How A $500 Craigslist Car Beat $400K Rally Racers

[derf]

http://jalopnik.com/5497042/how-a-50...k-rally-racers

Yeh its from Jalopnik, I try not to link to stuff from there cuz so many people read it, but it is a really cool read.

Professional motorsport is a cold, hard place. If you want to run with the big dogs, you can't just build a car in your mom's garage and show up, right? Wrong. One guy did just that. Here's his amazing story.

This is the multifaceted tale of Bill Caswell, a man who bought a $500 crapcan off Craigslist to run against the $400,000+ rally cars in the World Rally Championship's Rally Mexico race earlier this month. It is a tale of a guy who had a welder, a bunch of credit cards, and a lot of free time but no real backing or funds. It is a story of a dude who taught himself how to build an FIA-legal roll cage, with no prior experience, because he wanted to spend the fabrication fee on race tires instead. It's the story of an enthusiast who drove a rustbucket to a third place finish in a FIA-sanctioned race.

Most of all, it is a story of hoonage.

Bill Caswell, an unemployed Chicago racing freak, entered the Mexico round of the World Rally Championship in a 1991 BMW 318i that he found on Craigslist. The car cost $500. One year ago, Caswell decided that he wanted to go rallying with Rally America. Two months later, he crashed a car and blew up an engine five minutes into his first event. Four events later, he found a loophole in the FIA rules that let him enter a twenty-year-old car in the same event as guys like Ken Block and former F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen.

WRC Corona Rally Mexico: Want To Build a Rally Car?

Full disclosure: Caswell is my friend. We have a long history of collaborating on stupid, pointless projects. Most of the time, we hang out in weird bars and at race tracks and talk about the cool things that I want to do but never find time for, the things that Bill actually goes and does. I am admittedly biased.

The story of Caswell's WRC entry is a story of weirdness: He entered the biggest motorsport event of his life with no crew; an untested, week-old E30 M3 engine swap and a junkyard transmission (don't ask); a car that was still covered in dirt from the previous season's rallies ("I'd wash it, but I gotta fix stuff instead"); and a rented panel van. His co-driver, a Rally America genius named Ben Slocum, had not spent more than five minutes in a car with him prior to the event. He did this not out of stupidity, but out of a lack of resources — he wanted to go rallying, and this was the only way he could make it happen.

Amazingly, they finished third in their class.

WRC Corona Rally Mexico: This Is Not A Normal Beginning

WRC Mexico took place two weeks ago. I wasn't able to attend, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I got a non-stop feed from Cas while he was there. I was originally going to write a story summing it all up, but the emails — Bill's wild-eyed, how-did-I-get-here updates from the road — proved to need no embellishment. Here they are. Enjoy.

(Note: This is a long one. If you do nothing else, watch the videos and read the bold sections. The emphasis/bold is mine, not Bill's.)

Part One: First, We Broke A Lot
The story got dumped into my inbox in fits and starts. This is the first thing I got after not hearing from him for a week:

I think I am in second. But I went off and ripped the drivers rear shock right out of the car. Might be able to weld it but service is like a half hour.
Yeah, that's reassuring. Huh?


It got crazier from there. I had no phone calls, no updates, just random emails. They got longer and more rambling as time went on. The video above — the rally's ceremonial night start, with thousands of people, a car turntable, and some strange live music in the background — was taken with Bill's phone. It showed up in my inbox without warning during the weekend.



Oh, yeah: The cops shut the highway and city streets down so we could get from city to city fast. Well let me tell you that hauling ass on rally tires with other rally cars while Mexican cops try to keep up with you is priceless. Not to mention the streets are just lined with people for over 20 miles. It was amazing. Got there too late to do reconnaissance and had to mooch stage notes from the Peruvian rally champion. Dude is cool but notes are in Spanish or something. So e's are rights and d's are lefts?
The FIA put a huge GPS device in the car. We stop for ten seconds without sending a "We are OK" message and they don't hear anything by the 30-second mark, we get a medivac helicopter on our asses and the stage is canceled. A radiator tube was leaking during tech inspection, and when I was messing with it, one of the officials noticed. I told him it was overflow and just water?

