Day One Results & News - SCCA ProRally - Maine Forest
Mitsubishi and Hyundai share top three positions - McGeer out Rumford, Maine - Under mostly sunny skies with perfect mid-summer temperatures, the largest field to ever start an SCCA ProRally Championship event in the 28-year history of the series began the 13th running of the Maine Forest Rally this afternoon. The series overall drivers championship and several class points battles are the closest in years, and the depth of the field may be the best ever. Today's action started out with a wide-open ½ mile special stage for the spectators, with an unusual prize for the fastest driver - a reseeding to be first on the road for the rest of the afternoon's rallying. Key Notes & Quotes: ¨ Subaru is having a 'character building' Day One, with a rarely seen fleet of four nearly identically painted works backed entries (two American, two Canadian) suffering a broad array of woes, some terminal. Tom McGeer suffered the worst of it, retiring partway through SS3 with a lower control arm failure sending him off into the woods. Teammate Patrick Richard slid into a rock on the same stage, and mangled his right rear suspension, but was able to continue, and preserve his lead in PGT. Mark Lovell, debuting the US squads all new Open class car is having some minor teething problems with turbo boost, and Karl Scheible suffered a violent rear tire puncture in his Group N car that altered the coachwork considerably - but was able to continue to the finish, but lost several positions. ¨ In the Mitsubishi and Hyundai camps, Seamus Burke and Frank Cunningham are having yet another brilliant weekend in their Lancer, leading the charge over Noel Lawler's Hyundai by a mere 2 hundredths of a second. Rhys Millen, in his very recently renewed championship bid for Mitsubishi, is having some minor overheating problems, but is maintaining a good 13th overall position. Paul Choiniere and Jeff Becker, had a good day as well, placing their Hyundai Tiburon just three tenths of a second behind teammate Lawler and Charles Bradley. This is the Day One best finish of the season for the Hyundai team. ¨ Over 15 cars have retired from the event at the conclusion of Day One. The final stage of the days rallying is one of the most grueling of the season, with many punctures and suspension failures as lead causes of retirements. The roads for Day Two are considerably smoother, and also feature some of the longest stages in US rallying - up to 20 miles in length. ¨ A crowd estimated at 2500 witnessed the short half-mile first stage that was held in the neighboring town of Mexico's recreation field. The course consisted of dirt and gravel that began in a wooded area before making its way around two softball fields. This is the first time the course was used, and replaced the very popular "Rumford Street Stage" that has been presented for several years. ¨ The top-eight FIA seed drivers were scored by a new state-of-the-art TAG-Heuer timing equipment with specially developed software used locally by the U.S. Olympic cross country ski team. The system, which is able to time to the thousandth of a second, was used here as a preliminary test before its use in the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. ¨ The Subaru WRX of Patrick Richard is leading the Mitsubishi of Lauchlin O'Sullivan by .99 of a minute in the Production GT class, despite significant damage to the right rear suspension incurred partway through SS3. 