Thursday, August 30, 2012

Jet Fueled Patrol Seized in Dubai

Courtesy of the World Car Fans website comes a story of a Nissan Patrol (from the looks of this shot if the engine bay, an older model) in Dubai that was recently seized after going on a high speed chase with police there.

After the pursuit ended and the police got a look at the Patrol they discovered that it had been heavily modified to run on jet fuel (similar to diesel) and possessed a fuel tank and a special "on/off" switch for said fuel.

Reportedly the vehicle has a top speed of over 200 mph which would be quite a feat for a two ton plus vehicle shaped like a brick.  Evidently this is more common than one would think in Dubai as the arrested driver said there is a particular (underground?) garage that markets itself to the young, rich and certifiably insane in Dubai.

Jet fuel powered Patrol seized in Dubai...

Edit to add: as posted on Jalopnik and elsewhere I now believe this story to be a case of severe error in translation from the Arab news source.  The "jet fuel" in question is likely just a NOS system which would also account for the "tank" in the vehicle and "on/off" switch in the story.  Ahh...it made for such a fun little anecdote for a short time....

Return of the Nissan Pulsar GTI-R??

Not exactly but maybe something close...maybe.

See the new 2013 Nissan Sentra is due to bow in the near future and will be a complete redesign from the current version.  Known as the Sylphy in most of the rest of the world and as the Pulsar in Australia, North America's Sentra will be a common platform across the globe beginning production at Nissan's Smyrna plant later this year.

What is particularly interesting here is that it was released today in Australia that not only is there going to be a hatchback version of the new Sentra/Pulsar/Sylphy but there is also going to be a high performance version with an upgraded engine.  A manual gearbox will be available in addition to the now nearly standard Nissan CVT in the sedan version of the Sentra/Pulsar/Sylphy and hopefully this transmission choice will make it over to the high performance hatchback.

While the standard version of the Sentra/Pulsar/Sylphy looks to get a 1.8L engine, wouldn't it be cool if they dropped the Juke's 1.6L MR16DDT engine into the hot-hatch?  It would seem like a smart match.

Hot Hatch Sentra Coming!!!


Update: and now released is that the engine for the Sentra/Pulsar/Sylphy hatch WILL be a 1.6L turbo!  Sounds like my guess for the Juke's engine may have been spot on.  Nissan goes on to say that pure speed will not be the goal here but instead is focused on driving dynamics (a good sign for those wanting a manual transmission?).  Unfortunately this news comes with a downside in that the idea of a new 200SX has been eliminated.  Read more here: Hot Hatch Sentra to get turbo 1.6L.....


Photo above is Nissan Pulsar GTI-R from its WRC days and below is the sedan version of the 2013 Sentra that has yet to be introduced on U.S. soil.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Ascutney Hillclimb: Sidecar Style...

A lot of people would think that speeding through the woods or up a single lane road at breakneck speed with no little thought for personal safety or vehicle well being not to be the best of ideas.  I might agree.


But I don't think that even I would hazard to attempt what this guy in the sidecar is doing.  Not only along for whatever ride the driver happens to come up with, but they are also a very active part of keeping the vehicle on the ground and cornering well with no protection whatsoever.  The closest thing I can think of this this sporting endeavor is that of your old school barnstorming wingwalker.

This was from the Ascutney Hillclimb here in New Hampshire this past weekend.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Nissan Navara RX--Why Don't We Get Trucks Like This?

More or less a "stripper" version of the Frontier the Navara NX is being offered in New Zealand as a perfect vehicle for your local carpenter, plumber or tradesman of any type.  Offered with a number of dealer available customizations it comes without a bed initially so that you can configure it the way you like.  It is getting great reviews in the New Zealand press like this: Nissan Navara RX Review...

Price is steep for us US located buyers at in excess of $32K though given that the top end Navara/Frontier over there goes for $55K USD the price tag of this stripper model would more accurately translate to about $18K for us.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Nissan Rally Racer in Africa


Running what looks to be one of the only non-"modern" vehicle in the African Rally Championship, South Africa's Pieter Pilusa piloted (say that three times fast) his Nissan GX140 to a seventh place finish at the 2012 Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge.  This was out of only 15 entries so you can see that locally run offroad racing in Africa has a way to go...but at least its there!

Mr. Pilusa is especially proud of his results as he is one of the few black, African drivers competing on a regular basis and wants to encourage blacks across the continent to get into motorsports.  His GX140, from what I can tell is similar to, if not identical in most ways to what we know here as a Sentra.


