Sandblast 2009 turned out to be one of our less successful rallies. It's our "home town" rally being only 2 1/2 hours south of Raleigh. Our crew this time is Matt and John from Tennessee and David Uriola, a fellow rally-crosser from Wilmington.

Registration and scrutineering go well as does the shakedown stage on Friday. I'm asked to give a long-time volunteer a ride in the rally car on that stage too.

The first stage on Saturday is Campbell Lake (14.27 miles) and all is well. Kieran and I are getting into the swing of things and looking forward to a full day of rallying. While waiting before the start of stage two we notice a small leak coming from a hose near the radiator and attempt a field fix with an old rag and zip ties. It's not leaking too bad so we add some water from our bottles and run the Hunter Pond stage (8.02 niles).

Returning to service we set our crew the task of repairing the split hose and this is achieved along with the other normal tasks. We pull into the time control to leave the service area on time. Unfortunately as I drive away (now officially out of service) I discover that I have no power steering, a quick look at the dash and we've lost the alternator too. It seems the accessory belt has jumped off and we assume that was from the hose repair work that was done.

We try in vain to get the belt remounted and finally accept help from our service crew (willing to accept the associated penalty if we can get back in the race). The belt is on but when I turn the engine it pops right off again! It turns out that the alternator bracket is cracked and the belt pulls the alternator out of alignment every time it's mounted. That's a custom alternator bracket (due to the Ford Racing intake manifold) and we do not have a spare. We reluctantly withdraw from the rally. That's only our second ever DNF but that's rally.

Next event is the new Mad March Stages in Florida.