BABE Rally 2007

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Wolfe

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Wisconsin
"It's not a race, it's a rally!"

The Rally
On the 22nd I will be leaving for New York to participate in the second annual BABE Rally -- Big Apple to Big Easy, or New York to New Orleans. (Day 1 of the rally is on the 24th, but Wisconsin is a bit further than a day's drive away from New York.)

The rally is being organized by StreetSafari, the same group that organizes several similar annual rallies in Europe, including Staples2Naples, which first ran in 2003. These particular cross-country jaunts aren't about zipping down the fast lane in expensive sportscars, however. StreetSafari calls them "Banger Rallies" for a reason -- the cars are trash. Therefore, speeding and reckless driving are not the name of the game here. You simply have to reach the finish line...and that's harder than you may think.

Oh, did I say you simply have to finish? I lied, because it isn't quite that simple. You also have to complete daily "challenges" to the satisfaction of the rally's judges. Only one has been revealed thus far, and that's a "Dress Up Like Elvis Day." Expect the others to be similar, or to involve collecting or taking photos of certain things.

Anyway, for the american event, the price limit on the car is $250 (excluding safety-related modifications/repairs), and although enforcement of the limit is relatively lax, the expectation is that you arrive in a car that at least embodies the "spirit" of a $250 car, while remaining street-legal and reasonably drivable. Insurance is needed for the states we'll be passing through that require it.

Team Economy Supersport and Crew
I'll be driving for Team Economy Supersport, which consists of myself and two great friends of mine, Desmond and Jared. We'll also be rolling in a convoy with other entrants, including Miles Fox, the self-proclaimed Subaru Outlaw, Tim Hansen, the filmmaker producing a movie about said Subaru Outlaw, and others.

Finding ourselves on the side of the freeway with a broken car and no one around is a virtual impossibility.

The Car
The wind under Team Economy Supersport's wings, the pinnacle of engineering prowess of which we are not worthy, the European thoroughbred we'll be riding for this journey is a rather peculiar 1984 Renault 11 Encore.
cdpass34ns2.jpg

cdpassrear34si5.jpg

It produced about 60 trailblazing horses from its 1.4L 4-cylinder when new, so it must be capable of at least 20 nowadays, although it's risky to push into the engine's high-RPM powerband without a tachometer. Not that our non-functioning speedometer would tell us how hard we're pushing anyway. Let's just say our opponents should consider themselves lucky that this isn't a contest of speed, or they'd be toast.

Aside from a relatively-rough-running engine, a missing shock absorber on the rear driver's side, and a half-broken interior that was already spartan when everything worked, the car is in pretty good shape, considering. We'll just have to wait and see how far the French Fry can take us...

The Route

(Images 1 and 3 are approximations as of yet -- I did not organize the convoy's route myself)
Those with a keen eye will notice that there's a particularly pleasant surprise about halfway through the rally itself. Try not to ruin the surprise for those who don't know -- I'll talk about what's there once we reach it. ;)

Updates:
Day 0 -- The Beginning
Day 1 -- No Luck
Day 2 -- Their Turn
Day 3 -- Looking Up
Day 4 -- Homage to Graceland
Day 5 -- The Gap and the Legend of the Renault Encore
Day 6 -- The Big Easy
Day 7 -- A Late Start
Day 8 -- Home Again
Photos and Videos
 
Sweet rally, but lets get to the more important topic:

Where the hell did you find that Renault?
 
Sounds sweet.

Should be heaps of fun! Good luck.

Make sure you get pics and stories up when you're finished. :)
 
Bloody hell I haven't seen an Encore with that little rust since... uh... they were new.
 
I wish you and your friends very good luck on the rally. 👍

I wouldn't mind taking part in one of these myself. I have a small thrill for seeing how long a banger lasts before becoming underivable. I sure hope it doesn't happen to you... :p
 
0-60 mph: If parts permit :lol:

Sounds like fun though, and hopefully everything goes as planned.
 
Okay, give us expenses. The car, insurance, repairs. How much has it really cost you? :p

Good luck in the rally.
 
-Fred-
Bloody hell I haven't seen an Encore with that little rust since... uh... they were new.
Click to expand...
I'm particularly fond of the sprung passenger side door.

