Comment: A nice thorough article on the Olympus Rally..if one is not familiar with Tom’s Hardware, it is a computer enthusiast web page with a huge following.
“Subaru invited us out to attend the 2012 Olympus Rally, so we went and watched the race, took some pictures, and interviewed some of big names in rally racing, including Ken Block, concept director of the viral Gymkhana Five video on YouTube..”
A decade ago Lauchlin O’Sullivan was the best 2WD, production-based rally driver in America. That includes the 2002 Group 2 title in the SCCA Pro Rally series. Last weekend at the Rally America season ending Olympus Rally in Washington, O’Sullivan returned to the top spot on the Podium with enough points to claim the 2012 American Super Production title with co-driver Scott Putnam.
Actually the championship moment came halfway through Olympus when the closest competitors, second place rivals David Sterckx and co-driver Karen Jankowski rolled their car on SS3 and failed to finish Olympus. There was no champagne popping, no yelps of happiness and no hugs and grins. That was SS3. There was still a rally to run and winners don’t stop until they’ve won or can’t continue trying.
“It’s pretty wonderful,” O’Sullivan said after the rally. “It’s one of the things we planned on doing when we got here.” Rally competitors can be pretty focused during an event.
“This was the first event in a couple of years that there were no major mechanical issues or dramas, which was very nice,” said co-driver Putnam. “Everything was there. Brakes, turbos, headgaskets and suspension were all there and contributing to the effort. All we had to do was race.”
With early season wins at the 100 Acre Wood Rally in Missouri and the Susquehannock Trail Rally in Pennsylvania, O’Sullivan and Putnam only needed to start the Olympus Rally to gain at least a tie for the 2012 championship. But when Sterckx and Jankowski had their problem, nothing was in the way of the championship.
“It’s been a lot of work over the year,” Putnam said during the lengthy break Saturday afternoon. “It feels good. It’ll make me sleep a little better eventually!”
Dry conditions in the region south of Puget Sound near Olympia, Washington forced rally organizers to institute a crazy schedule for the weekend. There were four stages early morning Saturday followed by an eight hour break before another five stages Saturday night. There was one closing stage Sunday morning, actually a repeat of the 20.01 mile SS4 run Saturday morning. This was done to control access to the forest roads during a time of high fire danger midday.
The real blaze, though, actually came from O’Sullivan and Putnam who were fourth overall and first in the Super Production category Saturday during the lengthy break. However, solidifying the championship Saturday morning didn’t damper their resolve the Saturday night. During the night stages, the team grew their category lead over Byron Garth and co-driver Chrissie Beavis from 40 secs to 2:41.5.
“This was the only event in seven years in which I told Lauchlin to slow down,” Putnam said later. “There was a section on the SS6 Taylor Towne stage that was suffering from an extreme case of hanging dust where you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of the car. There we were barreling along and I had visions of finding something in the dust, kinda like we found the rock in Maine. Hence the ‘Slow Down.’ Did he? It didn’t seem like it.”
Championship drivers generally know only a championship speed.
“We still have a couple more things we wanted to do when we got here,” O’Sullivan said before Sunday’s final stage. “We needed to be clean and safe but we’re still learning the car. We weren’t taking much risk at all.”
SS4 and SS10, Nahwatzel 1 & 2, was a 20 miler that fit O’Sullivan’s tastes, evidently. He drove to third overall on the stage Saturday morning beating several of the more developed, faster Open category cars and drivers in the process.
“Things were ramping up the correct way,” O’Sullivan continued. “The car has so much more in it. In the beginning I was overdriving the car being too aggressive with it. With the Mitsubishi (the car they used during the season) you had to drive it that way. There’s a different driving style with the Subaru (the car they used at Olympus).”
