking
up and down and it is difficult to have a sense of where we are. Having
Mason call the apexes will help with that. You kind of develop a feel
for the distance and you’re able to tell him ,“Okay if you’ve
got a 3-right here, here’s your 4-right, it’s right about now!”