Wolfe, this sounds like a blast - if my wife were the more adventurous type, I'd dig my beat up old 270,000-mile Pontiac out of the garage and run it. With the caved-in quarter panel it looks like $250. Then again, it would be worth picking up something with valid DE tags on it for $250, run it down there, and junk it. Best of luck to your team - I'll be awaiting the updates with bated breath.
 
I can't wait to here about the "challenges" y'all are going to have to do.
 
Thanks for the well wishes. We should have at least one camera on-hand, so I'll share pictures if I'm able to.

Later today I'll be taking the first, short, leg of my trip, which is driving the Renault from Madison to Delavan, about 45 minutes away. Everyone on the convoy is spending the night there and we'll be taking off tomorrow morning.
 
Wow sounds awesome, I might have to check out the European versions!

Best of luck with the Rally, just hope the Frenchey can last! 👍
 
If you can get to New Orleans in that thing, I commend you.

Stay away from passing trucks so you don't get blown off the road.
 
Omnis
If you can get to New Orleans in that thing, I commend you.

Stay away from passing trucks so you don't get blown off the road.
Click to expand...

Heck, when they pass get behind them and draft them.
 
Loon
Heck, when they pass get behind them and draft them.
Click to expand...

Well, yeah, but I imagine being directly next to one when they fly by wouldn't be too fun.
 
Well, I'm back. So much for the hotel internet idea -- even when we could get it to work, we were too busy with other things for me to spend the time it would take to sit down write our experiences.

Day 0
(Rally in 3 Days)
I was given a ride by my parents to the Renault, which had been sitting in my friend Marquiz's apartment parking lot for a while. A battery cable had been snapped, most likely from a hard left turn because it wasn't secured into any sort of spot. I reattached the cable, bungee-corded the battery into a stable spot, and stuck a sandwich toaster I found in the truck next to it so that it wouldn't move too far.

I put in the key and tried the starter. Nothing. We tried jumpstarting the car. Nothing. We eventually pushstarted it, and after filling the tank with gas I was on my way to Delavan, Wisconsin, where the others were waiting. Along the way I noted a few things:

1. The flat-spotted right-rear tire (created when the car was driven with a locked-up wheel bearing for a few months) and missing shock absorber on the left-rear corner (removed because the wheelwell to which it was attached rusted out) were going to make the trip a rough ride.
2. The lack of air-conditioning, leading to open windows most of the way, the relative lack of sound-deadening, and the flat-spotted tire were going to make the trip a loud ride.
3. The apparent lack of a working starter was going to make any stop or engine-killing an undesirable circumstance.

Nevertheless I pressed on, arriving in Delavan an hour after I had started. I met with the group I would be convoying with, we partied a bit at Tim Hansen's parents' house, and hit the sack early. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, and we had no idea how right that notion was.
 
Day 1
(Rally in 2 Days)
We woke up much earlier than I'm used to, and enjoyed a rather leisurely breakfast and set of preparations while we waited for a latecomer to the convoy to arrive. We would be leaving later than planned, but that meant we didn't have to rush as much before taking off.

Eventually our last associate arrived, and our convoy -- consisting of the Renault, a Ford Taurus SHO, a Cadillac Eldorado limo, and a frankensteined Camry wagon -- was about ready to go. Tim Hansen wanted to film the start, so he sat ahead with the camera rolling, while Desmond turned the key to the Renault. Nothing. Oh well, a pushstart will look funnier on film anyway!

After making a quick stop at Walmart to grab supplies and see if we could get our flat-spotted tire replaced with a different one we brought along (we would have had to wait two hours, so the answer was no), we were on our way, around 10:30am. Some time later we found ourselves in Chicago, where we made our first stops for gas and supplies (water/soda/gatorade-type-drinks, mostly). Unfortunately, we had to push-start the Renault every time.

We took the skyway out of Chicago and into Indiana, where things were looking good. We hadn't run into any problems yet, and the Renault possessed a surprising amount of passing power on the freeway. The other cars were doing well, too, and it seemed that we would have an uneventful trip to our first destination in Cleveland, Ohio.