Those who were cheering for O’Sullivan and Putnam all season were almost as frustrated as they were at the continued car problems that plagued them all year. They’d approach turns at great speed only to find there were no brakes. The turbo failed several times. There were overheating issues on several events. But the perseverance of the team and the hard work of its supporting crew during service breaks kept them in events to keep earning points toward the championship. Putnam hinted many of those problems will go away next year when the team tries to defend this title.
“What are we going to be running next year?? It’s White, not a Mitsubishi and it will lead an exciting life. That’s all for now.”
Does the tenth anniversary of his first national driver’s championship have any resonance for O’Sullivan after Olympus?
“We feel we’ve got it. Put us in a proper car and we feel we can go places,” he said with a driver’s smile. “We seem to overcome the tiny things like no brakes. It’s not an issue.” It must not be. O’Sullivan and Putnam battled through myriad problems all season to earn the Super Production title.
“We wouldn’t be here without Lucas Oil,” Putnam added. “Several times during the course of the season I would be randomly stopped by people while wearing my Lucas Oil Motorsports t-shirt. After being asked if I worked for Lucas Oil, I was usually told that ‘I have used Lucas Oil products for years and swear by it.’”
Winning a championship isn’t easy. Overcoming car problems, road problems, rally conditions and competitor challenges are all necessary to get a title. Winning one in the highly competitive Super Production category is even more difficult. You can’t buy your way into a title with more money and resources. To paraphrase the old television commercial, you have to earn a championship. And O’Sullivan and Putnam earned this one.
Winning in the Super Production category demands focus and commitment. Their championship proves that O’Sullivan and Putnam share more than a sponsor/team relationship with Lucas Oil. They share the company slogan: They both work.
A decade ago Lauchlin O’Sullivan was the best 2WD rally driver in America. That includes the 2002 Group 2 title in the SCCA Pro Rally series. This weekend at the Olympus Rally in Washington, O’Sullivan returned to the top spot on the Podium with enough points to claim the 2012 American Super Production title with co-driver Scott Putnam halfway through Olympus, the final event on the 2012 American rally championship calendar.
With early season wins at the 100 Acre Wood rally in Missouri and the Susquehannock Trail Rally in Pennsylvania, O’Sullivan and Putnam only needed to start the Olympus Rally to gain at least a tie for the 2012 championship. But when second place rival David Sterckx and co-driver Karen Jankowski failed to finish the first four stages of Olympus, the title was left to O’Sullivan and Putnam.
“It’s been a lot of work over the year,” Putnam said during the lengthy break Saturday afternoon. “It feels good. It’ll make me sleep a little better eventually!”
Going into the evening stages O’Sullivan and Putnam are fourth overall in the Olympus rally 40 seconds ahead of Byron Garth and co-driver Chrissie Beavis who are second in the Super Production Class. Five stages are scheduled to start tonight around 7pm Pacific. There’s a sixth additional stage on the schedule tomorrow morning.
It was a fight to get out of Maine with a Super Production podium finish at the New England Forest Rally. We battled for first and second in the category for two-thirds of the rally before a major problem threatened everything on Special Stage 9 of the 11 in the event.
In short, we were pushing as hard as we could when the car drifted about six inches too far on a fast right hand bend. In those six inches was a boulder buried in the grass. That boulder all but ripped off the car’s left rear suspension and could have capsized the car, the stage, the rally and the season. We were able to limp into service and to the end of the event but falling to third kept us from claiming the Super Production championship with one event left in the season in September. Olympus is a great event in Washington but it would have been great to go with a championship in hand rather than going with the championship still in doubt.
Our closest competitor for the title, last year’s champions Travis and Terry Hanson, left NEFR early on Friday. Oregon winner David Sterckx wasn’t a factor at New England early but David and his co-driver Karen Jankowski came on strong and, after our problem, managed to finish ahead of us on the podium leaving their title hopes still a distant hope. Sterckx and Jankowski won SP in Oregon in May.
