2019 NASA Rallysport Sandblast Rally

Start order was very poorly chosen this year (possibly for political reasons), and we were never reseeded. Riders were left to sort themselves in TC or deal with passing.

Wet conditions were great for lack of dust but very hairy in some places. Lots of stuck cars, which resulted in one of the stages getting rerouted.

Lots of new racers this weekend which is great for the sport!

Wow!

What an event! Had a blast!!!

1st - Thank you to all the wonderful racers who helped me through my first rally! My day came with some unexpected surprises - dead battery in the morning and a flat tire mid-morning! (An ultra heavy duty tube failed at the seam... ).. Multiple folks/racers stepped up to help out. THANK YOU!!!

I missed a few sections replacing the flat tube - (resulting in a DNF) but I was able to finish the rest of the day.

2nd. I am still in awe at the speed at which you guys race... coming from an enduro / tight woods background - seeing 80mph+ on the odometer while flat out in a sand rut was a surreal experience... LOVED IT!

3rd - THANK YOU to all the volunteers/race organizers! They made it happen.

See you next year!

Pretty entertaining video from the mud hole (where I dropped my bike).

It was a great year and my first rally on a bike.

I had a crash on stage 6 that bent up my front end and took me out of the game.

I didn't realize it until reviewing the video but apparently I stole a course workers jacket when I blew though some caution tape



Good times!

I fixed this one for you.

That 650 caught me on the big end but in the mud the 350 clawed back!
Jason #150

That was great racing Jason! You were catching me quite a bit in the braking sections as well. The BRP had some long legs in the straight sections!

what a fun time!

I fought the bike the whole day, lost the header stage 1, melted the head gasket by the end of stage 2, oil cooler sprung a leak, and melted two clutches, went through nearly 4 quarts of oil, but she stayed together just enough to make the day, got to make lots of new friends, so i had a blast and cant wait to do it again.

Big shout out to Bill as usual the class was great, lots vital info i heard the competitors talk about all weekend and man he rode the S**t out of a bike he had never sat on before Thursday.

First time rallyer checking in. If you saw me around I was the idiot on the DRZ400SM with no clue what he was doing. Had an insanely fun time which is funny because after Bill's class I was seriously considering backing out of the race. Never rode sand before and have never touched suspension settings on the bike, always rode it as is with the sumo wheels. Just slapped 21/18s on and figured things would work out. Well the terrain we rode in the class taught me otherwise-- the Michelin T63 front was complete garbage and the suspension was putting me into tankslappers at low speed. was feeling pretty low because i could not figure out why it was so hard to ride even at normal speeds

so i can't thank Brandon enough for graciously taking an hour out of his night Thursday in the shitty cold rain to help me set all the configurable settings on my front and rear suspension and gave me a takeoff front to replace the piece of crap DS tire i had on. he seriously made the rally for me and completely turned around my experience from wanting to go home miserable to ear to ear grins going 70+ mph down the straights

saturday rolled around and after stage 1 i was hooked, the bike was a totally different beast and by stage 4 I was having a blast pinning it on the straights

looking forward to next year so i can destroy my slow ass times this year :)

to all the potential first time rallyers, do not miss Bill's class and if you see Brandon buy him a beer cause he's an all around stand up guy

This weekend was an eye opener for me. I like to say that arrogance has gotten me pretty much everywhere in life. This weekend my expectations (arrogance) were way out of line with my experience and I was humbled by that.

I came in thinking "Even though I haven't ridden properly in a year, I've been training hard (true) and I'll be able to pick up where I left off last year (false). Maybe I'll even do better (very false)!"

Instead of doing better or anything like better I actually did pretty well for a guy who's seen nearly zero action in the last year and I beat myself up over it as I was riding. That made a negative impact. I actually thought I might quit when I was passed by Charles L., who was following me.

Two stages after that I resolved to leave it all out there for 2019 and quit moping. The last two stages felt really positive and I was happy to finish another great rally racing with a great group of men and women (woman).

Let's do it again?


*Edit* without Bill's class I would have done far worse. His class got me thinking about body position and line selection. Even though I didn't apply it correctly at all times I did at MOST times and that helped me.

Crashed so hard all your video is backwards too!

I can confirm this is accurate. As can all the poor volunteers who had the misfortune of holding the timer for @GoGoGavin41 as he dug a huge trench at the start of each stage.