Book Review: Stark Decency

Always interested in the unusual historical events of my surrounding land I picked this book up a bit ago out of interest in what was the only POW Camp in NH during WWII.

Squirrelled away in far northern NH was a converted CCC camp that became used for housing prisoners with the intention that they make up for the woodcutting citizens who had been called away to war, in an attempt to bring the nation's pulp production up to par.

This camp was unusual in its prisoner composition in that most of its tenants camp from a German division captured in North Africa that was made up primarily of former German prisoners.  Be they communists, petty thieves or other, these prisoners now in American hands were not your typical German soldiers.

Their interaction with the Stark, NH community as well as the American soldiers staffing this POW camp is well detailed here.  Much of the detail in the book is detailed from conversations with former staff members and German POWs as few records were kept regarding the camp beyond basic numbers and figures.

The book is most interesting for its anecdotes and asides and it captures a very small, unknown corner of the war and its impact on an unpopulated area in the U.S. 

Its a good book for those interested in both WWII history as well as New England history.  The camp has long since been demolished and only a sign in Stark, NH stands to let travellers know of what once used to stand there but at least this book will keep the reminder available for those wishing to know more.

New Nissan Frontier Ready To Go?

If it's not ready to go yet, it soon will be.
Nissan just announced that it will be investing approximately $119MM in a vehicle plant in South Africa with the intent being to have it produce versions of the Navara's (Frontier here in the US) replacement and capable of rolling some 100,000 of these units off the line annually by 2016.  Given that the Frontier's best year of sales here in the US only once reached that 100,000 mark this seems like an awfully high production figure for South Africa or even Africa as a whole.

Might Nissan be looking to EXPORT these SA made vehicles to the rest of the world?  I'm not knowledgeable enough about exchange rates to say that it makes fiscal sense but I know that Nissan and other Japanese manufacturers are moving their production facilities rapidly away from Japan where exchange rates have made producing virtually any vehicle for export a money losing proposition.

My only question regarding this article is that it refers to the Frontier/Navara's replacement as a 1-Ton truck.  The Frontier is usually referred to as a mid-size truck and certainly not a 1-Ton truck.  So could they be referring to the Titan's replacement instead and offering a full size truck in Africa and around the rest of the world?  I have my doubts as full-size trucks are not nearly in demand elsewhere as they are in North America.  I think here we are merely seeing different definitions of what a "one ton" truck is in South Africa and what it is referred to here.

Regardless, if they want the facility to be able to produce 100,000 of these trucks by 2016 and are announcing an official investment of this size, they must be closing in on a final model in the near future.

Nissan investing $1B Rand in South Africa truck plant for Frontier replacement...

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Gum is Like Lightbulbs...and Cars...

Random thought for the day.

Gum is like lightbulbs and cars (if you believe old wives tales).

Just like people always say that companies could make a lightbulb that would never burn out or a car that would never fall apart but that they don't want to because then you'd never have to buy them again, so it is with gum.

I'm sure that the makers of gum could make a version that never ran out of taste.  But then you'd never (or rarely) have to buy gum again.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Album Review: The Lumineers

by The Lumineers.  This self titled debut is a vast disappointment to me.

I bought it as I had heard a single track "Ho Hey" a number of times and REALLY, REALLY liked it.  The album's current price point of $4.99 made it very hard to not acquire as an impulse buy.

For the record I also like Mumford & Sons and the Avett Brothers so, pseudo folksy modern acoustic music is something I enjoy--just not here.

While "Ho Hey" is an awesome song, the rest of the album falls completely flat.  There is music that is sparse and there is music that is empty.  The rest of the album is nearly devoid of emotion--which is something I require of my music.  Which is why I can't stand bands like Phish and others (no connection between Phish and this band/music, just using an example here).

While I can recognize the talent required to play music like Phish or in this case The Lumineers, if it is not played with emotion then the music just doesn't speak to me.  In this case, "Ho Hey" is the only track that is sung with passion.  The rest are just exercises in putting pen to paper and mouth to microphone.  This stands in contrast to aforementioned bands like Mumford & Sons and the Avett Brothers who both put more passion behind a single song than The Lumineers put in an entire album.  If I had to do over again I'd download "Ho Hey" and forgo the rest of the work--even at the minuscule $4.99 price.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Album Review: Clockwork Angels

I have stayed away from doing any music reviews as opposed to the book and movie reviews I do as I feel even more so than with the aforementioned, I am stepping on thin ice with my music preferences.  I am very close minded when it comes to music.  I like what I like and not much else and listening to other music makes me want to puke.  This isn't to say my taste is limited, in fact in comparison to the average consumer its actually wide ranging...its just if I don't like something...I really have no time or energy for trying to decipher why others enjoy it and will continue to deride those tastes forevermore.  Just stating this so I'm clear on where I'm coming from...