After NEFR we still lead the points standings over Sterckx and Hanson. But the points are so close we could end up tied several different ways. It’s even unclear how we’d emerge from the various tie breakers. We have two wins. They have two wins. We have the same number of seconds. It could come down to who ever finishes in front at Olympus. Maybe that’s the way a championship should be decided but it sure would have been nice to close it in Maine. Now we have to go to Washington wearing an entirely different hat.
Murphy’s Law number 1612! All we had to do was drive through the stage but we found that rock. We have to thank John Buffum who made it possible for us to get to the end with some parts we managed to configure during service.
Australian 2WD competitor Will Orders was following us on the stage and said he kept seeing a trail of parts. He said later he expected to see a car parked by the side at the end of that trail. It’s like the story: “…somewhere in here there’s a pony.” But that’s rallying.
Even after we got the suspension worked out, the damage affected the turbo inlet pipe. The car was super slow those last two stages. ON SS8 we were fourth fastest overall. Then on SS9 we fell back to 21st after hitting the rock. Then on SS10 and SS11 we were 31st and 24th respectively. We got to the end and that, too, is rallying. Structurally the car’s just fine. But that was a wild ride. We were probably going about 60 MPH when we hit the rock.
It just shows you that the rocks in New England aren’t a problem until you veer off the road. Then, be prepared for anything. More later…
We’ve reached a critical place in our quest for the 2012 Rally America Super Production (SP) title. After Day 1 and four of the seven stages in the New England Forest Rally (NEFR), we’re sitting second in the SP category and eighth overall. It wasn’t our strongest day. But there’s some indication that we could win the championship with a third place finish in SP so that’s our main focus right now.
Friday dawned brilliant at NEFR based at the Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, Maine. Beautiful weather was predicted for both Friday and Saturday with mostly sunny skies and temperatures ranging at a high of 88-90°F. The largest issue in the rally was the dust that hung in the trees on the two long stages Friday.
Stages three and four were on a hillside filled with trees. Icicle Brook was run uphill for 16.06 miles then downhill as stage four for 16.23 miles. It was difficult to say the least.
We lost several seconds on SS3 to our closest competitors, Ramana Lagemann and his co-driver Chrissie Beavis. They had a flat tire going up the hill and we caught them on the stage. Their dust proved formidable and there were times when we had to simply stop in order to see the road. We literally couldn’t see ten feet in front of the car. This continued for nine miles.
We asked for an additional minute between our cars when we started SS4 because of the dust. That additional minute made the conditions a little better coming down the hill. For example, we were fifth fastest on SS3 going up the hill and the fastest non open class car. We were able to put 24 seconds on Lagemann and Beavis due to their flat.
Coming down the hill, however, they were able to regain 20 of those seconds once they changed their flat tire. Ramana is one of the fastest rally drivers in North America. It’s fun being in competition with him. But we need to stay focused on the larger issue, winning the championship.
The way it stands after Day 1, Lagemann and Beavis are at 33:11.7 minutes and fifth overall. We’re at 34:02.2 minutes in eighth.
Much of that is due to a penalty incurred when we checked in five minutes late to Parc Ferme, a rally grouping area where the cars must be parked and can’t be worked on by any of the crews. We were given a 50 second penalty thus the difference in our times. Without the penalty we’d essentially be tied with only a half second difference between our crews. It’s that close on the roads!
Third in SP is Evan Cline and his co-driver Greg Dorman. They’re 35:20.3 minutes. That 1:18 difference could be critical tomorrow. We’d like to push aggressively but championship points with a finish may be more important than pushing for a win and maybe falling off the road in the lingering dust.
The car is working well. The major issues we’ve faced in the past with the brakes, for example, haven’t appeared. We discovered during the Thursday Shakedown, though, that the subframe under the car was bent and that’s having a major impact on handling. We just can’t the car aligned right.