Hearing that *bloop* *bloop* *bloop* sound (after riding by your header on stage) was the best part of the whole thing, and that's saying something.

I thought it was really interesting how average speeds changed this year. I thought that this year would have been either slower or faster than years past, but it looks like generally folks stayed about however fast they always were (or improved, in some cases, like me) - like look at @eldridge173 for example (from 3rd to 7th and he got a little faster too!). Either way, there were clearly some very fast dudes out there this year. Except for @Mr. Ray, who got two MPH slower, but went from "you're probably not going to walk or ever use that hand as the devil's playground" to "QQ a bloo bloo bloo, I almost died and now I'm racing again and I only slowed down by 2mph." (you should be proud you were out there at all)

Here's 2017
Place # Entrant Class Total SS1-F SS2-F SS3-F SS4-F SS5-F SS6-F SS7-F Average
1 138 Bill Conger MM 1:06:00 62.1 65.4 60.8 67.2 63.3 62.9 62.6 63.5
2 107 Bobby Wooldridge MM 1:07:03 62.6 65.0 60.8 66.3 62.0 61.0 59.9 62.5
3 116 Brandon Eldridge MM 1:11:08 57.9 60.8 55.1 70.5 57.3 56.9 56.7 59.3
4 109 Ken Anderson MM 1:12:11 58.4 59.1 56.3 64.2 57.7 56.0 55.9 58.2
5 122 Petr Vlcek MD 1:13:18 57.5 58.7 54.9 59.2 56.8 56.6 56.4 57.2
6 105 Harrison Kendrick MH 1:14:12 56.3 57.5 53.9 58.8 57.1 55.9 55.7 56.5
7 141 Kevin Schuler ML 1:14:54 53.6 57.9 55.8 61.2 54.8 54.5 54.8 56.1
8 155 Michael Leget MM 1:19:32 52.9 53.4 55.6 52.2 50.5 51.2 52.6
9 140 Gavin Spadin MH 1:23:50 44.1 49.6 54.2 50.1 50.6 52.2 50.1
10 152 Robert Usnick MM 1:24:51 49.9 52.0 53.5 44.6 48.3 48.2 49.4
11 148 DJ Conlon MH 1:25:32 45.5 48.8 53.9 52.9 46.9 47.9 50.8 49.5
12 147 Todd Zacker MH 1:25:53 42.8 49.5 49.3 49.1 49.7 48.9 48.2
13 111 Jason Adams MH 1:26:43 49.4 50.6 53.9 51.0 47.7 47.7 48.1 49.8
14 139 Chris Flake MM 1:27:15 46.5 47.1 51.5 45.9 47.7 48.0 47.8
15 108 Brian Duncan ML 1:28:07 47.2 47.8 53.9 50.7 46.2 44.7 45.7 48.0
16 154 Ryan Wheatley MM 1:28:08 42.7 47.6 50.5 47.2 45.4 48.3 47.0
17 145 Orion Mountainspring MD 1:28:37 45.8 49.8 46.5 48.4 48.7 40.0 46.5
18 146 Ray Dobens MM 1:30:06 43.4 48.5 48.1 45.1 44.6 44.6 45.7
19 128 Adam Koperczak MM 1:33:42 47.1 43.8 45.8 40.0 45.3 45.1 44.5
20 143 Mandy Rinne ML 1:34:10 41.9 44.7 44.7 43.2 44.3 43.0 43.6
21 157 Nick Johnson ML 1:35:28 41.3 45.5 43.9 43.1 39.8 42.9 42.8
22 151 Steven Kamrad MH 1:36:19 42.9 39.1 44.3 43.2 43.8 44.9 43.0
23 144 Matthew Poisel ML 1:40:51 39.3 41.8 41.9 38.3 42.4 40.3 40.7
24 153 Robert Bailey MH 1:48:45 36.4 37.9 40.7 36.7 34.9 37.8 37.4
25 137 Andrew Folcher MD 1:52:56 36.0 37.0 37.3 36.1 34.6 34.9 36.0
26 115 Dale Burroughs MM 57:56 57.7 55.5 61.6 58.2 55.7 55.8 57.4

