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Old 03-22-2010, 06:29 PM   #1
nthfinity
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Default Go rallying against Kimi Raikonnen on a budget

This guy really has a great story





http://jalopnik.com/5497042/how-to-w...with-a-500-car
How A $500 Craigslist Car Beat $400K Rally Racers

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.

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 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.


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Old 03-22-2010, 11:28 PM   #2
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Interesting story - but 3rd in class is hardly a WRC podium
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Old 03-22-2010, 11:44 PM   #3
nthfinity
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Originally Posted by RC45 View Post
Interesting story - but 3rd in class is hardly a WRC podium
well, it is rather difficult to out accel a anti-lag 1000 NM of torque AWD rally car

But, they were in the same drivers meetings LOL
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Old 03-23-2010, 02:38 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by nthfinity View Post
well, it is rather difficult to out accel a anti-lag 1000 NM of torque AWD rally car

But, they were in the same drivers meetings LOL
Great showing though, and looks like they had a ball.
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Old 03-24-2010, 11:40 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by nthfinity View Post
well, it is rather difficult to out accel a anti-lag 1000 NM of torque AWD rally car

But, they were in the same drivers meetings LOL
I'm not sure. I think this is a FAKE.
They're not in the entry list of the rally.
Some people I know who attended the rally and took thousands of pictures, never saw him in 2010.
Apparently he run there LAST YEAR, in a local rally, not the WRC.
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