Author: chuck goolsbee

Yesterday game me Lemons. Today I’m going Rallying!

Canadian team at the 24 Hours of Lemons

Yesterday I drove north from Bend to Grass Valley, Oregon to visit a couple of friends at the 24 Hours of Lemons race being held at the Grass Valley Motorsports Park. I found one (competitor), but not the other (organizer). It was fun to finally see a little Lemons racing in person. You can see my pics from the day here:

http://etc.goolsbee.org/jag/lemons

After that, I drove west, across the plains, gorges, and mountains to Portland, where today I’m going to do a little TSD Rallying at the 2011 Columbia Gorge Classic. It will be a long day, so expect a full update later in the week.

About to drop (deeply) into the nearly invisible Deschutes River Gorge between Grass Valley & Tygh Valley, Oregon, then up and over the Cascade mountains to Portland.

TSD Rally School for Kyle

I always find it best to do a good “warm up” rally prior to trying to tackle a big one. The NW Classic is coming up in July, and I usually always run the Cascade Classic Rally (The rally previously known as the Classic Motorcar Rally) but was unable to make it back up to Washington this year due to schedule conflicts. So I’ve signed up to run the Columbia Gorge Classic Rally. My father won’t be available to navigate for me, so I invited a friend who has often asked to do an event with me. Kyle Murray worked for me at digital.forest starting in 2003. He was our Network Manager for most of that time and I really enjoyed working with him. He followed me to Facebook about six months after I started, and now is my co-worker, sitting right next to me at PRN1. So Kyle is now going to be my Navigator for this upcoming Rally.

This will be Kyle’s very first TSD rally, so I figured it would be good to give him some schooling. The 2009 NW Classic was held not far from here, so I unearthed a few rally stage instructions and a “how to” on staying on course, and staying on time – and Kyle & I went out after work to attend Rally School.

Where we started, Lake Billy Chinook. The confluence of the Crooked, Deschutes, and Metolius Rivers. Rally Stage 4 of Day 2 of the 2009 Monte Shelton started here. It was fun to try to find the exact locale via Google Maps and my memory.

Kyle & I left work and met at a state park near Terrebonne, then hopped in his Mercedes-Benz E-class to find our way to the vague start point of the rally stage instructions I had from 2009. I explained the concepts of “ONTO/TOWARD”, “observe”, “protection”, etc to him, and then went over how to interpret course instructions and doing pre-start prep. Timing I had to sort of gloss over, with basic concepts of “car zero”, keeping a running rally clock, and noting time aberrations such as pauses. After that quick intro, we hit the road.

Confused Yet? Kyle Murray tries TSD navigation for the first time!

We ran the first segment, which thankfully had several things to teach good lessons. Me making a wrong turn for one! But we also saw a great example of observation and protection. That accomplished we tried adding some timing to the second segment and did pretty good. Kyle picked up creating a table of running time calcs down the right side of the sheet. Had we actually been on a real rally stage, I think we would have nailed this one within a 10 second range. Not bad for a rank beginner. We also had a great example of a “toward” instruction to show Kyle how that worked. Unfortunately the actual roads had changed since the 2009 event, with one being closed off, and another going from a “T” intersection to an overpass – so the final segment we tried sort of disintegrated at the end. No matter. With a set of real instructions and a clock we had a nice, safe simulation of actual conditions. I think we’ll have a great time this weekend. We’re entered in the Novice Class, which is a bit of a cheat as I’ve been doing this stuff for decades now, but Kyle is a total n00b. I’ll be sure to not coach him TOO much. 😉

We went back to the state park to part ways in our own cars, Kyle back to his wife in Prineville, and me back to Chez Goolsbee in Deschutes County. I think Kyle had a good time, and I’m glad I was able to do a little teaching before the actual competition – he’ll probably have a lot more fun this way once things get insane as he’ll understand a bit of what’s going on.

Kyle's car - a lot more comfy and calm than the 65E for Rally School 101.

Stay tuned for an update from Portland!

Returning from Obscurity – and getting Back On The Road!

I’ve been REAL busy over the past year, and this website has suffered for it… sorry dear reader!

Thankfully things are settling down to a reasonable routine at work. I still have a couple of large-scale projects to hammer out over the summer, but the datacenter we set out to build is largely operational now, and my life is getting back to normal. I hope to start blogging regularly again, which means more “Car Photos of the Day” and participation in vintage car events. The first of which is just next weekend, an MG Car Club rally in the Columbia Gorge, serving as a warmup for the big daddy: The Monte Shelton NW Classic Rally in July.

