Steven and I got invited to go to Maine for the New England Forest Rally July 13th-18th with the Rally for the Troops team. I personally, have never been to Maine and the furthest North I have been is to New York. I was excited for this journey, minus the excruciating 17 hour drive.
It took Steven and I basically the entire 17 hours (give or take) to make it up to Maine. We left first thing in the morning at 4AM to start the trip and ended up arriving in Newry, Maine around 10:30PM. We arrived at the airbnb and got settled into our room while we waited for the guys to come back from the RV. The airbnb was awesome! It was at a ski rental that I believe people own as condos. Ours had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The first bathroom was by the main entrance and then leads into the first bedroom which comes with two bunk beds (sleeps 4). Then onto the living room/dining room/kitchen area. Then you make your way to the rest of the airbnb to the second bedroom which has two full size beds and a futon. Then the remaining bedroom with the queen sized bed was our room. Each room came with AC units, so you know we turned that thing to the lowest setting. “Ice ice baby!”. Then the second bathroom was just off our bedroom, along with another entrance into the airbnb. I unfortunately did not take any photos of the airbnb, just a video tour that was posted on Instagram. Sorry!
Thursday morning we got up and started prepping the rally car. We also had to head over to tech so they could make sure it would pass and be ready for the race on Friday.
Steven had quite the list to tackle before we went to tech and before the race the following morning, which included:
- Installing the co-drivers seat
- Adjusting the harness
- Painting the team dynamics wheels
- Applying the stickers
- Making sure all of the driver/co-driver gear was in the vehicle
We headed over to tech and got our favorite tech guy. There are a couple of things we need to address, like a new skid plate for the gas tank and making sure the fire suppressant system tag is visible. Not terrible fixes, just a bit pricey for a new gas tank skid plate.
Friday morning we made our way over to the Sunday River Resort to set up service and do parc expose. Parc expose is where all of the drivers/co-drivers bring the rally cars out and mingle with spectators and other drivers/co-drivers. It’s awesome to see so many cars in one spot.
Friday they had, I believe, one stage to do and that was it for the day. The majority of the race took place on Saturday.
What was awesome about being at the New England Forest Rally and being in Maine is that not only were we somewhere new but we also got to announce the new partnership for the rally car. We are now partnering with Black Rifle Coffee Company and this event was our debut of the rally car and the new livery.
Tony, our rally driver and owner of the Rally for the Troops rally car pictured, also got to be interviewed by the Black Rifle media team at the event.
The first day went great! No issues with the car at all. It honestly was probably one of our more relaxed rallies as we weren’t all running around like maniacs the entire time. Though the one downfall of the day was that John Lawson and myself were supposed to meet up with some folks to head out to the stage and be able to get some media but we weren’t sure who we were supposed to meet up with. We ended up spending our time documenting the service area.
Our day ended with a not-so-amazing dinner at one of the restaurants down the lot from service. I ended up getting fish and chips because I figured it was a safe bet. Well, I guess I didn’t realize that Haddock is thin fish, so when it came out it was thin and way over cooked. It was expensive as well. The kicker of this restaurant was that they barely had any type of beverages besides alcohol and mixers. No tea because I guess Northerners don’t drink tea? Weird. So I just got water. Then we all headed back to the airbnb to relax. I didn’t get much relaxing in because I was also having to do remote work for my 9-5 job. So I popped on the laptop and got a few estimates finished up and sent, emailed a few customers back and then ended up heading to bed.
The next morning we had to get to the first service area and pack up everything to head to the new service area which was in a different town. This second service area was in a grass lot and they gave us plenty of room to park the RV and the trailer. Down the street was a really cool gas station/shop that we ended up going to later that afternoon to pick up food for everyone.
John and I had a game plan that we weren’t going to sit at service this go around and miss out on getting some awesome action photos. So we packed up some drinks, snacks and our gear and headed out to find the spectator areas. Boy did that not go as planned. We drove up and down the street trying to find one but it was closed because we took too long to make it out there. So we figured we’d head to the next spot. We did the same thing again, drove up and down the road numerous times trying to find where we were supposed to go. Pulled off the road, looked at maps, started driving, pulled off the road again. Rinse, wash and repeat. We found one spot where all of the rally cars were lined up ready to start, so we stopped and watched them for a bit and then headed out again to try to find where we were supposed to be. We had no luck but we ended up seeing one car go down the road we were on, so we stopped and waited for each car to come by and grabbed rolling shots.
It was quite awhile of waiting before Tony and Steven drove past, so I’ll include a couple extra photos I got.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about picking wild blueberries. I just wasn’t sure if wild blueberries are the same as what’s grown out on farms. I know that’s probably a dumb thought but I did think about picking some while we were waiting for the cars to roll by because the bush that I was next to was pretty plentiful.
After all of the cars made it past, we hopped back into the rental Rav4 and headed back to service to snap some shots of the guys servicing the vehicle. That’s when we met some locals that were out spectating and they told us that they would direct us to the last spectator location so we could get our action photos.
While the guys were servicing the vehicle, a lady with a heap of children walked up and got Tony to sign their shirts. They had been stopping by each service area to get all of the driver’s and co-drivers to sign their shirts.
Once the guys were ready to head back out, we loaded up again and followed Adam and his wife out to the last stage. We waited what seemed like forever before they started the stage and released the cars to go. Then it was a waiting game till Tony drove past. The location wasn’t the most ideal as there were no cool turns or jumps, just a straight away but at least we were able to get our action shots.
Overall the rally was a great experience. We really enjoyed seeing the beautiful landscape that Maine has to offer. There were a lot of amazing spots to do portraits and if we had more time for the visit, we would have likely went out exploring but seeing as how we all had to be back at work on Monday (well Steven and I had Monday off just in case we got home late), we couldn’t stay and hang out longer.
Sunday we packed up everything and got in our rental Corolla and headed back to North Carolina with our friend Steven in tow. He didn’t want to sit in the RV and endure another long, slow drive home. We ended up taking a quicker route and with three of us alternating driving, we made it home around 1AM Monday morning. Talk about being exhausted. I’m glad we had Monday off so we could relax and get some extra sleep in. I also forgot to mention one thing that happened during our trip. While we were out looking for the fuel service area on day two, I ended up getting stung by a yellow jacket. Steven (not hubby) had the windows cracked and as we were pulled off the road to figure out where we needed to go, a yellow jacket flew in and stung me on the inside of my left arm. I screamed because it hurt really bad and Steven (hubby) was able to stomp it to death after having hit it with his phone. I still think I took one for the team because Steven is highly allergic and we didn’t have an EPI pen on us. I did kind of go into panic mode though because I haven’t been stung by anything before and I was nervous that I would have a reaction like my dad has when he gets stung by bees, but I got lucky and didn’t. The area around the sting spot puffed up a little and then spread out. It ended up being bruised for about a week. The mark is mostly gone now but you can still slightly see it.
That concludes our trip to the New England Forest Rally in Maine. Hope you all enjoy this entry!
-Katie
The Ramblings of Kaytee 