LandRonB Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 What place in Northern California has Cows, Ten Thousand Buddhas, Trouts, Ale House and Rally Racing all in one place? Pic 1 - Answer: Cow Mountain State Vehicle Recreational Area Pic 2 - Actually my drive up to Mill Creek Road to Cow Mountain yield not a single sighting of cattle or one cow. I did have a great breakfast burrito w/ground beef which I hope contained real beef (smile). Pic 3 - Cow Mountain is in Ukiah; about 2 to 2 1/2 hours away from the San Francisco Bay Area via Hwy 101. Destination this wknd Aug 3rd & 4th is to the Annual Mendocino Rally. Jim Robison, the race Director, invited our club to help with Communications (lead by the local Ham club in the area). Hope to see more NCLR club members participate next year (both ham and non-ham volunteer workers are needed). Tom Owen, Chuck and Tyler (the crawlers) and I represented NCLR and attended this year's rally; great experience watching the rally stone throw away as the cars passed by our station, exercise best practice with ham radios, and vehicle recovery (Chuck and Tom can tell you all about that). Pic 4 & 5 - Oh here's the Ten Thousand Buddhas - buddhist temple. Again, not a single sighting of monks. Pic 6 - Trout fishing anyone. Maybe next time. Pic 7 - And Yes, there's the Mendocino Ale House. Ok, not exactly in Cow Mountain but close enough. Rumors say that this is the first brew pub since the prohibition. Hmmmm... and then you look at the sign outside "since 1983". Pic 8 - Nevertheless, still a good pub. Kingfisher Premium Lager is my favorite. Pic 9 - Ok back on topic: Rally Racing, and Land Rover Support Picture story continues... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandRonB Posted August 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Pic 10 - I was stationed in Block 6. Love the location. Up high where I can see all the cars. Chuck is on 16 and Tom on 21. Communication is managed by "Net Control" and can communicate even miles away via Ham Radio. Awesome! Our job as station operator is to report back to Net Control via ham as ea vehicle pass by, and record the time. Very dirty job but someone has to do it. Lol. Pic 11 - And had the condo setup to keep the hot sun out, cooler handy and comfy chair. Pic 12 - There's my desk. Glad to do this kind of desk job anytime. Two cups of coffee to start the morning, amped up and ready to go (double smile)... Pic 13 - There's volunteer car 0 doing a test run on the course. Making sure all clear. After the test cars go thru, track becomes active or hot. Everyone stay clear of the course - ready for the competitors. Pic 14 - There goes the 1st car to start - car 31 in a VW Golf. Driver and co-pilot: Michel Hoche-Mong and Jimmy Brandt Pic 15 - There goes car 409 in Subaru Impreza. Very clean (using 409 maybe) but not too long. Many more passed. Pic 16 - And here comes car 337 also in VW Golf taking the corner really fast. Pic 17 - Too bad. Car 337 rolled over. Thank goodness nobody got hurt except pride. Tow vehicle and support vehicle towing car 337 back to the start. Later, Tom, Chuck & Tyler will be involved in a complex recovery of another roll-over. Picture story continues... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandRonB Posted August 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Pic 18 - the race has several stages. Ea stage last for about 30-45 mins till all the competitors are finished or towed away to safety. Very cool to see EMT (checking for any medical emergencies) sweep, fast sweep and heavy (picking up lost tires) sweep to go thru after ea race. And then starts again with car 0 and 00 checking the course for readiness, and then the track is active or hot again; stay clear; ready for the next stage race. Here goes car 117 in a Honda Civic during the next stage. Pic 19 - Car 117 seems to have taken the turn pretty quickly; the rear got left behind a bit (lol). Front wheel drive for you! Pic 20 - Car 34 is a Ford Ranger truck. Odd one but nice to see in the mix. Pic 21 - Car 124 is another Subaru Impreza Pic 22 - I like car 135 in a Susuki Swift GTI. Great to hear these 4 banger screaming engine coming down the mountain Pic 23 - And amazing lil car 802 in a 3 cylinder Geo Metro Pic 24 - And car 872 in VW GTI Continue... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandRonB Posted August 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Pic - towards the end of the day, I put away the tent condo; tent kept me cool early in the day w/hot sun and min the dust, but when it got cooler later - no need. Liked the strong wind during the day; helped clear the dust clouds as ea rally car passed much quicker. Later in the day, the wind died down. And the dust stayed up the air longer w/no wind to help move it along. Very dusty - volunteers were provided dust mask, but not very good dust mask. Ended up running inside the DII when the dust got really bad, but otherwise tolerable. My ham radio equipment consisted of a solar power for the transceiver. Had the volume up so I can hear communication even inside the vehicle. And I used my HT connected to a magnetic mount roof top antenna while inside the car; allowed me to respond to Net Control and also min the dust I collected for souvenir (smile). Now Tom and Chuck and share their pictures and talk about vehicle