and 2018
Place # Entrant Class Total SS1 SS2 SS3 SS4 SS5 SS6 SS7 Average
1 104 Bobby Wooldridge MM 1:06:48 59.9 67.0 60.1 67.2 63.4 59.6 57.1 62.0
2 144 David Gilbertson MM 1:09:35 59.7 62.8 55.6 65.8 60.3 58.1 55.3 59.7
3 132 Dale Burroughs MM 1:10:15 57.9 63.8 56.8 64.1 60.2 57.0 52.0 58.8
4 110 Ken Anderson MM 1:11:13 58.2 60.5 55.6 62.5 60.0 57.0 53.3 58.2
5 114 Harrison Kendrick MH 1:11:35 57.1 60.9 54.4 63.9 60.0 57.0 51.0 57.8
6 123 Robert Bailey MM 1:15:45 53.4 57.9 53.5 61.6 53.5 54.8 50.6 55.0
7 152 Gee Motzkin MM 1:18:08 51.3 56.4 50.9 57.5 54.3 52.1 48.7 53.0
8 133 Eric Knowles MH 1:18:32 52.5 55.4 51.1 58.7 53.6 51.2 47.1 52.8
9 125 Todd Zacker MH 1:20:14 48.4 54.8 48.3 57.0 54.0 51.8 47.1 51.6
10 142 Daniel Farson MD 1:20:24 51.3 53.5 49.1 56.1 52.3 51.4 47.4 51.6
11 108 Jason Adams MH 1:22:09 50.0 53.8 48.6 56.1 50.2 49.2 46.0 50.6
12 117 Ray Dobens MM 1:22:26 50.2 53.8 49.8 50.6 51.6 48.8 46.0 50.1
13 146 Joe Warner MH 1:23:43 49.5 53.8 47.8 55.0 49.9 45.9 45.8 49.7
14 143 Daniel Hope MD 1:27:22 45.2 51.0 44.9 48.0 49.9 47.7 43.6 47.2
15 130 Adam Koperczak MM 1:27:48 44.7 49.5 45.1 51.3 49.9 47.1 42.0 47.1
15 141 Charles Lucht MH 1:27:48 46.0 49.4 43.8 50.3 49.9 46.9 43.0 47.0
17 140 Amelia Kamrad MD 1:28:24 45.4 48.6 44.6 50.1 49.9 46.4 42.3 46.8
18 156 Sergio Spinelli ML 1:30:16 43.5 47.6 43.4 50.5 49.9 46.5 37.8 45.6
18 119 Ryan Wheatley MM 1:30:16 45.7 49.6 40.7 49.2 49.9 43.2 41.1 45.6
20 154 Jeffrey Wills MM 1:35:59 40.6 41.9 41.8 46.7 49.9 42.0 40.7 43.4
21 150 Andrew Janik MH 1:36:18 40.7 38.8 40.0 49.9 49.9 45.0 41.3 43.7
22 137 Nicholas Johnson ML 1:37:29 40.5 42.4 38.1 46.1 49.9 41.0 39.4 42.5
23 158 Shmuel Avital MH 1:37:47 43.2 39.5 40.2 45.9 49.9 39.7 40.3 42.7
24 135 Mandy Rinne ML 1:38:11 39.7 40.5 39.5 46.4 49.9 41.8 38.5 42.3
25 149 Peter Soper MH 1:39:21 38.6 42.5 39.3 44.4 49.9 41.1 33.7 41.4
26 139 Andrew Lacy MH 1:46:24 37.8 38.2 33.9 41.4 49.9 36.4 34.5 38.9
27 153 James Black MM 2:11:21 27.2 29.9 31.9 38.2 32.0 35.9 33.1 32.6