There’s another problem with the engine tune but the tuning guy is in California and we’re in Maine. It’s proving to be difficult on the phone to get the right tune-up on the engine but that’ll be addressed again Saturday morning during an hour service when we’ll have time to work on the car before the final seven stages. There’s a note on that also. The stages on Saturday are all new this year. That’ll even the playing field for all competitors. We were able to see the roads during what’s called recce or a slow practice run over the stages when the crews are allowed to do reconnaissance on the roads. The roads appear to be fast but there are some areas where the rhythm of the road will change abruptly. We call them “gotchas” where the road can get you by surprise. We’ll need to be careful.
There was one bit of championship news from Friday. The 2011 Super Production champions, Travis and his father/co-driver Terry Hanson, crashed out of NEFR on the first stage. They were closest to us in the standings (nine points) so that’s opened up some breathing room but this is far from over in our championship hopes. Ramana hasn’t run enough events this year to have an impact on the championship. It’ll be difficult, however, to watch a friend and strong competitor run in front of us but he’s running a different rally. We’re running for a championship and that’ll be our focus on Saturday.
A battle for a championship in any kind of motor racing competition can be a rollercoaster ride of emotion, results and hard, hard work. Even wins along the way can be pocked with enormous disappointment, broken parts, brilliant service work and dumb luck.
That’s been the championship chase story for Lauchlin O’Sullivan and co-driver Scott Putnam as they battle for the 2012 Rally America Super Production category title. Not only is it the toughest competition in the national championship it’s arguably the title a manufacturer values most because the cars are closest to the ones available for sale Monday morning in a showroom near you.
But here’s an example of the rollercoaster O’Sullivan and Putnam have been riding. In four events this year they’ve won two events, finished second once and didn’t finish at all in a fourth. They’ve been among the fastest overall even beating highly developed Open category machines and internationally accomplished drivers visiting from distant lands. And they’ve battled incessant car problems that could whither lesser men to tears.
Consider these comments after the Oregon Trail Rally where the team disintegrated into a humbling DNF and minimum points. Not a good outcome when points are incredibly valuable in a six event championship.
“I have not had good luck here,” Putnam said after OTR, “so maybe you can blame the finish on me.
“With Lauchlin the last three events have resulted in blown motors. Last year’s was quite exciting in that we had a fire and couldn’t get the hood open. So that is three blown motors, a roll, a head on collision coming off a live stage and one failed clutch.
“This year we suffered a failed motor at the end of Saturday and were two parts short from being able to continue.”
Yeah, it can be that frustrating. Even more so when the battle is with 2011 Super Production (SP) class champions Travis Hanson and his father Terry Hanson, the co-driver on that team. Going to the fifth of six events in the championship, O’Sullivan and Putnam are leading the SP standings by nine points over the Hansons. The fight at the New England Forest Rally could be a classic. Last year the Hansons won the SP class finishing third overall. O’Sullivan and Putnam didn’t finish at all retiring with a blown turbo.
There’s that roller coaster again! In fact, the ups and downs of a championship chase are illustrated perfectly in the results of the last two events for O’Sullivan and Putnam.
At Oregon, the team’s DNF, there was an indelicate moment when the car simply surrendered after a litany of problems. Rough roads hammered on the skidplate that protects the underside of the car from the rocks and ruts on a rally stage road. That hammering eventually dented the skidplate, which pinched the downpipe on the turbo, restricting the power in the engine ultimately blowing it up. And the leg bones connected to the ankle bone… etc.
What’d they do then, sit by the side of the road and weep?
“We stood there with our tow rope hooked up, ready to go,” Putnam said later. “A couple of cars go by and, lo and behold, one stops! Lauchlin scrambles to get the cars hooked up and I slam the trunk lid, we both jump in and work to get strapped in as our good Samaritan starts yanking the car forward.”
This is a unique thing in a rally. Teams can help each other because the main competitor in the contest is the elements themselves. You help someone else because you may need someone else’s help another time.
