SCCA: Wild West ProRally Press Notes 2
19 June 1999
Wild West ProRally Press notes Page 2 7.) Helping us gather press notes at this event is John Jeppesen, a public relations pro from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Among other projects, he has handled PR for Menard’s at the Indy 500 and Dauer Racing at the Daytona 24 Hours. 8.) While we’re on the subject of help, we’d belatedly like to thank Bowie Gray and Matt Johnson, who helped out at STPR two weeks ago. 9.) Karl Scheible and Gail McGuire gave the Volkswagen New Beetle its first ProRally win two weeks ago at STPR. Crew Chief Guy Light points out that the strength of the car made it really difficult to turn the New Beetle into the Production-class point-leader. “The Bug is unbelievably strong, but it is not an organic car. It was designed by a computer,” he said. He couldn’t find any way to attach the skid plate to the bottom of the chassis, so he was forced to use 16 feet of tubing to create a subframe for it. 10.) Ralph Kosmides (Group 5 Toyota Supra Turbo) feels like he’s back home again. “I love the roads here. I started rallying here, so it’s like my home track,” he said. “This course has good grip, but it’s very abrasive on tires. I think it’s going to be very dusty, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they went to two minute start windows.” 11.) John Buffum is making his first start of the season here, driving an Open Class Hyundai Elantra. The 11-time SCCA ProRally Champion and Mark Williams will be starting Wild West second on the road, behind teammmates Noel Lawler and Charlie Bradley, in a Hyundai Tiburon. Like everyone else, Buffum expects that this will be a very dusty event, due to the dry conditions here. He thinks that starting second will be okay, even though there is a lot of loose gravel on the roads that will keep traction down until the first few cars sweep it away. “The dust will be a bigger problem than the loose rocks on the top of the road,” he said. 12.) Phil Mellor, an SCCA Director from Southeast Division, is here at Wild West as an observer, getting thoroughly acquainted with performance rallying. His day started with a ride in Garen Shrader’s Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV, which he called “the biggest adrenaline rush I’ve had in a long time.“ An hour later he still had a huge grin on his face.