I once asked Bill why he insisted on going through every spectator section crossed up and with the engine banging off the limiter. "Dude," he said, "I don't care if it costs me a couple of tenths. It makes the fans go nuts."

Fuel pump seized with three stages left. I took it out, banged on it, borrowed a knife from a police officer and cut up some random cockpit harness to reverse the flow and banged on it until it worked again. But we were a few minutes late. We hauled ass and caught up. Was going to make the last two but got lost and was ejected for day. Oh well.

Have four hours to sleep, most sleep have had in a week. Car is perfect. Fuel pump fixed by the side of the road. Fixed rear sway bar. Changed to fresh tires. Fabricated new hood tie downs with a borrowed welder — had to borrow a larger generator to run it, too — b/c mine cracked off. Trans brace was held on with only one nut left and loose and halfway undone. Got lucky.
Also, after fixing fuel pump, we show up at the next stage late. The officials are like, "The fans think the stage is over, people are now walking down the stage, there are pickups in the middle of the road, you can't run it." I had to drive 15 mph, while being timed, through a stage we normally would have gone 100 mph through. If that wasn't enough, [redacted]ing Kimi Raikkonen launched his car off the side of the cliff. A flatbed wrecker was pulling his car out of a ditch and blocking the road. When the tow truck finally moved, we finished the stage.
Had to make up time and was later told I went by a cop with the car [redacted] in [redacted] and never lifted. Someone said the federales set up some sort of road block but we never saw any lights or anything. (Something tells us that there's more to this story. If you run into Bill at a rally or track event, buy him a beer and ask him for details-Ed.)




Part Two: Some Dude Mooned Us?
I'm in bad shape but b/c I was last into parc ferme the only room was with the million-dollar WRC cars. Parked the crapcan with Loeb, Hirvonen, the whole crew. I can only imagine what the other drivers where thinking when they strapped in: "WTF? I wasn't even born when that model came out." Another FIA guy came up and shook my hand and is coming back for my autograph. Seriously. He said he hasn't seen a rear wheel drive car in a top event or anything this insane in a while. And to see one competitive... I say "sort of." Still cool.
Unbelieveable. We had one stage where I jogged through some houses down a hill at 100 mph slipping sideways for maybe 100 yards. Awesome.
Time to go [redacted] up those Evo things. There's a Mitsu in second and third and a five-year-old WRC car in first. Those were the only cars that finished all stages yesterday. The roads are beyond punishing. Like doing 100 mph over dirt washboards.
Oh, I got mooned yesterday. A dude runs three feet into the road, turns around, drops his pants, and grabs ankles. WTF. It's in the video. So is Slocum yelling at me for giving a thumbs-up out the window to the photo guys and fans as I drive sideways into the corner with opposite lock. I thought it looked awesome.
More later.


This is the note that made my heart jump into my throat.

Just rocked the first stage of the day. Thirty kilometers of craziness. I came through this 70-80 mph section with thousands of people lining the roads. We come around a corner and there's a bridge that somehow got missed in the notes. But it's a flat piece of concrete like 15 feet wide and our trajectory is right off the side. Slocum says into the mic, "We're done," stops reading notes, and braces for impact. The river below has boulders the size of Volkswagens. Sand and gravel in corner, almost as if spectators filled it. Can't get to apex, four feet off, sliding way wide, exit of corner is entrance to bridge. I pitch the car and floor it. 35-45 mph. Half the car falls off the bridge. We are looking at daylight and I am full throttle hoping the left tire and diff can put the power down. We fell so far over the bridge it collapsed the inner leg of the trailing arm by an inch or two. Almost the entire right side of the car hanging in the air. Now in the queue for Stage Two, six more to go.
They just closed the stage! Not sure why but assuming accident. Block, Sordo, and someone else all stuffed hard on the last stage. We got beat by both Evos but only by about 45 secs over 23 min. They have turbos. We're over a mile up in elevation.
Trailing arm has a one-inch dent in it from where we hit the bridge. That's what saved us — it popped the car back up onto the bridge. The car smacked the bridge two inches from the bolt that attaches the subframe to the body.


Some of the emails were repeats, but they were charming repeats.