recovery. Hope to see you more NCLR club members next year! Aug - put in your calendars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandRonB Posted August 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Here's the 2012 Land Rover Rally Support Team: besides me; Tom, Chuck and lil Tyler after the rally; they stayed later helping recover one of the rally vehicles that went in the ditch, and chilin @ the Ale House. Tyler enjoyed a cold glass of lemonade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desertcrawler Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Good overall day. I'm waiting for Tom to post up the pictures but here are my highlights without them. 1)Nice night of camping at the "Top of the World" with the park all to ourselves -- no late night revelry just a great campfire and star show 2)Spending the morning at Block 16 under the pop up tent, practicing Net Control protocols with the HAM and playing around with our RC cars. 3)Getting dusted as the rally cars run by, and listening to the race reports to see who is doing well and who has lost a tire or gone off the road. 4)Listening to the station just below us report a "car off the road" and then once the stage was over taking a mad dash with Photographer Tom to get pictures of the car over the cliff. 5)Watching a car go by our station, then hearing a "bang" and no more dust. Reporting car out of order, then after the stage helping them turn the car over back on it's wheels to be towed back to the start line. Again, time for Photographer Tom. 6)Packing up at the end of a long day, then helping do a complex, three -line recovery to get the rally car that was over the cliff back on the road. Realizing that off-roaders are a lot more used to advanced recovery than rally car people. Making it to the celebration dinner in time for two tacos and a ceveza before heading home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomOwen Posted August 9, 2012 Report Share Posted August 9, 2012 MendoUpdate #3 Great time in Mendocino and a lot was learned by your recon team of Chuck, Ron and Tom. I was initially assigned a HAM position, then photographer, then HAM and back to Photographer of the Rallycross event... which got cancelled... So, the combination of the two disciplines and equipment ultimately gave me the ability to be move around the course when it was not "Hot". So, to Chuck's point, when a car went off the road, we "volunteered" via HAM to photograph the incident ;-) The camping facility is on the top of the mountain and beautiful! Next year we will come better prepared to stay on the mountain and go directly to our assigned post in the am (vs. back to Ukiah for another orientation) Also, Buddy system is a good thing. HAM posts (which only need one person to man the radio) are best with two people. One, someone to watch/write etc... but mainly for company. There is a fair bit of down-time between stages and unless you brought your lazy-boy, AC, Screened condo, flat screen, etc... like Ron did, a little company is a good thing. And/Or, a bevy of high-speed, 4x4, rock crawling, remote control trucks to play with ...right Tyler? The race ends in the eve and then the recovery(ies) begin. which got us off the mountain in the dark/dust. Planning to camp/stay the next night and head back out to wheel the trails for a bit on Sunday would be a nice way to cap off the weekend... something to plan for next year. My NCLR relevant photos are Here and the full Mendocino Rally images are Here Looking forward to seeing a great turnout next year!! Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerDan Posted August 28, 2012 Report Share Posted August 28, 2012 I would have been there as well since Cow Mtn. is practically my backyard, the Scott's Creek staging area on the Lake county side being 15 minutes from my house, but couldn't really consider it as I had a previous engagement in Washington. Also, a lot of the local Hams from Lake county, many of whom I know, were up there helping out communications. However, now that some of you are a little more acquainted with Cow Mtn, maybe we could plan another trip up there in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandRonB Posted August 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2012 Excellent TigerDan - good excuse to head out to Cow Mtn for one of the MORGs. If not, next year for the August Mendo Rally 2013, let's see if we plan ahead and gather enough people to attend. Tom, Chuck and I would like to do it again and hopefully more people attend. Excellent if you are in that next August TigerDan. Ea could man a station (aka Block) and have a Block party (lol). Have a best Block Station setup contest all sell contained w/margator (chuck said he would bring his). After the race, and camp over night and wheel all day Sunday. Make a wknd out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerDan Posted August 29, 2012 Report Share Posted August 29, 2012 Unfortunately it looks like my August commitment will be an ongoing thing. The Seadogs perform at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Festival the first three weekends of August and it looks like we'll continue to do so for a while yet. It's fun, but it sure eats up the month of August for me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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