Day One News and Notes - SCCA ProRally - Ojibwe Forests
The press release text included below is also available in a formatted Word97-Word2000 document. If you would prefer to receive our press releases in that format, please send your request to: sccaprorally@aol.com. For immediate release 18 August, 2001 SCCA ProRally Championship - Round #7 - Ojibwe Forests Leg One Results, Key Notes Lovell, Burke and Choiniere Pull Ahead in Minnesota Mudslinger Bemidji, Minnesota - Fierce rain-storms, high-winds and hail made the starting stages of the Ojibwe Forests Rally a slippery, sliding challenge for the 160 performance rallyists (80 cars) entered. Burke and Lovell swapped leads all evening, nearly evenly splitting fastest overall stage times, Lovell winning three, Burke two and 2000 series champion Paul Choiniere one. Key Notes & Quotes: ¨ As the evening progressed, the skies cleared and became almost chilly - and the roads improved to some of the best conditions of the entire 2001 SCCA ProRally season. Stage times were fast - and the competition was very tight - throughout the field. It quickly became clear that no one is going to walk away with overall or class wins on Day One. ¨ Subaru is having a great rally, after the second 'character building' weekend of the season at Maine Forest. Showing top form in both Group N and Open class, the Prodrive directed Subaru Rally Team USA is leading the way, but several independents, including Group N star Ramana Lagemann, and Minnesota native and local favorite Steve Gingras are having very good results. The company occupies six of the top ten slots at the end of day one, and retired only two of the 13 entered cars, with both retirements incurred from road damage. ¨ Topping the utterly luckless list is Patrick Richard, who posted his first DNS (did not start) in his US rallying career with transmission gear selector woes discovered after the Thursday night shakedown: "We finally have a transmission that wont break" explained Richard - but now the part that connects me to the transmission failed." Hyundai's Noel Lawler came close to that level of frustration, retiring a mere 3 miles into SS1 with turbo failure, which evidently shuts the motors engine management system down - "we couldn't even move - it just sat there and idled pretty as can be." ¨ In the Mitsubishi camp, while independents Seamus Burke and Frank Cunningham are having yet another brilliant weekend in their Lancer, Rhys Millen, in his championship bid for Mitsubishi, is having more overheating problems, and retired at service with what appears to be a blown head gasket. ¨ The debut of the independently entered 2002 Subaru WRX of Washington state's Nat T-Stow, with veteran co-driver Amity Trowbridge, has built a minute and a half lead over PGT class favorite Mark Utecht, who suffered a mangled front suspension late in the nights going. "Three rallys - three bent control arms" remarked a frustrated Utecht "but we're getting really good at swapping them out - so tomorrow is looking good." The Minnesotan is maintaining a comfortable three and a half minute lead over 3rd place Gail Truess. ¨ The Two-Wheel Drive category is very tight, and is being lead by a Production class car - a works Hyundai Tiburon, driven by Sport Compact Car magazine technical editor David Coleman, with the independently entered Group 5 Mustang 5.0 of Michael Hurst and the Group 2 VW Golf GTi of Robert Nielsen all in the same minute. The debut of the new Mazda team Protégé MP3 is doing well, less than 3 minutes down from the Group 2 leader. ¨ Day Two of the Ojibwe Forests SCCA ProRally starts at Noon, with a crowd pleasing and unique-to-the-series spectator stage at Bemidji Speedway, a high-banked clay oval that usually sees NASCAR type Late Model Sportsman action. The rally cars will start in reverse order, and then head into the woods for the balance of the afternoon and evening. SCCA® Ojibwe Forests ProRallysm Championship Round #7 18 August, 2001 Leg One Top 25 Finishing Order start Finish Car# Time Class Driver Co-driver year Car 2 1 14 1:00.20 Open Mark Lovell Steve Turvey 02 Subaru WRX 4 2 115 1:00.97 Open Seamus Burke Frank Cunningham 00 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI 1 3 1 1:01.97 Open Paul Choiniere Jeff Becker 00 Hyundai Tiburon 11 4 74 1:01.56 FIA-N Ramana Lagemann Russ Hughes 00 Subaru Impreza 5 5 2 1:04.26 FIA-N Karl Scheible Brian Maxwell 02 Subaru WRX 8 6 50 1:06.23 Open Steve Gingras Bill Westrick 00 Subaru Impreza 23 7 49 1:07.63 Open Jonathan Ryther Janice Damitio 00 Subaru Impreza 7 8 107 1:08.42 Open Tim Paterson Scott Ferguson 97 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV 22 9 58 1:08.57 Open Alec Ellsworth Steve Kackowski 97 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV 6 10 32 1:08.71 Open Paul Eklund Scott Huhn 95 Subaru Impreza 36 11 275 1:09.73 PGT Nat T-Stow Amity Trowbridge 02 Subaru WRX 21 12 110 1:10.12 Open Mark Nelson Alex Gelsomino 00 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI 16 13 83 1:11.22 PGT Mark Utecht Brenda Lewis 92 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX 39 14 78 1:11.32 Open Paul Dunn Rebecca Dunn 97 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV 44 15 967 1:12.11 P Dave Coleman Paula Gibeault 00 Hyundai Tiburon 17 16 82 1:12.13 G5 Michael Hurst Robert Bohn 93 Ford Mustang LX 5.0 30 17 98 1:12.65 G2 Robert Nielsen Ed Wahl VW Golf GTi 19 18 188 1:12.82 G5 Andrew Havas Melanie Kelly 79 Mazda RX7 20 19 35 1:13.40 Open Lee Shadbolt Robert Sherman 97 Subaru Impreza 12 20 235 1:13.60 G2 David White James Brandt VW Golf GTi 26 21 76 1:14.40 PGT Gail Truess Jeff Secor 88 Mazda 323GTX 28 22 207 1:14.51 G5 David Hintz Rick Hintz Mazda RX-7 35 23 132 1:14.99 Open Robert Burtis James Burtis Audi Coupe quattro 31 24 42 1:15.16 G2 Eric Burmeister Eric Adams 02 Mazda Protégé MP3 25 25 117 1:15.49 Open Ken Stewart Floyd Shrader 85 Chevrolet S-10 *complete results will be posted on the Ojibwe Forests website: http://www.ojibweforestsrally.com SCCA® Ojibwe Forests ProRallysm Championship Round #7 18 August, 2001 Leg One Pro Retirements (offical) Car # Drivers Name Co-Drivers Name Class Year Make stage Retirement cause (unofficial) 3 Noel Lawler Charles Bradley Open 00 Hyundai SS1 Turbo 470 Geoff Maguire David Fiddyment FIA-N 00 Subaru SS3 Suspension 925 Sakis Hadjiminas Luis Figueiredo Open 95 Subaru SS3 Undisclosed mechanical from road damage 33 Rhys Millen Josh Jacquot Open 00 Mitsubishi Service Withdrawn at service - head gasket 61 Michael Halley Ole Holter P 99 VW SS4 Engine management 527 Chris Gilligan Joe Peterson Open 92 Mitsubishi SS4 950 Shane Mitchell Paul Donnelly PGT 92 Eagle SS4 166 John Daubenmier Stanley Rosen Gr 5 88 Chevrolet SS6 Engine - crankshaft 904 John Drislane Declan Hegarty Open 97 Mitsubishi SS6 Mechanical 876 Tony Birbillis Jose Vicente Gr N 92 Ford SS1 Mechanical 2Gr 5 The SCCA name and logo is a registered trademark of the Sports Car Club of America, Inc. ProRally, ClubRally and RallyCross are service marks of the SCCA. The SCCA ProRally Championship is presented by Hyundai and Subaru