Mooched a welder and welded the shock tower back into the car last night and it held. But on the first stage the shock mount blew through. Then the aux fan fried and kept melting fuses and it was hot. On the third stage we missed a jump call (our notes were in Portuguese or something) and hit it at like 80 mph or so and exploded into the air. The launch felt like hitting a brick wall and broke a motor mount arm clean in half.
But the jump was amazing. Later I had a minor off but regained the road. Some kids threw boulders in the road on a transit and I punctured my gas tank losing nearly a half tank in 24 km on the next stage. Best part, the officials pointed out our leak and showed a handful of gas to us when we asked how big it was — I knew we were screwed, but they said we could start the stage so we did. I patched it with just stuff in the trunk — RTV and balls of duct tape — twenty feet after the stage finish, on the side of the road, with the officials watching. Didn't have time at service to fix it so five stages tomorrow with RTV patch. Barely finished the rest of the day. I have a 10 minute service in the morning when we pull the car from parc ferme but we need to put on fresh tires.
I ran into the Rally Mexico organizers in the bar. Petter Solberg is in there doing shots. Having entirely too much fun. Only three real stages tomorrow anyway. But apparently the ex-WRC car in my class or the Evo broke on the final stage which means I am back into third place.


Part Three: We May or May Not Be Legit
Oh yeah. Parc ferme — they lock your car up and you can't work on it at night. But you can pull it out for a 45-minute service. So before the final time control, I climbed under the car and undid the motor mount arm with the awesome little factory tool kit in the trunk. So then I could fab up the new part at my convenience and then pull the car out of parc ferme just to swap arms. It worked great. We now have a steel arm and factory mount. Gas tank still patched with RTV and duct tape. Wasn't time to drain tank and JB Weld it. Hopefully it stays on today.
By the way. It's awesome to be rocking a BMW down here and smoke the little WRC Peugeot cup cars in a chassis that hasn't been pro rally racing since the Prodrive E30 M3 era. The party tonight is supposed to majorly epic. It's in another city in some old school Mexican ruins or castle or something according to the guys who went last year.
The video below shows two fans talking to Bill and describing how he passed them on a stage called "El Cubilete." Bill's phone-cam clips are all the same; they all end with a shot of his face and an amazed, "Can you believe this? It's me!" look.


OK, I know reading this is probably getting old, but wow. I'm having breakfast wearing a BMW jacket and the table next to me (like ten guys) turns around and says, "Are you the BMW pilot?" I then take pictures with each of them right in the restaurant.
They said they like BMWs but are with a Mexican Dodge club. They love that I came to the WRC with no team and jump out at each service and start working. They said that I must be part Mexican because of the way I fix my car. That's a compliment, right?
Wow. I collapsed the front frame rails vertically from coming down off the jump and smashing the skid plate which is supported by roll cage tubing to plates on the bottom of the frame. And part of me is sick and wants to see how long I can punish this thing before it cracks in half.
Also, someone wants to give me a free entry and shipping to another rally?!? Apparently they watched my co-driver yell at me to go while I signed autographs and took pictures with the fans until the last possible minute before jumping in the car and taking off. I guess the other teams blow it off a bit because it gets old having dozens of kids shove stuff in your face while you're putting on your HANS device.
Slocum and I were estimating. I signed autographs for three hours straight on Sunday alone. He thinks it might be close to 1500 or 2000 autographs and maybe 1000-1500 pictures. A couple hundred people were screaming "Caswell! Caswell!" at one point. But I guess the fact that Ken Block and I are the only Americans that came down makes me legit or something? We finished third in class. Don't know how I got here. Nuts.


Yeah, Bill — nuts. You, my friend, are a true Jalop. You are the hoon of the day, maybe hoon of the month, maybe even hoon of the year. And you are nothing if not ballsy as hell. Next time you parachute in and blow the FIA's world up, give the Jalopnik Nation a shout. We'll bring the margaritas and cheer your ass on.