That's when disaster struck. Somewhere along the Indiana turnpike, the Renault began running roughly. Being the driver at the time, I noticed it immediately, but didn't really say anything. The roughness increased until the engine started losing power, and then couldn't accelerate anymore. We began slowing down, radioing to the limo and SHO ahead while the Camry coasted behind us. Eventually, with the gas pedal to the floor, the car gave off one tremendous backfire and spat out a plume of black smoke. When I put in the clutch, the engine cut out completely and we rolled to a stop on the side of the freeway. So much for good luck.

Desmond and I both suspected the distributor, so we took it apart. After removing the cap a small metal piece fell out, apparently the pin that maintained the connection between the wires and the rotor. Not knowing exactly how it worked, we figured the pin just sorta rested in place, so Desmond tried to put it back in. However, the spring inside kept on shooting the pin out. We got lucky in finding it a couple times, but the third time the piece couldn't be found again. Oh well.

We waited almost two hours for AAA to arrive and tow the Renault into South Bend, Indiana, where it ended up behind a full-service Phillips 66 station. Unfortunately, the car couldn't be looked at until the following day. We couldn't wait that long. The Taurus was used to make a trip to the local AutoZone, where we discovered (not surprisingly) that they didn't carry distributor caps for 1984 Renaults. Things weren't looking good. Having wasted too much time sitting around already, it seemed as though we would have to leave the Renault behind and pick it up from South Bend after the rally. Desmond went to ask the Phillips 66 employees if it could be left there, while I went back to look at the car one last time.

That's when inspiration struck. While fiddling with a wood screw to see if it could replace the now-missing pin, I pulled it out only to pull the spring with it. Sitting inside of the spring was a little broken piece of metal. So that's what happened! We had previously thought that the pin sorta rested in its place, but now we knew that it had truly broken, and we knew without a doubt that the pin was what had caused the problem to begin with. Tim Hansen, being in charge of our convoy as a whole, gave us one hour to fix the car. We rushed back to the AutoZone to see if any other stores nearby carried the cap. When we discovered that they didn't, we went searching for a set of "correct"-sized screws to rig up a solution.

Suddenly, we were approached by a chubby older guy with a loud, boisterous demeanor. Turned out he was a hot-rodder who owned an old Chevrolet pickup with a 750 horsepower V8 in it. He asked what we were looking for, and we told him our story. He replied,
"Oh, you guys are lookin' fer the floater pin! I work in the carbon industry, and they make 'em out of carbon these days. Lots've manufacturers use floater pins. In fact, with that AMC Renault there you could probably use a Chrysler cap."
He told his daughter at the counter that he'd be looking for the part, so he went back to the stock shelves and grabbed a distributor cap for a Mopar V8 while Desmond ran back to the Renault to grab its distributor cap. After comparing the two, the pin seemed to be the right size. We bought the Chrysler cap, removed the pin and spring, and put it into the Renault cap. It fit!

We thanked the hot-rodder endlessly and ran back to the Renault to put it all together. After yet another push-start, the Renault sputtered to life once again. Many cheers were had, but not for long. We had to get back on the road and get moving again. It was already getting dark.

Sometime in the middle of the night we met back up with Miles Fox, his girlfriend, and his Toyota Chinook camper -- who had left ahead of us the night before -- and continued on into Ohio. Around 2:00am the rear-left tire on the Renault blew out at 70mph, filling the cabin with smoke. No worries, we had a spare. A rather rotten-looking one, but a working spare nonetheless. We kept going until we reached a town south of Cleveland where we were meeting up with a couple more cars. They were asleep, and going to wake up at 6:30am. We pulled into town at 3:30am, parked in a well-lit parking lot, and tried to sleep in our cars. It was hard, but better than nothing.

We waited for both our friends and the sun to rise.
 
Day 2
(Rally in 1 Day)
I awoke to the news that our friends were offering their shower for our use. Ironically, their apartment was located just behind the store we parked at. We drove over there and took advantage of their generous offer. At around 8:30am we took to the road together -- with an AMC Gremlin and old Chevrolet Caprice on board -- but eventually got lost and split up into smaller groups, partially due to a pit-stop at a rest area that took longer than some would have liked.

Somewhere in western Pennsylvania our own personal convoy was completely reunited, but our Gremlin and Caprice friends were long gone. So much for meeting up with them. Aside from switching drivers when half of us were falling asleep at the wheel, grabbing food/gas, and enjoying the beautiful scenery as we entered the Appalachian mountains, nothing else really happened until we reached New Jersey. That's when our bad luck from yesterday returned.