Rush has always been a favorite band of mine.  I first heard their music in a small college dormitory in Grinnell, Iowa when I was there on a religious retreat some 20 odd years ago.  The song was Rivendell from the Fly by Night album.  I loved it but never knew the name of the band.  Flash forward some six years and I came across the song again when picking up the Fly by Night album as one of my first CDs in high school.  Soon I owned the double CD collection Chronicles containing their "greatest hits" and off I went to buy up as many of their CDs as possible.  I still don't have their entire collection but I do add to it from time to time and always buy their new albums.  Their work is some of which I return to over and over again, never growing tired of it.

Clockwork Angels is a worthy Rush album in nearly all aspects.  Their first true concept album since 2112 some 30 years ago (and even that had other songs on it besides the 2112 piece), Clockwork Angels can be viewed as a single work narratively as each song is interconnected via characters and events or it can be viewed as separate parts of a greater whole.  Certainly with a book based upon Neil Peart's lyrics coming out on September third, they'd like you to view it as a whole.

The journey from beginning to end of the album is very enjoyable--outside of the very immature and almost laughable track "Wish Them Well".  Otherwise there are sections here that as "heavy" and as anthemic as Rush has ever done.  Peart's drums are of course at the forefront of nearly every track as they deserve to be and Lee's bass isn't far behind.  Lifeson's "lead" guitar work as always is overshadowed by the other talents in the band but he is allowed to riff away without wandering off into endless noodling.  "Caravan", "Clockwork Angels", "Seven Cities of Gold" and "The Garden" are likely the best tracks on the album (#s 1, 3, 7 and 12) but really Clockwork Angels should be listened to in its entirety and many multiple of times....just skip track #11 as I do and you'll enjoy it greatly without missing anything from the narrative that strings the work together.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Why High Speed Mass Transit is a Dead Idea...

Traveling home on the Mass. Pike and then 495 North last night for what must be well over 100th time in my life I was struck by something.  My speedometer had been hovering between 90 and 100 mph for nearly 20 minutes and I was merely keeping up with the flow of traffic.  Sure I was passing people but no more so than the near dozen or so other cars convoying along with me.

Alone in the car my mind wanders, as it is wont to do and I think back to my first trips on the Mass Pike at 16 years old and then running back and forth between college and home, a hour and a half trip each way.  Those years ago I admittedly drove a much less reliable and speed capable vehicle (an '88 Escort GT and a '90 Corolla are not exactly highway cruising machines), but even still...approaching 100 mph was a feat left only to mile long downhill stretches every once in a blue moon.  Never could I have imagined that I would cruise comfortably at near 100 for miles and miles on end and certainly not safely and with my engine seemingly near idle.

This was a bit of a shock in that if I could manage to drive my vehicle safely on these roads and in this 10 year old Camry given the distractions of bodily functions, radio, blonde in the car next door, traffic, etc., etc. how hard can it actually be?

Google and others have already figured this out.

With reportedly over 300,000 miles under their autonomous belts, Google's artificial intelligence controlled cars have yet to have an accident--though a human driver piloting one of these cars in "manual" mode did get into an accident in 2011.  The state of Nevada has actually passed laws to issue special licence plates for these types of cars.  Currently in only a "testing" phase, the tests appear to be going exceedingly well and have been conducted in both highway and city driving.

So lets go back to the mid to early 70's shall we?

In 1974 President Nixon signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act which effectively placed a maximum speed limit of 55 mph on all highways in the country in an attempt to reduce fuel consumption.  Whether it succeeded or not is certainly up for debate though at best its effect was minimal.  As oil supplies came back up in the later 70's and the public began getting an appetite for smaller, lighter foreign cars the original reason for the continuation of the 55 mph limit disappeared yet the figure remained (though frequently not enforced).

Instead, the political reasoning behind maintaining the 55 mph limit became "safety". Again, the law's effect upon the public is in doubt.  Multiple studies on either side argue that the limit either made roads safer or less safe.  At best, like the impact on fuel usage, its benefits were minimal.