10:39:17 AM Bill Caswell: Burning Down the House seemed to be the theme song for the whole weird adventure. We were the only team cranking music during service. I jump out and first thing I do with my 30 minutes is set up tunes, because you can't work in the hot Mexican sun without music. You should have seen the crowd. Driver in firesuit jacking up car and wrenching while Talking Heads blares from the radio and co-driver yells 20 minutes....it was [redacted] real. I started laughing at one point all by myself while putting a wheel back on — am I really at a WRC event in my favorite chassis and engine combo of all time with no crew fixing the car myself?
10:41:28 AM Bill Caswell: Even if I never race again I could be happy. It was epic. You should have been there.

[smileyman]

I caught this earlier today even tho I only check Jalopnik every month or so...still

Its is awesome! Epic! Fabulous!

[Particle Man]

This makes me giggle

[was92v]

Totally Bitchin!!

[derf]

http://jalopnik.com/5500013/i-co+dro...list-rally-car

Co-drivers version of events

Ben Slocum was co-driver of the $500 Craigslist rally car profiled in yesterday's WRC Rally Mexico story. We've asked him to give us his take on this amazing David-and-Goliath story. This is it. — Ed.

There are Rally events, and there are life events. WRC Corona Rally Mexico Rally America was both.

Bill Caswell and I received word in January that a Rally America legal car would be eligible to compete in Rally America, a Mexican national rally run concurrently with WRC Corona Rally Mexico.

Some teams would dream about competing; Bill and I said screw it, we're going.

I was in a new car with a new driver, as I frequently have found myself over the years. With Mexico I was now adding a new rule structure in a new country with a steep-to-me language barrier.

As a co-driver my work started months before the event. I read the supplementary regulations, created time tables and movement plans, emailed the event officials and Bill to no end. I constantly stayed in contact with Bill, calling and texting as important dates approached, reminding him the day that entry forms were due, finding information on brokers and the border crossing.

With the Rally in the 100 Acre Wood the week directly before Mexico I was forced to put everything on the shelf sooner than I had hoped. I went to Missouri to co-drive for one of my regular drivers, Dillon Van Way in the Team 600 Ford Focus SVT, and left Bill to the car for the final days before we were due to set out.

While in Missouri my cell phone decided that it had enough of my abuse and gave up, I was out of contact with Bill during the final vital prep hours. After the champagne spray at 100AW I was able to call him on Dillon's cell only to be reassured that he was leaving Chicago in the morning.


Sunday, February 28:

I woke up at 6:30 am and called Bill. The plan was to leave Rolla, MO at 7:00 am. No answer. I waited at the hotel for a few hours and tried again. Still nothing.

After checking out I went to the house of one of our Team 600 crew who happened to live in town. I sat around, cat napping throughout the day, running to a truck stop every few hours to try to get a hold of Bill on a pay phone. When I finally got through, Bill told me he ran into some last minute motor issues and was still in Chicago.

Monday, March 1:

We were supposed to be in Laredo, attempting the border crossing in the morning so we could make Leon, GTO in time for recce on Tuesday. Instead I continued to loaf around watching TV. I kept checking in with Bill for updates. He was finally able to hit the road around 7:00 pm.



Tuesday, March 2:

Bill arrived in Rolla at 1:00 am. We were 37 hours behind schedule by that point so we drove in shifts nonstop to Laredo. After driving down Piotr Wiktorcyk and Pat Moro's cars last year for Rally of the Nations I had gotten used to driving unfamiliar tow rigs through the night across the country with little to no sleep, making this a familiar if annoying action.

We got to Laredo at 5:00 pm and drove straight across the border. The Mexican customs agents wanted to look in the trailer, so we showed them. That only piqued their interest, causing them to look deeper into more boxes of gear. My rudimentary Spanish skills weren't enough to get us through the border, luckily I always keep event documents on hand. I pulled out our movement plan which had the WRC Corona Rally Mexico logo on the cover. When the agent saw it his eyes lit up; "Ahh, Rah-lee? Go, go."

Our day stopped at the immigration office. To get into Mexico we needed the title and a letter for our service van allowing it past the inner Mexican border. I can't get into why we didn't have them for a few years, but the short version is we were sent back to the US despite our broker's best attempts to bribe the officials.

