Despite the improvements we still managed to break the car about 4 miles into the first stage. Due more to a mistake made when the front right knuckle was replaced recently. The wrong sized bolt was used in the lower control arm causing the ball joint to separate from the knuckle. That in turn pulled the axle apart at the universal joint and we stopped on stage. Fortunately it was at a fairly slow speed in some uphill turns and we came to a stop quickly and safely but stranded in the middle of the stage and unable to move. We had to rapidly get the triangles out and wave down the succeeding rally cars so that they could pass us safely.


We had to wait until stage 3 was complete before our crew could get to us for retrieval. That was it for the first day. That night Mike Miller and Shu Fung, our crew for this event, made repairs and swapped out the broken axle.


We were allowed to race the remainder of the Sherwood Forest stages on Saturday morning and then proceeded to complete the Finger Lakes regional rally finishing 6th in class.