So we finally come to 1995 and the full repeal of the law which again let the states determine the limits themselves.  Since that time we've seen states raise their limits up to 80 mph in some cases (Texas and Utah for example) equating to a 46% increase from the old 55 mph designation.

Returning to the current time and our aforementioned Google autonomous driving vehicle.  Within this one creation we have the death of speed limits and high speed mass transit under one roof.

While everyone has been having fun with the cool factor of not actually needing to drive a vehicle in the future, few people have looked at some of the practical impacts.  For instance--Can we safely say that within our lifetime that autonomous cars will be regarded as being as safe or safer than human driven ones?  I would think that to be the likely case.  There will be some reluctance to have vehicles put on auto pilot while the passengers take a nap or read a book or whatever at first but as the data comes in, views will change and the need for a person to be ready to grab the wheel should the AI decide to drive into a lake will fade.

Then we have the growing "electrification" of our modern auto offerings.  Whether its the Leaf, the Volt, the Prius, a Tesla, a Fisker, etc., etc. we can all see the future of vehicle propulsion is very quickly going to be leaving the internal combustion engine behind.

What we will have within a generation is a nationwide fleet of uber smart and safe vehicles controlled by AIs that can get your drunk ass back and forth to the bar in the downtown of whatever city your cozy suburbs lie outside of (could have definitely used that in college).  This coming generation will continue the "appliance-ification" of our personal transport seeing the "car" as only a means to an end.  And how could they feel any different when all that will required of them is to jump in, sit down and enter an address into their vehicle (verbally in all likelyhood) and off they are whisked.  They will be able to get back to texting or working or eating or whatever else it is that preoccupies their time.  A car will have about as much attachment to the next generation as your office elevator.

Sad...but likely inevitable.

This get's me back to the title of this piece however. High speed mass transit is always touted for the future due to its ability to reduce energy costs, and as long as you don't live in China, its safety record.  Like flying airplanes the accident and death rates on mass transit are much lower than that of the automobile.  Add the fact that high speed rail, or even low speed rail is a much more energy efficient method of travel than the current automobile and you have the perfect liberal, green, foil to all us driving enthusiasts.

Turns out we were all wrong.  Now just don't let your tax dollars be taken for the myth of high speed mass transit.

The combination of autonomous vehicles and "alternative" fueled vehicles will, in the immediate future, completely eliminate the benefits mass transit has been touted with for the past three decades.  The personal transportation device will be nearly as fuel efficient as any train you can find while being as safe with the kicker being it will actually take you where you want to go when you want to go there.

As Americans we have an aversion to being told when and where and how to go where we want to.  Autonomous vehicles will eliminate that allergy, providing a sense of Independence and ownership that mass transit does not while eliminating all the concerns that led to limited speed limits.

Other countries and companies are getting on board with this idea.  For instance: http://www.automate.co.il/about.html and are frequently dubbed "dualmode" transportation in that they can be automated and manually driven.

Now highways and roads will need to be upgraded to accommodate the higher speeds but on given road surfaces there is no reason why the new age of transportation cannot see the autonomous vehicles cruising across the country at speeds in excess of 150 mph.  We all know we can make vehicles easily capable of such speeds but it has until now been deemed unsafe and economically wasteful to travel at such speeds as individuals.  Not anymore and any mass transit boondoggles built now will soon become billion dollar graffiti magnets.  Just another case of technology outstripping the imagination of politicians and the unthinking public.




Sunday, August 12, 2012

Bullrun Winning GT-R For Sale

Up for sale on Ebay is the two time winner of the Bullrun road rally. At only $68K currently on Ebay the car is a steal given the number of upgrades done to it, including a 22 gallon fuel cell giving the car a 600 mile range and the fact that it was only the third GT-R to arrive in the US.  The owner is also willing to take trades...so if you want a fully prepped and sorted car this could be it.  The caveat being that its not a "true" rally car--as there is no rally cage or the like--but throw in a cage and take it to Targa Newfoundland or the asphalt rally rumored to be added to the Rally America schedule in 2013 and have a ball...

2 Time Bullrun Winner 4 Sale...
Bullrun Winner Ebay Posting...

Saturday, August 11, 2012

My First Car: 1984 Cutlass Ciera

Some people get really cool cars for their first car.  Some people get really junky cars for their first car.  Some people get no car for their first car.  My first car was none of these.