Fortunately for Desmond and I, the Renault already had its turn. This time it was Fox's camper, which was having its own spark issues, sometimes losing power and sometimes getting it back. We stopped several times before discovering that his alternator belt was too loose to do much good. Fox made a half-assed attempt at tightening it and we were off again...at least, half of us.

It turned out that the Taurus' idler pulley went out, throwing the alternator belt with it. The Camry turned around and went back to help, but the limo, camper, and Renault all continued on, oblivious to what had happened. We sat for about an hour at an exit down the road before finally making cell-phone contact with the downed part of the crew. Deciding to press on to the hotel on Staten Island in New York, we were about to take off when the camper's alternator problem kicked in again. We spent maybe another half-hour fussing with it before really hitting the road.

By the time we reached New York it was getting dark, and after making two wrong turns and getting lost, it was dark when we crossed onto Staten Island. We pulled into the hotel parking lot around 10:00pm, welcomed by the cheers of the BABE Rally participants who had already arrived. Desmond, Jared and I all registered, then stood around and chatted with the other ralliers for a while before going to bed.

It wasn't until early morning that our other comrades joined us. Unable to find the parts they needed for the Taurus, they all piled into the Camry, taking a quick tour of Manhattan before joining us at the hotel.
 
Day 3
Rally Day 1

Today's Challenges:
1. Buy as many different items as possible at a Staten Island K-Mart using a provided $1 bill.
2. Take photographs of very specific signs along the day's official route (e.g. certain mile markers) -- hints are given via small and/or blacked-out snippets of the photos you should be replicating.

The first day of the rally. With the Renault still plain-looking, Desmond and I had planned on sprucing it up a bit -- especially having seen the artistic creations that had filled the Staten Island Hotel parking lot -- but we ended up spending our morning helping our comrades get ready and making sure they had a car to ride in. You see, Tim Hansen had actually brought the Cadillac limo and Frankensteined Camry wagon along to provide to two teams from the UK, and with the Taurus down that left only Fox's camper and the Renault. When all was said and done the Renault ended up spending the day carrying four people (Desmond and myself, along with a guy named Dannon and a girl named Margaret -- Jared rode in the camper) and more than a trunkload of stuff. We wuz lowridin', dawg. :lol:

The rally itself started at 9:30am sharp, all the cars (over 50 of them) leaving the parking lot one by one with challenge packets in hand. Everyone was making left-hand turns out of there, and it was only after we read the packet that we found out why. Off to K-Mart!

The K-Mart challenge had a cut-off time of 10:00am (verified by the required receipt), so we had to hurry. Not much vehicular racing was involved, because the K-Mart was just down the street, but everyone was running to the front door of the store. We immediately began scrambling for small, cheap items, but weren't having much luck until we thought to look near the checkout isles. There we found a packet of Listerine strips on sale for $0.10, a pair of underwear that another team left behind on sale for $0.25, and a package of Ramen noodles for $0.20. Margaret also found female underwear on sale for $0.25, and we put $0.05 on a K-Mart gift card. Five items for less than $1 didn't seem too bad, so we took it and moved on to the next challenge.

The photo challenge was very hard. The locations could be anywhere along the route, which happened to go from Staten Island in New York to Harrisonburg, Virginia, and there was very little to distinguish the signs from any others. We did our best but only managed 4 photos out of 14. Not only that, but there were only two that we missed due to not having the camera ready in time.

The rally officials provided everyone with FRS radios (even though our convoy itself was already using several), so along the way we hooked up with a handful of cars. Even then, we lost some and gained some, and by the time we were close to our destination in Virginia, we were left with Team BABE Patrol's Subaru and no one else (we met up with the Baked Potato Plymouth way back in New York but lost them at a Delaware toll station (first clip)).

In any case, we all agreed to take the route listed as "optional" in the BABE Rally handbook, and made a detour off the freeway in the direction of the Skyline Drive. The entrance fee ($15) put us off at first, but in the end it was worth it, not only because of the beautiful drive, but also because we found about 7 other BABE ralliers at the first scenic overlook! We stopped for a while and chatted before taking to the drive as one big group. At least, we were one big group until the Subaru Outback at the front of the pack left the rest of us behind. That's okay, though, because we got a good laugh when we eventually saw them again. The look on the ranger's face is priceless.

