Sideline Stories: John Cassidy, Driver, New England Forest Rally
It’s quiet in the Maine woods and you’re standing on the side of a dirt road.
You’ve been looking for the best vantage point to witness the upcoming spectacle you drove hours to see. You’re surrounded by like-minded fans. They most likely have automotive themed T-shirts on. Now dusty and damp. Subaru, Mitsubishi, Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Audi. All names that have storied histories in the sport of performance Rally.
You hear it long before you see it. The barking, popping and crescendo/decrescendo of mechanical strain. Then it explodes into view at a speed that boggles the mind. A full-on rally car.
It’s likely in some sort of impossible sideways predicament as the crew inside wrestles with the laws of physics and the mental calculations needed to keep themselves out of the scenery and ditches. If you’re in the area of a jump, you might see them launch the car 120 feet or more through the air, only to land and spew gravel as the crew sets up for the next corner. Flames from the tailpipe as unburnt race fuel is ignited by the anti-lag system are not uncommon.
You’re watching a performance rally. And it’s nuts.
Sometime in the mid to late 1990’s, I was watching the now defunct Speedvision channel. I had stumbled across a broadcast of the Maine Forest Rally and fellow Mainer Carl Merrill would go on to win the event.
From the comfort of my couch, I made the decision that I wanted to do whatever it was these seemingly half-bubble-off-center folks were doing. Oddly, the fact that I had never been involved in any type of motorsport didn’t dampen my unfounded enthusiasm.
What they were doing was rally racing, a motorsport discipline that involves driving as fast as you can down a closed section of public/private road. These sections are known as Special Stages. In between the Special Stages are Transits, where rally cars go either to another Special Stage or to the Service Area to fix what they just broke. Events usually span 2-3 days and can cover over 200 miles of combined Special Stages and Transits. Did I mention that we do this in all seasons and weather conditions?!
The New England Forest Rally (once known as the Maine Forest Rally) has been based around the Bethel/Rumford area since it began. It now includes some brief forays into New Hampshire.
A team consists of a Driver (that’s me) and a Co-Driver (my son) who reads a description of the Special Stage that we write in advance. This allows us to go faster, knowing in advance (hopefully) what’s over the next crest in the road or around the next corner. There is also a service crew, consisting of anywhere from two-to-several members. They are the muscle behind the sport. Fixing and cobbling what we’ve broken so that we can get back out and finish the event.
Rally is a unique motorsport discipline in that we never race the same corner twice, leading to the phrase, “a thousand turns once.” Managing a car at speed down a dirt road at the highest speed you’re capable of is a rush that is unequalled. To do it successfully requires experience, wisdom, mechanical sympathy and trust between the Driver and the Co-Driver. Processing tactile information from the car, visual information out the front and auditory information from the co-driver over the intercom efficiently is key to faster stage times.
Last Ditch Racing has been fortunate enough to have raced coast-to-coast in both the US and Canada, the Corona Rally Mexico WRC (World Rally Championship) event and the inaugural Targa Newfoundland event. With Camden native Dave Getchell in the Co-Driver seat, we secured Eastern Regional Open Class Championships in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011. We have competed in the Mt. Washington Climb to the Clouds event on three occasions, the oldest motorsport event in the United States.
I arrived at the start line of the 1999 Maine Forest Rally and had no idea what I didn’t know about the sport. In fact, we never made it to the start of the first special stage before the car broke down. I certainly had no idea I’d be racing over two decades later! Although the frequency of events has decreased, we still haven’t figured out how to stop. With a sport as unique as Rally, you don’t want to stop!
We hope that folks will join us at the New England Forest Rally next month. Please come by and introduce yourself and see our storied Subaru STi rally car, named T-4! Cheers!