“This is very intense mind you, as in the back of your mind you are waiting for the next car to appear and this is a one lane road. We finally get going and accelerate up to speed. Mind you, we’re ten feet or so behind the vehicle towing us and are still racing.”
Think about that for a moment. You can’t see for the dust and rocks being sprayed by the car that’s towing you to the end of the performance section at speed.
“I start reading the notes so we have an idea of what’s coming up,” Putnam said. “Then the problem arises of what to do when entering an acute turn. We don’t want the cars to mate. We end up acting as the brakes for both vehicles, with a little cracking the whip on both cars as we slow down and go through the turns. The funny thing is that both drivers quickly pick up on what the routine is and pretty soon we are merrily cruising down the final miles of stage.
“First thing I did when we got back to service in a little Oregon town called Dufer was purchase him a case of beer. What a guy!”
A few hours later the team learned they were two parts short of being able to continue and had to retire. The opportunity to gain championship points on The Hansons who didn’t make the trip to Oregon was lost. You can’t waste opportunities in a championship chase.
The story was very different a month later at the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR) in Pennsylvania where The Hansons returned to the championship as well as one of the fastest SP drivers in North America, Ramana Lagemann, a former Subaru factory driver. The competition at STPR was defined in splits of seconds and clarity was brought to the championship.
“Throughout the event, whenever Lauchlin complained about the car being slow, we were actually fast. Then, again, on the stage that felt fast and aggressive, Ramana took 20 seconds out of us. Go figure. This rally, Lauchlin complained a lot so we were very, very fast!”
It didn’t help that three of the fastest in the championship were all competing together. Making matters more difficult was the longtime friendship between O’Sullivan and Lagemann. It made the competition between the two that much more intense. It was a perfect time for the car to get on the rollercoaster and surrender its braking system to the rally spirits. O’Sullivan was driving on gravel at speed while fighting for bits of championship seconds with no brakes. You had to be there…
Nothing like a little drama! Front brakes, no rears, and the front brakes you had to pump furiously to get them to work. “We cruised to the stages taking stock of what we had to work with.” Even the handbrake wasn’t working.
Putnam’s contribution to the ride was to call the turns earlier to give O’Sullivan an early warning system on what was coming up.
“We were using allllllllll the road,” Putnam remembered, “occasionally going wide or smacking into a bank as trajectories now carried us through the stage. Lauchlin is working his ass off. In addition to the usual cacophony of sounds of a rally car in its element, I hear him constantly pounding the brakes looking for that point where they’ll eventually work. Finally we cross the finish, exit the control and find a spot to pull over behind Ramana and learn we’d gained six seconds back from him!”
In the end O’Sullivan and Putnam won the class by 14.1 seconds over Lagemann and co-driver Chrissie Beavis. The intense competition allowed them to finish fourth overall and 1:47.6 out of a third place podium finish after two days of stages. The Hansons had their own problems and were third in class but more than four minutes further back.
“Maine is next,” Putnam said. “This event is a car breaker with watermelon sized rocks dotting the stages. They are spray painted florescent colors so you can see them right before you hit them. In 2005 Doug Havir and I hit a rock that sheared the wheel, tire and suspension clean off the car.
“Of bigger concern at the moment is that Lauchlin is about to become a dad. The due date is essentially the same as the event.”
It’ll be a rollercoaster ride until the championship is settled. No matter who wins!
We came in on a tow strap from the eleventh and final stage Saturday night. That’s the kind of day we had. We’re still in the event but they were inspecting the spark plug and found chunks of metal. There may be damage but the engine still runs.
We’re going to see what we can do. We’ve contacted someone in Portland who says he can fix the problem and keep us in the event tomorrow. He’s on his way now. I mean there are only four stages left in the event. We have to finish and get the points. Our closest competitor for the championship, Travis Hanson, didn’t even come. We need these points!
It’ll be a late night but at least we’ll be running. The car has to be in Parc Expose at 10 AM and the first car out is at 11 AM. So we have time. We have to fix this engine, though. We can’t put in a new engine according to the rules.
