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www.maineforestrally.com Maine Forest Rally's drama-filled stages started with a short super-special stage around the Mexico recreation park and featured a substantial man-made jump, much to the delight of the spectators. While the RalliSpec-sponsored Paladin Rally Team of Iorio and Holter chose to go for huge air, Team RalliSpec's Dave Anton and Dominik Jozwiak chose the safer option of backing off just enough to keep a sane altitude (although they went for broke on the practice run!). Friday's special stages continued out in the woods with an in and out run through the fast and flowing 10 mile "South Arm" stage. On the run in to the stage Team RalliSpec immediately set a quick pace and were the fastest of the non-Open class cars, with a stage time 26.5 seconds behind the blistering pace of early leader L'Estage. The crew lost a little time on the return run but were still 9 seconds quicker than their primary group N competition, the team of Jon Bottoms and Carolyn Bosley. The rally then moved to the "Concord Pond" stage, an awesome mix of elevation changes, sweeping corners, and changing terrain (including some tarmac sections). According to team driver Dave Anton, "Everything came together on this stage; the RS&SP suspension setup was perfect, the tires were perfect, and Dominik's co-driving was perfect. We pulled up to the finish control absolutely giddy!".
After a service break, the rally ended with yet another in and out stage, the 13.7 "Middle Dam" stage. Team RalliSpec had a good run in to the stage setting a 10th fastest stage time which was over 30 seconds quicker than rival Jon Bottoms. At this point the team was leading group N by over 3 minutes and were sitting in 8th place overall. But the sport of rally is unpredictable and the final stage would prove to be a heartbreaker for the team. Between the cut-up road surface and the team's worn tires, the available grip on the return run through the stage was just not very good. According to Anton, "We came through a fast lefthander followed immediately by a slow right and we just carried a bit too much speed through the first corner. This put us on the soft outside edge of the right hander and I had trouble getting the car to hook up and pull itself out of the turn. We managed to find a hidden boulder on the edge of the road and it rolled the car leaving us on our side". The team managed to get the car back on its wheels and drove out of the stage, but not until after losing 20 minutes on the stage. Finishing the rally was extremely important for the team because their 2nd place finish launches Anton into 1st in the Group N driver's championship with 51 points. That puts him 7 points ahead of Andrew Pinker, who is no longer running in the class, and well clear of the other competitors. From here the team moves to the Minnesota stages of the Ojibwe Forests Rally. Team RalliSpec also wishes Matt Iorio and Ole Holter the best of luck at the X-Games rally! Photos courtesy of Subaru of America (www.rally.subaru.com)
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Team
RalliSpec captured the Rally America Group N championship lead at
the Maine Forest Rally, but only after losing what appeared to be
a decisive class victory in the rally itself. A combination of challenging
conditions and bad luck put the RalliSpec Impreza on its side a
few miles into the final stage. Fortunately the pair were able to
put the car back on its wheels with the assistance of a fellow competitor
and drive out of the stage to take a valuable 2nd place finish.
Saturday's
stages moved to considerably rougher roads with the boulder sized
rocks that the Maine Forest Rally is known for. With the cancelation
of stage 6, stages 5 and 7 became another in and out run through
a 12.7 miler. Team RalliSpec had a clean run in to the stage although
a number of other teams fell victims to the loose grapefruit-sized
rocks on the stage. The return run through the stage was shortened
to avoid the worst of the rough sections, but this was to create
some serious drama for RalliSpec. Confusion as to the exact location
of the start threw Dominik off and he was unable to call the corners
for the entire stage. With no information, Dave was forced to drive
the stage blind creating the difficult situation of trying to avoid
losing time while not running off the roads. In the end the team
still managed to put in a faster time than Bottoms and lost only
around 10 or 20 seconds. |
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