As we tried to cross back over we got caught on a cross over road between bridge one and bridge two leading between Laredo, TX and Nuevo Laredo, MX. The road is two lanes wide with concrete barriers a foot and a half high on either side. Nothing out of the ordinary, until a cartel decided to make war in front of us. We rounded what had to be the only corner on the mile long road when a car pulled across the path blocking us in. With the trailer we had no way of turning around. Suddenly dozens of people ran out of nearby buildings brandishing machine guns. We spent a frantic ten minutes backing up to the sounds of Spanish screaming and automatic weapons fire. Our broker simply explained it as "Mexico, she has problems."

We rushed across the bridge, darting between heavily armed Mexican military vehicles and took shelter in the Days Inn Laredo.

Wednesday, March 3:

Bill was able to "procure" another van in the morning. We transferred our gear over and successfully crossed into Mexico. We drove through the night.

Thursday, March 4:

We arrived in Leon at 5:00 am and fell straight in bed.

Bill and I woke after three hours of sleep and took the service rig across the street to the Poliforum service park. Event officials guided us through the building and down a ramp into our service area. The truck, once down the ramp, lifted the back of the trailer and scrapped the entry way into the Poliforum. Luckily I was driving and luckily all eyes were on us. It was a great way to introduce ourselves to the Rally world.

We unpacked, Bill set to work on final details for the car, I got deep into the paperwork for the weekend.

Both Bill and I were nervous that we wouldn't pass tech. There wasn't anything wrong with the car; it's just that being faced with a WRC level tech inspection with a 20 year old car is a bit intimidating. All of the tech inspectors were more than friendly and soon our fears were assuaged. We were cleared to start.

Around 4:00 p.m. we left the service park for the Siloa holding area, the first portion of the ceremonial start. No description I can give will be adequate enough to explain how the night went. The transit to Siloa was simple enough, but when we arrived at the holding area we were greeted by tens of thousands of screaming fans.

Bill and I were heroes. We were in an attainable car on the world stage and everyone loved us. As soon as all of the cars were parked the fans streamed past the barriers for autographs and photos. Someone was setting fireworks off on the roof tops, girls kept asking for photos and kisses on the cheeks and everyone, including local police, wanted autographs. Bill and I were happy to oblige.

We were released at one minute intervals from Siloa, starting off of a ceremonial ramp, into the streets. For the next 30km we transited down city streets and freeways lined with people. Police blocked every entrance and two officers, lights and sirens blaring, followed us to Guanajuato. We were free to drive as fast as we wanted, through toll booths with no charge, feeling like banditos fleeing from the police.

When we arrived in Guanajuato we were thrust into a scene that made Siloa look tame. The crowds built to over one hindered thousand screaming Rally fans. It was stop and go traffic for three miles with people parting for us to inch forward, swallowing us from behind after we passed. Several girls blew kisses which I grabbed with a wink and smile only to watch them swoon. It was an odd feeling.

The official start ramp, after three other false ramps, was a spinning platform surrounded by banners, grandstands and spot lights. The crowd went nuts when we pulled up. After driving down we immediately transited back to Leon, wondering the whole way if we were dreaming about the previous four hours of our lives.

Friday, March 5:

The day started oddly like any Rally day despite the previous night's festivities. We set to work in the service park. Bill on the car, myself on route books.

Since we missed recce we were going to be forced to do the whole weekend on very thin tulips. Luckily for us we met Nicolas Fuchs, a PWRC competitor and current Peruvian national champion. His co-driver, Juan Pedro Cilloniz, allowed me to photo copy his pace notes.

They were in Spanish and in a method neither Bill nor I had used before, but they were something. I wrote at the beginning of every stage that I=Left and D=Right and was forced to call that good. Other symbols I had to learn at speed were "L"= crest, "l"= long, "sc"=tightens, "sa"=opens and "boda"=off camber. Our in car video can attest that I wasn't perfect at translating Spanish to English at speed, but I was at least 95% accurate.

The first stage loop went alright. We bashed the rear left corner enough to rip the strut mount from the car, but not damage the shock. Bill took out the Bilstein to prevent it from banging around and we ran the last loop without any left rear suspension. Surprisingly we were sitting in third, but we were soon faced with a fuel pump failure on the transit to stage 7.

Using only a screw driver and a pocket knife borrowed off of a local cop Bill removed the pump from the car, stripped wires out of the in car video system and jumped the pump forward and in reverse off the car's battery until it spit out the piece of sand that clogged it. He jammed the pump back in the tank and we rushed to the next stage only to be told it was closed and we had to transit through.