But today was one thing after another. The worst was the brake issues that are back. It’s the same issues we had at 100 Acre Wood. We thought those were all behind us. We had intercom issues where Lauchlin could hear me but I couldn’t hear him.
I mean it was just a laundry list. But even with all those problems we were the third fastest overall on SS8 and the fastest Super Production car on SS7. Maybe that was because we didn’t have any brakes and Lauchlin was trying not to need them! We didn’t even have a handbrake to use on those two stages.
On SS9 the turbo hose came off so the power went away. but with that we caught a car in front of us so we were caught in that dust for about two miles. That was exciting when we arrive five feet off his bumper because he didn’t see us. It wasn’t malicious because once he saw us he moved over right away. On SS10 we started losing power then on SS11 we reached the end of the stage but needed to be towed back to the time controls at the end of the day. If we can fix the engine we’re still fine.
I don’t see the possibility of getting the podium anymore. We just need to get to the end and get points. You do your best to avoid it but you do your best, you know? It’s just part of rallying. Just press on regardless!
After SS8 Lauchlin O’Sullivan and co-driver Scott Putnam are 12th overall and fourth in the Super Production category at the Oregon Trail Rally east of Portland in a resort community called The Dalles. At the second service of the day the crew is fourth in Super Production 2:38 from third.
We’ve had lots and lots of issues with the car. Everything from brakes going out to brakes locking up. We had a broken brake line after coming off a stage. We were late leaving the last service because we didn’t have the stuff to fix the brake problems right away. I think we lost 15 minutes with the problems today but I think we can still get to the Super Production podium by the end of the event.
We came into service and we were very down on power. The brakes were still sketchy but the crew is working on that. We’d hit the accelerator and the turbo boost would go up to about 15 pounds then immediately drop off. We’re having problems with the intercom. I can’t hear Lauchlin he can hear me. We’re not going to screw with that at this time. The front suspension feels loose. It’s just a laundry list of things at this point.
We were hoping that the car issues were behind us but clearly that’s not the case. These stages are absolutely brutal. You’re going down the stage and hitting rocks. We hit one so hard that we broke the wheel. We had to change it on the stage and put the wheel in the back of the car. That cost us about four minutes because we had two cars pass us while we were working.
It’s just been a fairly eventful day so far. We were 16th after six stages. Now we’re twelfth after eight stages. We have one stage then a 20 minute break in Dufur, Oregon. Then one more stage before the day is over and we return to The Dalles for the overnight break.
Basically we got through the Friday stages. The first couple of runs were getting used to the different tarmac tires. We had a little spin on stage one but the time was OK. Then on stage three we were really flying quite a bit faster. But we went a little wide and the rear wheels hit the grass and we went around. The incar must be great though. Lauchlin kept his foot in it and we went around and kept going. We were only down about a tenth of a second to the first time through the stage. We were going much much quicker.
We ran on rallycross tires in the first stages and gravel tires through the last stage going across the grass that immediately got torn up. We were slip sliding through the grass and trying to manage our trajectories the best we could.
Now, the Saturday morning stages will be very busy and could be the separators for the rest of the weekend. We’ll get it right off the bat. The rest of the staes get progressively easier. The whole thing is to make it through this morning. Fir Mountain South we do twice as stages five and seven. On my side of the car it’ll be pretty busy. It’ll be a challenge keeping up to Lauchlin.
The plan is to work for the podium, race and try not to make any mistakes. Everything seems to be going good so far. There are no problems with the car.
Comment: A nice thorough article on the Olympus Rally..if one is not familiar with Tom’s Hardware, it is a computer enthusiast web page with a huge following.
“Subaru invited us out to attend the 2012 Olympus Rally, so we went and watched the race, took some pictures, and interviewed some of big names in rally racing, including Ken Block, concept director of the viral Gymkhana Five video on YouTube..”
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