{"id":74,"date":"2007-06-07T10:04:25","date_gmt":"2007-06-07T15:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jimmypribble.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/harris-hill-road-rally-practice\/"},"modified":"2020-02-18T22:22:17","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T03:22:17","slug":"harris-hill-road-rally-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimmypribble.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/harris-hill-road-rally-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Harris Hill Road Rally Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

James Bufkin and I took our rally cars to Harris Hill Road<\/a> last Saturday to do some testing and practice before the RallyCross on June 17th. Someday, Harris Hill will be a paved road course, but currently it is just a faint trail cut through a ranch near San Marcos, Texas. In other words, perfect for rally cars!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\t\n\t\tHarris Hill Road<\/span>\n\t<\/span>\n<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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After a brief, 40 minute drive, we arrived at the track. As soon as we unloaded James’ car from the trailer, he and Corbett jumped-in and took off. Ken and I scrambled to get strapped into my car and we took-off in pursuit. Except for a few areas, the track was almost completely overgrown. My poor car was having a terrible time. Even though we had raised the car as high as possible, the suspension was designed for smooth tarmac, not rough off-roading. The suspension was bottoming out and<\/em> topping out as we would go over bumps. Also, the thick overgrowth in the middle of the track was really doing a number on my front bumper cover, threatening to pull it off at any moment. After a single lap, we decided that continuing would most likely result in potentially grave financial unpleasantness, so we parked the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ken suggested that the cattle guard on the front of the F250 might do a good job of mowing down the overgrowth and after a few laps in the truck, we might be able to try again with the car. We unhitched the trailer and jumped-in. Ken began putting his helmet on. I thought that was a little unnecessary, but I did the same, thinking that it was to get a laugh out of James and Corbett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ken\u00c2\u00a0slid the truck through\u00c2\u00a0some heavy underbrush,\u00c2\u00a0got\u00c2\u00a0it straightened out, and gave it a full head of steam up the big hill. We hit a bump near the top of the hill going about 50 mph. The truck\u00c2\u00a0jumped the bump, immediately hit an even bigger bump and we were catapulted\u00c2\u00a0through the air! I don’t know exactly how much air we got, but I thought we were going to go into orbit. I couldn’t believe we had got a huge F250 diesel that far off the ground. The truck came down and landed nose first on the cattle guard.\u00c2\u00a0My head snapped forward and I immediately felt a pain in my neck. Unfortunately, the truck continued to bounce around\u00c2\u00a0in a series of other minor crashes, before Ken could get it stopped. I was bouncing all over the truck. I had\u00c2\u00a0completely come out of my seat and hit my head on the roof, even though I had my seat belt on. Luckily, I was wearing\u00c2\u00a0my helmet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the photo above, Ken is looking back down the hill. The two bumps can be seen down the track and Ken is standing at the divot left by the truck’s cattle guard. We walked it off and it turns out we jumped the truck 39 feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ken felt terrible and we tried to stay serious about the incident, but after awhile, we started talking about it and we began laughing uncontrollably. We laughed so hard that we were crying. It was just a huge release of emotion over what we had done. It was awesome. Too bad you have to almost kill yourself to get a good laugh like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Me taking a turn in Bufkin’s Quattro<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the day we spent taking turns driving James’ car. Ken drove me around for awhile and then Corbett and I took our turns. Corbett drove first and ran three or four laps, then we switched places and I got another four or five laps. The car was fantastic. It could use a little more spring rate to keep from bottoming out in dips where I would have liked to have been flat-out, but otherwise, the car handled beautifully and was very quick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a quick video of me doing a flyby. I try to run over Ken as payback for breaking my neck earlier in the day (3.36 MB):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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