11 Jul Climb to the Clouds – Team O’Neil Rally Review

Drivers Dave Wallingford and Tim O’Neil had two very different weekends at Mt. Washington.

Originally written for American Rally Association here.

Gorham, NH (July 11, 2017)

Tim’ O’Neil is a living legend at Climb to the Clouds. The President of the American Rally Association set the overall record at Mt. Washington in 1990 while driving an AWD Rallye Volkswagen Golf. Since then, O’Neil has returned Mt. Washington several times, most recently in 2014 where he drove an EVSR electric spec racecar to the summit in 7 minutes 29 seconds. For 2017, O’Neil decided to return to the mountain in a rally car, a freshly minted Focus RS.

“I’m excited, that’s my favorite topic actually, talking about the Focus RS,” said O’Neil, “it makes you feel like a teenager, even old men feel like teenagers.”

Normally at hillclimb events a single driver occupies a single vehicle. It’s up to the driver to memorize the road as best they can and drive as quickly as possible come race day. This is how O’Neill typically approaches Mt. Washington. The exception to that rule are the Rally 1 and Rally 2 classes at Climb to the Clouds. Rally 1 and Rally 2 allow co-drivers to read pace notes. Entries in the rally class are still scored by hillclimb rules, they effectively trade the extra weight of a co-driver for more detailed knowledge of the road.

Filling the co-driver role for O’Neil would be ARA Vice President Chris Cyr in his first event sitting shotgun in a rally car. Cyr earned the nickname “flame on” after his Fiesta caught fire at last month’s Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally. “It made coming up to Mt. Washington even more scary, I think,” said Cyr, “I got to see a little bit more of what ‘worst case scenario’ racing looks like.”

The pair worked hard to get Chris up to speed on pace notes. O’Neil and Cyr invested a large amount of time before the event studying the road, driving it during public hours and reviewing footage of past runs. Even with the preparation, Cyr found himself losing his place in the notes during Friday’s practice sessions on the upper half of the mountain.

Despite the initial hiccups, Cyr got the hang of co-driving after a few more practice sessions. He and O’Neil took to Mt. Washington on Sunday confident in a strong performance, and they made it happen. The pair finished second in class, just behind Canadian Rally driver Simon Vincent.

“To have Tim be a driver and it be my first time co-driving was an amazing experience, “said Cyr, “we got to get out of the office, get away from business, and had a chance to really focus on one thing together – work together. It was really an amazing experience.”

In addition to the strong finish, O’Neil had one extra bit of good news. He set a new personal best up Mt. Washington – 7:20.75s.

“It was really fun for Chris and I,” said O’Neil, “we had a really good time working together. He made a few mistakes, I made a few mistakes, but overall we’re here and we’re happy we did it. I think it made us both better people.”

Savage Dave Wallingford and Ryan Scott had a promising start to the weekend. The two set competitive times on Friday’s upper mountain practice sessions and were expecting a tight battle for first in class.

That all changed on Saturday. During the day’s second practice session on the lower half of Mt. Washington Wallingford and Scott rolled in front of the crowd at the Signal Corps spectator area.

The pair suffered from whats known as a traction roll, a situation where too much grip in the rear affects the weight transfer of a car entering a corner. The car effectively trips over itself; sending it up on two wheels and, in extreme cases, causing the type of roll seen on Saturday.

“Had this been a gravel rally, I just would’ve gotten a little sideways through the corner and all would’ve been well. But tarmac is still a new thing to me and we just had way more grip than I expected.”

Fortunately, Wallingford and Scott were unhurt and spent the rest of the practice session entertaining fans in the spectator area. The two were in high spirits and took to joking.

“The wind blew us over,” said Scott.

But that wasn’t the end of Savage Dave’s Climb to the Clouds. He and Scott drove an hour away to the Team O’Neil Rally School and borrowed an older R2 driver instruction car. Downgrading to an NA 1.6L motor put Wallingford and Scott at a power disadvantage in their class. Undeterred, Wallingford and Scott took to the full, 7.4 mile course, on Sunday and finished the day fourth in the ARA sponsored Rally 2 class.

“Made it up twice today,” said Wallingford,” new to me car, drove it for the first time this morning on the first run up. That’s when I got to know the car a little bit. Definitely, down on power from the car I was driving earlier in the week, but I made it up. I’m just happy I did that.”

Photo Credit: Alex Wong (Top, 2, 4), Matt Kalish (1, 3)

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