I was interviewed by “Bring a Trailer” this week as they plan on covering the event on their website as well. It was a fun interview and they snagged a few photos from this website to accompany it. You can read the interview here.

Stay tuned for more, coming soon!

Bringatrailer.com"/

Crash and Burn!

Not really me!

Last summer Nick was the Team Captain of a American Cancer Society Relay For Life team in Arlington. Bend also has an annual Relay For Life event and Nick has started building his team of Bend High School athletes to contribute and participate in the relay this July.

Today we ran the pre-event “Hope on the Slopes” up at Mt. Bachelor. He roped five fellow X-C and Nordic Ski Team members along, plus me. I wrote the names of the 3 closest-to-me Cancer Survivors/Victims on my bib: My mom, Carol Goolsbee (Breast Cancer Survivor), my Grandfather Charles C Goolsbee (died of Lung Cancer), and my great friend and long-time colleague Patrick J. Clark (died of Esophageal cancer in 2006.)

Prizes are awarded for most funds raised, most lifts skied, and (the whole reason I was there) most vertical feet skied. Anyone who has skied with me can vouch for the fact that I tend to ski fast. I love making long, loping hard-edged turns. I seriously trashed my knee playing hockey in my 20’s so I stay away from the crazy slopes of my youth, and now get my thrills from speed. I’m not an insane speed-freak, as I’m always in control, and don’t do high-speed fly-bys of slower skiers on the slopes. BUT, give me a fast groomer and open slopes and I can burn it up.

Today however – I just crashed and burned. Conditions were not good. In fact they were downright awful. High winds. Poor visibility. High winds. Temps in the low 20s. High winds. About 7″ of new snow and more coming down every minute. Did I mention it was REALLY windy?

My assignment for Nick’s team was to get as much vertical feet as possible. My plan was to just stick to the Pine Marten Express and bomb down the run “Thunderbird” which follows the fall line and lift line right down the middle of Mt. Bachelor. Up and Down as often as I could. After an hour of this I had accumulated 6000′ vertical feet of downhill skiing, which meant I was on track for ~36,000 vertical just on my own (assuming an hour break for lunch.)

I was going about 45 MPH* just under the lift about 2/3rds the way down the hill on my 6th run when something happened to me that hasn’t happened in the last several seasons of skiing… I fell.

My left ski caught an edge somewhere under the powder and shot out to the left. My ski came off instantly and I somersaulted violently down the hill. Hard. So hard I lost my poles. I also lost my helmet & goggles. I had all the wind knocked out of me, my coat filled with snow, and was dazed and confused for quite a while.

The folks on the lift above me would have called it a “yard sale” as equipment was strewn all over the slope.

My right ski stayed attached. After regaining my senses I rotated the right ski so it would be on the downhill side and got on my feet. Two skiers stopped and asked me if I was OK, and one of them kindly retrieved my ski and one pole which was quite a way up the hill. I grabbed my helmet, goggles, and other pole which was just a few steps above me. I thanked my good samaritans and put myself back together again and skied down to the lift. At the top something didn’t feel right. I was nauseated and uncomfortable, so took an easier run down, stopping often to rest. At the bottom I took off my skis and walked – and found out what was wrong. I’d pulled my right calf muscle so bad I could barely walk. Limping into the lodge, I decided my day was done. Sorry Nick!

I wish the conditions had been better, as I know I could have racked up 40,000—50,000 vertical feet with blue skies and groomers. =\

Maybe next year.

Despite my early exit, Nick and his team came in 2nd place in total vertical feet skied, and 1st in Most Lifts skied. Congrats Nick!

If you would like to contribute to Nick’s Relay For Life team, and help in supporting Cancer research, click here.

* I have a cool iPhone app which uses GPS and ski area data to track your skiing. This is how I know exactly how much I’d skied and how fast I was going when I crashed.

Car Photo of the Day: Just for Bill “WRD” Dickson.

Saw this car, thought of Bill

My good friend and longtime colleague Bill Dickson has a weakness for Scandinavian cars. Every time I see a vintage Northern European two-stroker, odd V-four, or similar – I think of Bill. This machine was spotted on a recent biz trip to the Seattle area, on I-5 near “the brewery”. Here you go Bill! This Saab’s for you.