Unfortunately, after passing the Subaru we picked up our own county mounty. We took it slow for a few miles, but the ranger stayed with us. Eventually we pulled off at a scenic overlook, and the ranger followed. We were relieved when we found out he just wanted to know what the rally was all about! He was a bit of a car enthusiast and told us the Bull Run had passed through not too long ago, with plenty of speeding tickets. He admired our cars for a few minutes while chatting with us, and then went back the other way on the drive. We continued on our way, at a somewhat illegal but much better pace.

With four people in the car and lots of luggage, the Renault struggled a bit making it up the many inclines, but the worse problem were our front brake pads, which only got noiser and noiser as we went along. By the time we were done with the Skyline Drive, we were down to metal-on-metal. Not a great feeling on twisty mountain roads, especially when you're many miles from the nearest entrance/exit, but it was still fun. (the drive -- we entered at Front Royal and drove to mile marker 65)

We sputtered into Harrisonburg relatively early, but this was no time for relaxing. This was a time to get things done. Desmond and I let our passengers out and then hopped right back into the car, zipping over to Walmart to get our flat-spotted tire replaced with the one we brought, and then over to an Advance Auto Parts store across town to get some brake pads. Predictably, they didn't carry 1984 Renault brake pads, but they could order them and have them in at 9:00am the next morning! The rally started at 10:00am, so we considered that to be very good luck. Desmond also bought spark plugs and fuel injector cleaner to reward the car for doing so well so far. Things finally seemed to be looking excellent for the Renault. We even gave it a "paint" job using colored tape.

It rode great, ran great, would be braking great the next day, and now looked great. Yep, the Renault couldn't be better. Or so we thought.
 
Day 4
Rally Day 2

Today's Challenges:
1. Dress up as Elvis for the day, and take photographs of yourself with at least 10 different groups of 3 or more people, at different locations.
2. Learn the chorus to an Elvis song and sing it as a group for the rally judges/organizers at the hotel in Asheville, North Carolina.

Right away things could have been better. Not knowing how to replace brake pads, I left that part of the morning's preparations to Desmond. Unfortunately, when I got up and went out to the car, I discovered that although he had gotten the new pads onto the right front brake without a problem, the left front brake caliper had seized and wouldn't retract enough to let the new pads in. We fussed with it for about half an hour until the rally started, at which point we put the old pads (still little more than metal) back on and ran the car with only the front-right pads replaced. Not the best situation to be in, but we knew we could count on the right front pads in a pinch. We just had to worry about the grooves we'd be making on the front left disc.

Surprisingly, it wasn't long before we caught up to other ralliers, but we didn't convoy for long because of the nature of the challenge. Asking a few random strangers to pose for a photo with one team isn't too hard. Asking a few random strangers to pose for maybe a few photos with a mob of Elvis-wannabes is a bit harder.

Speaking of Elvis-wannabes, I'm not sure you could even call our team (still consisting of Desmond, Dannon and myself, with Jared and Margaret elsewhere) Elvis-wannabes. We looked more like a French racing team with our plain white jumpsuits, red ascot-like ties, and dressed-up Renault. Our comrades didn't fare much better, working with the same materials (the jumpsuits and tie-things). Either way, though, we got some pretty amusing photos.

In any case, my highlight of the day was the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was absolutely phenomenal. We picked up a couple other BABE Rally cars, including an old Mercedes-Benz diesel and a Mark VII Lincoln LSC, and stuck with them for pretty much the entire way -- all 170 miles or so (from beyond the top of the map to Asheville). They weren't afraid of a little speed, so we were positively flying through the parkway, taking it easy on our front-right brake by using the brakes as little as possible, if you know what I mean. The higher speeds also helped keep us in the Renault's powerband, which actually allowed it to accelerate up hills every now and then. Let me tell you first-hand -- altitude is the enemy of a 23-year-old 1.4L naturally-aspirated Renault carrying three people and a trunk full of stuff up a mountain.

The road and turns were loads of fun, the views were breathtaking, and the radio conversations with our convoymates provided endless laughs. This day was probably my favorite out of the whole week. After we arrived at the hotel, we sang our Elvis tune and then jumped into the pool in costume. After the pool closed, we partied with other ralliers outside. It was a great night.
 

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