and this year, 2019

Place # Entrant Class Total SS1 SS2 SS3 SS4 SS5 SS6 SS7 SS8 SS9 Average
1 143 Randy Richardson MM 1:20:49 60.1 65.7 59.8 68.2 57.8 81.6 70.0 62.1 63.3 65.4
2 146 Chris McNeil MH 1:21:27 59.3 65.0 59.9 67.7 57.7 81.2 70.0 56.9 64.1 64.6
3 145 Bill Conger MH 1:22:30 58.7 64.8 59.1 67.1 55.8 81.5 68.1 58.9 62.0 64.0
4 102 David Gilbertson MM 1:25:09 59.5 63.9 56.1 63.5 53.6 77.7 66.3 56.9 59.0 61.8
5 106 Robert Bailey MM 1:26:14 57.6 63.4 56.5 63.2 53.6 76.9 63.7 54.7 59.4 61.0
6 132 Samuel Burroughs MD 1:26:45 55.0 62.7 54.8 64.7 54.0 75.0 65.2 55.7 60.1 60.8
7 136 Brandon Eldridge MM 1:27:33 56.2 61.1 54.0 61.9 52.9 76.3 65.2 55.9 58.6 60.2
8 138 Dan Moreno MM 1:30:47 54.0 60.6 53.6 59.8 51.3 71.5 60.6 53.5 56.9 58.0
9 104 Ken Anderson MM 1:31:22 55.5 59.1 52.7 59.9 49.9 71.9 62.3 52.0 58.0 57.9
10 144 Tim Williams MH 1:32:53 52.4 56.4 53.4 58.9 50.2 71.1 59.6 53.3 57.0 56.9
11 149 Gordon Mullavey MH 1:32:57 52.5 57.1 50.9 59.9 50.4 72.4 59.8 53.5 55.2 56.9
12 140 Gavin Spadin MH 1:33:33 51.5 53.0 51.7 60.2 50.3 73.0 60.0 53.1 58.5 56.8
13 142 Jonathan Moreno MM 1:36:40 49.5 55.5 49.4 56.8 47.7 68.0 58.1 54.3 54.2 54.8
14 110 Daniel Farson MD 1:39:52 49.7 53.4 46.3 55.5 47.6 66.9 58.5 50.3 48.3 52.9
15 130 Orion Mountainspring MD 1:40:31 48.6 53.8 48.3 52.1 46.3 66.9 55.7 48.7 51.5 52.4
16 135 Axel Anderson MM 1:41:34 47.6 53.1 46.7 54.0 45.6 70.6 54.1 46.6 49.2 51.9
17 115 Charles Lucht MH 1:42:45 47.2 51.1 48.4 54.5 46.1 62.2 56.0 47.4 49.9 51.4
18 119 Sergio Spinelli MD 1:44:25 43.5 51.3 45.3 53.8 44.1 64.9 56.2 47.4 50.8 50.8
19 131 Steven Kamrad MH 1:45:35 47.8 50.5 47.0 54.2 44.0 61.2 51.5 46.4 47.7 50.0
20 108 Eric Knowles MH 1:46:01 48.1 52.1 42.5 51.2 44.3 62.4 52.5 44.2 49.4 49.6
21 112 Ray Dobens MM 1:49:04 45.6 50.2 47.0 51.7 42.7 58.8 49.3 42.9 46.4 48.3
22 134 Ian Cooper MM 1:50:04 41.7 47.7 44.5 51.8 43.3 61.2 51.7 45.6 48.5 48.4
23 116 Adam Koperczak MM 1:51:08 44.0 48.3 44.6 52.2 42.6 60.9 51.7 45.7 40.2 47.8
24 150 Jason Kinsey ML 1:52:18 42.3 47.4 43.4 50.3 42.2 58.8 49.8 44.2 47.3 47.3
25 148 Dmitriy Martynov ML 1:53:57 42.1 45.4 41.0 48.6 41.0 58.8 50.2 44.8 47.0 46.5
26 117 Amelia Kamrad MD 1:55:48 39.9 44.4 40.1 49.2 41.9 59.2 49.0 41.2 46.6 45.7
27 125 Peter Soper MH 1:58:40 40.4 44.7 43.7 49.2 40.3 55.0 48.6 40.5 39.4 44.6
28 154 Justin Chu MD 2:06:04 36.5 39.9 37.0 45.6 39.9 55.0 48.3 42.3 39.2 42.6
29 147 David Johnson MM 2:18:26 40.6 39.9 28.0 43.9 34.2 51.5 39.7 36.3 34.7 38.8

I'd like to point out that ~half the moto field had a faster average speed than the $xxx,xxx.00, purpose built, WRC spec rally car that won overall.

I did manage to finally remember to snag a quick screen grab of my favorite spot on the rally. Just before the last stage, when the sun is perfectly lighting the trees to the east side of this road, when you know you're headed to that last stage.

Time for that annual tradition of watching my videos and thinking about what I need to work on. 2017's theme was "what is lines, precious?" 2018's was "stop destroying your bike. No, seriously. Don't touch that." 2019's theme seems to be "proper braking and why it's a stranger"

There are a couple of super-obvious things this year, but as always, I definitely appreciate any other suggestions you might have. Unless they're "lol git gud" in which case, you know, fair enough, but I already know that.