The next story involves high speeds, GPS tracking, a PolicÃ*a Federal road block and chase and other bits of James Bond level international intrigue. Like the previous story about our service vehicle, I can't get into this one for a few years unless coerced by a cold brew.

After some "issues" we returned to the service park and set to repairing the car under Super Rally regulations. I received some bad news from home and spent the night on the phone to Michigan leaving Bill to work on the car. He was able to wrap up all of our issues to allow us to start on Saturday.


Saturday, March 6:

We started the day third on the road. With our Super Rally penalties we were sitting in last, but that didn't stick. We attacked the stages in anger, quickly climbing back up the order to fourth.

On stage one we entered a tight yet fast downhill section with a little too much gusto. The back of the car slid off the road on the right and went off a bridge. My first reaction was, "well, we're done." Bill just kept on the gas and a well placed BMW trailing link caught the edge of the concrete bridge before the tire and somehow bounced us back on the road. According to the laws of physics it shouldn't have been possible, yet we found ourselves on still on the road and still pushing hard. I love those moments.

On stage three we approached what my notes said was a dip. It wasn't a dip. I said it wasn't a dip when we could clearly see what it was. Bill gunned it. It was a massive jump. Massive. We landed hard and broke the right motor mount, but instead of slowing down Bill just kept pushing. We entered the final Superspecials sitting back in third.


Of note was a young lady, maybe 20 or so, at the beginning of the Superspecial in the VIP area. She held a sign that said "I love Slocum." I've gone international.

I called her over but the security guards wouldn't let her pass. I scolded them out and they let her approach the car. I asked for her hand and gave it a kiss, feeling like an American lothario. She giggled and the security guard forced her back as we moved up to the start line. It was reported to me later that she spent the remainder of the Superspecial bragging to the crowd around her that I kissed her. I am an American lothario.

Once back to the service park Bill again set to working on the car. He was able to fabricate a new motor mount using a piece of tubing and angle iron. Unfortunately we went over our allotted service time and pulled 4:20 in penalties, moving us to fourth, but we were still in it.

Sunday, March 7:

We were solidly in fourth to start the day. There were only four stages left so we decided to play it smart and drive for the finish. We had no issues, the car was even better than when we started on Friday. I was comfortable with the notes; Bill was comfortable with the car and the stages.

After 22 stages, several severe mechanical issues, border delays and dozens of other reasons why it shouldn't have happened, we finished WRC Corona Rally Mexico Rally America. The final verdict came down that another car had been disqualified resulting in us moving up to third. The event that should never have occurred ended better than either of us could have hoped.

The ceremonial finish was just as insane as the other spectator events. Thousands of people, thousands of photos and autographs, kisses all around. I burned out two sharpies over the weekend on autographs alone. The only thing left was to party.

Bill got trashed inside with other drivers, doing shots with Petter and Henning Solberg; I hung around with other co-drivers outside drinking water and talking about how hard it is to get drivers to listen. Event workers hung out in between both groups trying to look natural. I went back to the hotel around 2:00, Bill stumbled in around 5:30.

Nothing can do justice in describing what it's like to compete at a WRC event. Even though it was the Mexican National event, we still experienced everything in the big show. If the chance comes to compete again I suggest others take advantage, I know I will.

Ben Slocum is a 25-year-old rally co-driver from Petoskey, MI. He entered the sport in 2005 after shattering his left eye in an accident. Now, blind in one eye, he competes in over a dozen Rallys a year as both a team and freelance co-driver. He can be seen in the Team 600 Ford Focus SVT co-driving for Dillon Van Way in the Rally America National Championship and with Robb Rill in a Subaru WRX STi for the Atlantic Rally Cup as well as various one-off rides throughout the US, Canada and Mexico. He's duct-taped rear hatches to hoods to replace windshields, towed cars out of lakes and pushed rolled over wrecks back on their wheels just to finish events. Slocum's simple mantra is to never say no to an adventure.

[derf]

The $500 rally car is racing on pikes peak today...

[Akilldema]

Thanks for posting, cool read.