My first car was the exceedingly adequate Cutlass Ciera.  A 1984 Cutlass Ciera in some sort of sky blue color.  I remember loving it prior to driving age as I thought it was cool that it had that little multi-flag emblem on each side of the front fenders.

I was given the car late in my high school days and took it with me to college shortly thereafter.  As I said above, it was...adequate.  It held a lot of cargo in its trunk, carried people around fairly well and my father had added a decidedly aftermarket Radio Shack tape deck that hung below the dash.  The Ciera was slow.  God was it slow.  I didn't realize just how gutless it was until today when I looked it up and saw that the '84 Ciera in its 2.5L 4 cyl. form only produced 92 hp.  Pretty weak for a 4-door sedan though likely adequate...at the time.  Can't blame my parents for purchasing such an adequate vehicle though.  It was Oldsmobile's perennial best seller, was a good value and deemed a "safe" car.

The Ciera rusted away pretty quick with its trunk and fenders being perforated with numerous rust holes by the time I got my hands on it in 1991-92.  Flying the car over some train tracks and lawndarting it into the asphalt didn't help the electronics early on, nor did its numerous offroad excursions to random unlit fields.  In college it got left in snowbanks and squeezed in between trees in order to park in an area neither the campus police or town police would touch you (within the privately owned right of way zone on either side of the local train tracks).  By the end of my freshman year of college the "Blue Bomber" had exhausted itself and proceeded to snap a CV, tie rods, and a whole host of front suspension/driveline parts when rounding a slow left hand turn on my way to pack the car for my return trip home.  I left the old girl in the middle of the road and walked the half mile back to my dorm where my parents would meet me and I would relate the Bomber's fate.

By the time we finished packing my parents minivan and went looking for the old girl, the police had nicely had her towed to a wrecking yard I knew well (as the Bomber had been towed there a couple times for illegal parking that Freshman year).  My father walked in, heard what the bill would be to repair her and off we went, never to see the Blue Bomber again.  She was a good...adequate car for the time I had her.  My kids won't ever be wishing I kept her for them to have but I'll always remember her adequacy...

Almond Snickers

If I could have caramel and chocolate covered almonds sent to me everyday I would be very fat.  Almond Snickers are the next best thing though...just sayin...

Monday, August 6, 2012

Found on the Streets of Kingston, NH

A very nice 280ZX.  Maroon in color and nary a spot of rust on her.  Interior looks 100% stock.  A beautiful example of a under appreciated car that frequently gets low marks compared to the original Z cars.  It still turns heads after nearly 40 years.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Book Review: Aliens Among Us

This collection of short stories centers around the theme of aliens already being present on Earth and integrated in our culture in various ways.  A number of the stories are good, a number not so.

Authors in this collection include Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, Michael Shea and Avrim Davidson amongst others.  It is the stories of those four authors that make up the strength of the collection--particularly "The Other Celia" by Sturgeon which ends in a very unresolved manner and surrounds the discovery of an alien that swaps its own body like a change of clothes, "The Autopsy" by Shea which could serve as the basis for any number of very dark"alien-esqe" movies based here on earth (a film developed from this short story could be terrific), and Dick's "Expendable" which ends in a very Dick-like manner with a wry twist at the end.

All in all, a solid, if not spectacular collection.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Rally West Virginia 2012 Video: SS5 Complete

This is full video of our run of the longest night stage in North America.  Not the best of runs.  You can tell I get tired and my performance goes downhill quick.  A nice clean run through the first 12 or so miles, about 1/2 the stage distance...but then three major mistakes in the last half.  The first two I escaped with my vehicle fully intact...the third...not so much....Thanks to the Mazda Protege (yes, a Protege) for helping to extract me and thanks to bodyarmoroutlet.com for their continued support!!

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Rally West Virginia 2012


So I had held off on this report until now, hoping that some more and better pictures would come out of the event.

No such luck.  I'm not sure if there were any professional photogs covering the event--but there should have been.

Rally West Virginia 2012 was a fantastic event in an amazing area of the country on some great roads.  In my short rally career I have not raced in a smoother running event.  Only one stage was cancelled and this was because the "0" car used to check and open the stages, broke down unexpectedly on stage, blocking the road and causing a delay.  Fortunately this was on one of the shortest stages of the event and otherwise everything ran like clockwork with well over 100 miles of racing.

This was also the first event for me where I experienced some true difficulty.