1. Brake later. And harder. This is easily far and away number one.. This was my first time running the GT fatty front and I just ran a race in the frozen tundra of Quebec where braking takes a lot longer. So I wasn't used to how well that tire stops (so well!) and I just couldn't seem to get over the idea that I needed about double the distance I actually needed to stop. Every single time I'd know that I should brake later but then I just... couldn't? I think I need to go practice panic braking a bunch again.

2. Downshift going into the turn. I can practice this with the braking, but one thing I noticed watching the footage is that I'm consistently not in the right gear coming out of the corner so I don't get appropriate power. On a related note, f u KTM for giving the 17-19 bikes a worthless 5th gear. This messed me up a bunch of times too when I'd upshift out of what I thought was fourth and end up in sixth which was too high.

3. When I am braking hard, I need to eventually stop, lean into the turn and get on the gas. A bunch of times I just let myself sort of drift, braking in a straight line.

4. Don't be so scared of the clay. I have mixed feelings about this. I didn't mess around at all with the wet clay - anytime I saw it I slowed down. I didn't fall once so that was great, but I also definitely could have pushed it a lot more in the clay because it's just more slippery, it's not like it's made of hilarious cartoon marbles that immediately makes your legs keep running as your body goes way up into the air before you crash down.

5. Don't let choppy sand dictate your line. There are a few times where I think it was appropriate to look outside/inside but there are even more times where I should have committed more and just blasted through it instead.

6. Don't let other riders distract you from looking ahead. If you catch someone, don't look at them. You caught them by looking ahead, keep doing that and just zip by instead of staring at them forever and not seeing what's happening next.

7. That stage 5 start.

Sadly, I left my gopro in the van so didn't get footage until stage three and then didn't get new batteries at the last service so missed out on stages eight and nine. Oops?

Stage 3


Stage 4


Stage 5


Stage 6


Stage 7


Congratulations again to everyone who came and raced. That was a ton of fun.

I chose to run soft-terrain tires (Shinko 546 @ $123 for the pair)—I felt like I had plenty of grip in the clay and mud. Once I figured that out in the first muddy bit, it was WOT through the mud (sorry to anyone who was close behind me). Of course, on a bigger/heavier bike or one with the wrong tires, that could end badly.

My brain is still trying to process the borderline chaos we call a rally moto stage.

All I heard before hand was how bad the clay was. After treating it like ice for the first many stages I started to ride right through it. It's nothing like the black snot slick we have up here which really is like ice. I think once it got churned up the traction improved.

The ruts at speed were a little hairball. This was the most challenging SB in my 3 tries.

Those dudes on the big bikes. Wow.

I took every big puddle like this. Going slow.


Seriously. I hope someone got a picture.

I had a rallymoto first. I touched handlebar to ground. Last stage 90 degree left, tommy tip-over. That was my 3rd engine stall. I think my bars are tweaked.

As always the best part is seeing all of youse guise. I's kinda weird cuz we all get to know each other here but hardly ever come in contact. Also putting faces to the new-er riders is awesome too.

The drive home had 9.5 hours of heavy rain changing to snow then bitter cold. It finally cleared in Indy. My trailer is frozen solid. No key will penetrate all 4 locks.

I hope you enjoyed the cookies.

Great rally! It was fantastic to have such a large bike turn out, and range of skill levels. I really enjoyed seeing/meeting everyone.

I'm glad we lucked out and had no rain on Saturday, and the conditions really weren't too bad for bikes. Yes it was a bit rutted, but nothing terrible.

Neither of us looked at the scores, but Jason and I were locked in a battle all day, and Adam kept catching me within 100 yards of the finish (regardless of overall stage length). I got more comfortable as the day went on, and picked up a bit of speed towards the end by trying to look ahead more and carry more momentum through the corners - so Adam stopped catching me and I started inching up on Jason a bit. It wasn't enough,s o congratulations on 1st place :)

I had only one small tipover and am overall I'm happy with my performance and improvement. I kept the little WR250R pinned the majority of the time, we had fun and gave the bigger bikes a run for their money.

Anyone interested in helping with groundswell in getting more RallyMoto events should consider joining this group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2259796657654035/

Or, you know, don't. You can do whatever you want.

Erroneous. All must join. All must race.

I'm not sure whether we need a groundswell or one/two individuals to volunteer their time to help organize rallies. There are quite a few rallies that ran in years past but are no longer a thing because there is nobody to organize them... just waiting for someone with leadership skills and a few hundred free hours to dust off the paperwork.