2000 Maine Forest Gr 5 winner Mark Utecht is in a solid third place in his Mitsubishi. ¨ In Group 5, California's Carl Jardevall with Washington state's Amity Trowbridge is tied with Andrew Havas and are in 17th position overall. The Brian Hourt/Drew Ritchie Acura trails by .28 of a minute. ¨ Chris Havas is leading Group 2 by .35 of a minute over fellow Volkswagen driver Richard Pilczuk, with Padraig Purcell's unique and quick Vauxhall in third. ¨ Noted Subaru's Opoen class driver Mark Lovell: "These roads remind me of the Network Q Rally." Fellow Briton Guy Anderson, making his US performance rally debut this weekend in fine style, leading the Production class in an Acura Integra, voiced similar sentiments. SCCA® Maine Forest ProRallysm Championship Round #6 27 July, 2001Leg One Top 25 Finishing Order start Finish Car# Time Class Driver Co-driver year Car 2 1 115 15:57 Open Seamus Burke Frank Cunningham 00 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI6 2 3 15:59 Open Noel Lawler Charles Bradley 01 Hyundai Tiburon 4 3 1 15:88 Open Paul Choiniere Jeff Becker 00 Hyundai Tiburon 5 4 14 15:89 Open Mark Lovell Steve Turvey 02 Subaru WRX 1 5 87 15:91 Open Frank Sprongl Dan Sprongl 93 Audi quattro S2 17 6 74 15:93 FIA-N Ramana Lagemann Russ Hughes 02 Subaru WRX 18 7 8 16:69 PGT Patrick Richard Ian McCurdy 02 Subaru WRX 8 8 2 16:73 FIA-N Karl Scheible Brian Maxwell 02 Subaru WRX 7 9 4 16:73 Open Garen Schrader Michael Fennell 4 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV 10 10 5 16:75 Open Doug Shepherd Pete Gladysz 94 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX 16 11 44 16.81 GN Henry Krolikowski Cindy Krolikowski 02 Subaru WRX-sti 13 12 80 16.90 Open Jon Kemp Rod Hendricksen 84 Audi Quattro 4000 11 13 33 17.02 Open Rhys Millen Josh Jacquot 00 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6.5 15 14 107 17.25 Open Tim Paterson Scott Ferguson 97 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV 23 15 904 17.36 Open John Drislane Declan Hegarty 98 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV 26 16 90 17.68 PGT Lauchlin O'Sullivan John Dillon 94 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX 37 17 853 17.76 Open Pete Pollard Jennifer Cote 91 Toyota Celica All-trac 19 18 39 17.77 G5 Carl Jardevall Amity Trowbridge 83 Volvo 740 Turbo 28 19 188 17.77 G5 Andrew Havas Melanie Kelly 79 Mazda RX7 24 20 850 17.97 GN Jean Sebastien Besner Jacques Besner 99 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V 59 21 981 17.97 Open Paul Tingaud Philip Ho 88 Audi quattro S2 42 22 914 17.98 GN Noel Nash Bernard Farrell 97 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV 20 23 71 18.05 G5 Brian Hourt Drew Ritchie 01 Acura Integra 14 24 50 18.11 Open Steve Gingras Bill Westrick 00 Subaru Impreza 27 25 83 18.15 PGT Mark Utecht Brenda Lewis 92 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX *complete results will be posted on the Maine Forest website: http://www.maineforestrally.com SCCA® Maine Forest ProRallysm Championship Round #6 27 July, 2001 Leg One Retirements (non-confirmed) Car # Drivers Name Co-Drivers Name Class Year Make stage Retirement cause (unofficial) 933 Serguei Grichetchkine Ksenia Prokofjeva P 92 VW NA Disqualified 78 Peter Workum Claire Chizma PGT 02 Subaru SS1 Accident 876 Tony Birbillis Mario Socratous Gr N 94 Ford SS1 Mechanical 947 William Bacon Alan Grant Gr 2 97 Acura SS1 Engine 180 Chris Havas Eric Tremblay Gr 2 95 VW SS2 Halfshaft 17 Tom McGeer Mark Williams Open 02 Subaru SS3 Suspension 116 Tom Lawless Brian Sharkey Open 97 Mitsubishi SS3 Disqualified 137 Phil Smith Dallas Smith G2 67 MG SS3 Head gasket 48 Lon Peterson Bill Gutzmann Open 00 Subaru 78 Paul Dunn Rebecca Dunn Open 97 Mitsubishi 126 Arthur Wojcik Dominik Jozwiak Open 91 Mitsubishi 173 Patrick Lilly Rory Galligan Gr N 00 Subaru Undisclosed mechanical 514 Roland McIvor Ronan Burke PGT 92 Mitsubishi 938 Scott Kreisler Keith Kreisler Gr 2 86 Nissan 939 Donal Mulleady Damian Treavor Gr 5 93 Ford 942 William Tremmel Peter Coleman P 86 VW 953 John Keaney Barry Smith Open 86 Audi 987 Peter Reilly Ray Felice P 00 Ford The SCCA ProRally Championship is presented by Hyundai and Subaru