On day one of the event there was a 24 mile night stage.  This is the longest night stage in North America and I had never raced over about 12 miles at a single time previously.  As could be expected I was fine through the first half of this stage but began making errors in the second half.  I was able to quickly recover from the first two errors (too fast into one corner, stopping the truck just prior to going off and one completely blown corner where we went careening off into a field) but could not recover from the third.

Coming downhill in muddy conditions into a right hand turn we saw the triangles out indicating a broken/crashed vehicle ahead.  Seeing the driver out with the OK sign I felt little reason to slow.  Unfortunately I was going too fast for the conditions and the corner and by the time I realized it and applied the brakes there was little to do but hold on and wait for the inevitable.

Off the road we went by about six feet and the front of the truck dropped down an embankment impacting a large rock on the front driver's side wheel.  With only 2WD at my disposal and the rear tires planted on mud we were immediately stuck.  David Dennis my co-driver quickly got out, prepared the tow strap and hoped for help.  A number of cars passed by and I don't blame them...pulling a 4000 pound truck out of a ditch is not a task taken lightly.

Finally the #73 Mazda Protege of all cars stops and after a number of progressively harder tugs, is able to assist in our extraction.  Finishing the rest of the stage we finished three minutes over the "bogey" time and when we went to check in at the end of the evening we declared out time to be appropriate for the "bogey" time and not our "race" time, thus showing that we had checked in early, resulting in a three minute penalty.  Losing at least nine minutes to being stuck and then another three minutes to the penalty crushed any hopes for a high finish in the standings for the weekend--but we were still running which we were very thankful for.

Day 2 started off in the rain and while it tamped down the dust it brought back the worries of slick conditions.  Running fairly well on the first stage of the day we were still concered about the "off" we had taken the night before that ended up bending an inner tie rod that was adjusted that morning straightening out the track of the vehicle though not the steering wheel.  With a clean first stage of day 2 complete we felt good--until we realized we had lost nearly all our breaking ability.

My foot would go to the floor with little to no response from the breaking system.  This could be a major problem on single track roads taken at over highway speeds.  Out of the truck Dennis goes at the beginning of the next stage and he discovers a banjo fitting on a rear caliper that had somehow backed off a tad and resulted in the dumping of nearly all brake fluid into the dirt.  Tightening up the fitting which showed no damage stopped the leak but with no brake fluid on board the ability to slow the truck was still compromised so we crossed the next stage at "transit" or lower speed.

By the end of that stage however, I had learned that if I pumped the brake sufficiently I could get enough feel in it to slow the truck down some coming into a corner.  While not ideal by any means, at least I had some control so we picked up the pace.  That is until we came across the #22 Mitsubishi Mighty Max of Michael Hall who had stuck himself in a ditch.  Rally karma demanded that we help him out so help we did, tugging him free to run the remainder of the stage.  We carried on after this extraction only to almost immediately encounter the #73 Protege that had helped pull us out of a ditch the night before--only this time, the Mazda was almost perpendicular to the road and completely broken.

Coming to a complete stop we could not get around the vehicle without seemingly driving into the river that followed the railroad bed we were traversing.  Fortunately one of the Mazda's crew came running up and was able to safely guide our large vehicle around the broken #73 without getting us stuck or going for a watery excursion.

On we went for the day and we would encounter some great sections of the event that would put us at nearly 80mph along forest shelf roads and screaming up Snowshoe Mountain as the event also included  running a "hillclimb" section twice.  The lack of HP in the truck was evident in this race, particularly in the hillclimb section but we would finish the event without furrther issue and were psyched to have perservered.

Final results show the Bodyarmoroutlet.com NISMO Stuff Racing Frontier in 17th place of 26 entries.  Not the greatest but not a DNF either.  This result moves the team back to 5th overall in the 2012 Atlantic Rally Cup standings with two events to go.  We will continue to press on and see what Black River and Charlevoix have to bring with hopes of a podium finish for the 2012 ARC season within reach.  We do have video of this event and will hopefully be posting it soon.  If any more photos come out of this event of our vehicle we will post those here as well.


Oh, yeah...and then there was this...one of the RallyMoto guys running into a deer on his last run up the mountain to finish the event.  Amazingly...both the deer and driver were just fine.  Rally Moto driver picked himself and his bike up and finished the race...2nd on time for this stage...amazing...

As always thanks go to bodyarmoroutlet.com, Dube's Customs, Nissan Motorsports, and my codriver David Dennis.  I couldn't do it without all of you!