Bit by Bit Motorsports

About 1.5 months late - LSPR post! Last race of our season, finished 6th in class and 11th overall.

Stages were fun, and a few were quite rocky. One particularly large rock we struck fortunately popped out the fender instead of breaking us. Our favorite stage was FF, which was wide, fast, and gave us a taste of what we imagine some of the New England stages were.

First vid was an almost spicy downhill on a hairpin. Mt. Marquette was dark by the time we ran it and we had no idea there were SO many spectators.

Andrew's dad, Walt, crewed for us. We shared a house with and . Ate pasties no less than 4 times, with Muldoon's winning our vote for best in the area.

Car ran well and we had no significant mechanical issues (especially lovely after a motor and trans swap earlier this year). However one of the axles on our trailer had a messed up spindle leaving us with three wheels. We stayed an extra night in Marquette, waiting for the parts shop to open the following weekday. But ultimately decided to drop the car off with friends and Matt, then tow home empty. They visited us in Maryland the following week and dropped our car off. Saved our asses, thanks guys 💕

Only now did I realize we forgot to take a house pic, and photo w Kyle and Matt 😠 but we'll just live off the memories instead!

First three shots from 📸
Spectator vids from and .chamberlain

Overmountain 2025 - 🥈2nd place NA4WD, 🥉 3rd place Regional Overall

Absolute roller coaster of an event

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Held off on posting this until we were confident we'd actually make it. Currently en route, leaving a full day later than originally planned. Cue flashbacks to our first overmountain/bristol...

But spare transmission is in. First gear is present.

Come see rally cars this weekend in Newport, TN!!!

STPR 2025 was our tenth rally! We finished 1st NA4WD and 3rd overall.

Had the second fastest time on SS1, the super special spectator stage, but somewhere in that damaged first gear. So the rest of the rally we did without, using first as minimally possible to shift to second. Our launches and hairpins weren't the fastest but otherwise the transmission held up. Oh and when our crew chief Sam did a trans flush, an entire gear tooth fell into the drain pan. It will join the collection of racing carnage.

Then after stalling at a sharp turn on SS4 Randall, the motor suddenly lost a bunch of power. We were mobile enough to race, albeit a bit slower, and make it to service. There our friends hybrid crew swapped spark plugs and wires and the problem was fixed. Rewind to SOFR several weeks ago - the motor was overnight swapped to one sitting in 's yard for three years. Turns out it needed new plugs - who would've guessed?!

After that was sorted, we started climbing positions. And at the same time, several of our very fast fellow competitors were sadly forced to DNF due to their own mechanical failures or crashes. The last leg of the race was a fight against attrition on some rough (but fun) stages.

What else... We handed out a BUNCH of stickers at parc expose. We've also now been to STPR enough times that we recognize rally fans from previous years which is awesome. We squeezed in the best ice cream at twice! Finally visited the PA Grand canyon. Housed with team , who we also shared a podium with. Hung out with friends we haven't seen in a long time. Handed in our timecard to Andrew's dad at the final MTC. We had a lot of fun.

Thank you to our crew chief Sam and other friends who carried us through this race.

Thank you to the organizers and volunteers for making it happen. Until next year!

📸 Drone stills from

SOFR 2025. We lost the motor on SS3 Pound the Alarm (first Friday stage), and thought our rally was quickly over.

We were 50/50 on taking the DNF versus fighting for a super rally. Put out a couple feelers for a spare engine, leaving it to fate whether one may magically appear. And like a wizard, says he has a 2002 legacy in his yard with 200k+ miles that hasn't moved in maybe 3 years.

And with enthusiasm coming from multiple directions that we should absolutely try to super rally, the pieces fell into place and the fight began. Stayed up pretty much all night swapping motors. Sanity endured with motivation from friends (thank you to everyone hanging at Bukky's), and we drove the car under its own power onto the trailer around 0430. Julia put in an inquiry to return racing the next day, and we made it to parc by 1000!

Even with the new motor, we weren't sure the thing would even make it to the first Saturday stage. But it survived and still does!

Rally people are fantastic. Thank you to those who encouraged and helped us, even when we cost them sleep. Thanks to Andrew's dad Walt for crewing, and for jumping in and helping during service, and obviously Bukky for the motor and shop space. Thanks to the organizers and volunteers of for putting on the event.

And finally thank you to the many other faces - whether fellow competitors, volunteers, or spectators - who we only see at rallies but absolutely cherish moments with.

Last weekend marked 10 years together - 3 of them married - and we celebrated with a trip to Littleton, NH. We did the three day rally school at , something we’ve wanted to do for years. We went back to basics with FWD in a Ford Fiesta, learning proper technique, and gaining a better sense of where and how we can grow behind the wheel. It was a blast 😎

When we weren’t rally students, we spent our time hiking, driving up Mt. Washington, enjoying local food, and binge watching Frieren each night in the comfort of our BnB.

We also got lucky enough to cross paths with a few New England friends :)

It was a perfect trip. Cheers to hopefully many more years with my best friend 💕

Our ARA 2024 east championship trophies arrived this week! Also won but not pictured is a two day rally school for the overall co-driver win from 🎉

We did not plan on competing the entire eastern regional, but once we realized we could... there was no other option. We had the time of our lives embracing our love for this sport.

Taking this opportunity to share some STPR 2024 podium celebration pics that we never got around to posting. Photography by .creative

Thank you to for the season!

High fashion AND whale factor in this household. Andrew is the 2024 first place Superchampio driver, and Julia third place co-driver! We raced 583.35 stage miles. We finished every rally and every stage we competed in. Bit by bit, we made it and had a whaley good year.

Chris nailed it w these prizes and even included our two cats, Miso and Bean 💕 Thank you!!

Better late than never, LSPR recap 🍁

This was our last rally of the calendar year. Finished regional with 5th in class and 12th overall.

Stages were a nice mix of fast and technical, with noticeably fewer cautions than we're used to. Foliage was A+. Menge Creek lives up to the hype.

We experimented with pacenotes. Rather than revise jemba then copy into a clean notebook, we recce'd with a blank book and called corners as we saw them. Saved Julia a ton of time finalizing notes, but inconsistency in turn severity reduced trust in their accuracy. This was mostly just the first couple stages we recce'd, but enough to warrant dialing it back on stage a little. We use rentals for recce, so need to figure out a system for establishing consistency in corner calls across vehicles with varying steering ratios.

Had our first minor off on stage, but got lucky and pulled back on quickly.

Last photo is the cracked wheel that miraculously didn't go flat on stage. And not featured is the other wheel we tried unga bunga'ing with a rock to seal better (it kinda worked).

Shared a house with and . , , and Sam crewed (thanks guys ❤️).

Thankful to the volunteers and organizers of .

Additionally grateful for autumn views, UP pasties, L'anse cinnamon rolls, a climbing wall at parc, a solar storm we could actually see, excellent photography, and good times with good people.

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5+L/Cr

📷 Thwaites Photo