No,
it’s not a typo…it’s the new team name Giant’s own Adam
Craig and Carl Decker have adopted for their ongoing rally
car racing effort.
And
speaking of effort, this past weekend Decker and Craig competed in their first
rally event* of the year. Held this past weekend (May 15-17) in and around
Portland, the Oregon Trail Rally included over 100 miles of hyper-fast gravel roads
combined with twisting, wooded runs. The lush, wet woods were riddled with
trees and ditches galore that provided constant worries for the drivers and
their co-drivers.
Competition began Friday with
opening stages at the Portland International Raceway. There, teams tackled a
mixed tarmac and dirt course before heading out to a challenging gravel course
near Hood River, Oregon, for the second and third days of the rally.
While a host of
full-factory-backed national-caliber racers were present (including
Giant-supported Travis Pastrana), the self-funded AC/CD team competed in the
‘regional’ category—with fathers Harvey Craig and Mike Decker
serving as the team’s support crew.
Not only was this the first
rally event for the two in 2009, but it was also the first for their newly
refurbished car, the Wheels of Teal (which received a fresh set of body panels
and white paint just 72 hours before the start of the event). In addition to
paint, the 1993 Subaru Impreza received a fresh STI engine and transmission
swap—a ‘winter’ project for the two full-time, professional
mountain bike racers. These upgrades bumped the car from its previous
‘2WD’ category to the prestigious ‘open’
class—the fastest category on the circuit.
With Carl driving and Adam
co-driving [responsible
for reading road notes to the driver to inform him of upcoming corners, jumps
and other road hazards] the
two worked as a team to win the overall regional event.
“We still have a lot of
work to do when it comes to communication,” Decker explained. “It
seemed like the notes that Adam was giving me were correct about 1/3 of the
time, not helpful about 1/3 of the time and totally wrong the other 1/3 of the
time. Because of that, when we were right, we were hauling ass. But when we were
confused or wrong, we nearly died a couple of times.”
And with a top speed of 115
mph on a particular stage on Saturday, AC/CD had plenty to risk. As if the
speed wasn’t enough of a danger, a high-pressure fuel leak had the two
jumping out of their car, fire extinguishers in hand, to combat the potential
firestorm that threatened to engulf their vehicle. While a fire never ignited,
the two worked together to fix the problem to get them back on the road.
“At that point, with
two inches of gas slogging around the floorboards, I thought we were out of the
rally for sure. I was mostly worried about the car catching fire, but it
didn’t and we were able to fix the fuel line and get back in the race
with just a bit of time lost. That was the best point of the weekend because we
really had to work as a team,” Decker explained.
At the end of Sunday’s
stage, AC/CD had cemented a 11.5-second lead over the next-closest competitor
and taken their first ever open class victory.
With the mountain bike race
season in full swing, Decker is unsure if the two will be able to again compete
in rally this year, but he’s confident that a summer of practicing will
help them the next time they take to competition in the Wheels of Teal.
*Rally car
racing is considered the extreme sport of automobile racing and is often
described simply as "real cars, real roads, real fast." This
all-season motorsport sees drivers and their co-drivers take modified road cars
to the limit as they achieve blistering speeds over courses that cover gravel,
dirt or snow-covered roads.