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ojibweforestrally.com The Ojibwe Forests Rally took place over two days and featured the smooth and twisting roads of the 10,000 lakes region of Minnesota. The team set a good pace on Friday moving firmly ahead of their group N rival John Bottoms by the 3rd stage. Anton and co-driver Jozwiak maintained a safe, but quick, pace and by the end of the day were sitting in seventh overall only a few seconds back from the open class Mitsubishi of Chris Gilligan. Group N rivals Bottoms and Bosley lost significant time near the end of the day dealing with a broken throttle cable and were well back in the field. Starting the day on Saturday, the team opted to switch to a wider Michelin tire but the fact that this was a mistake became apparent almost immediately. Stages 9 and 10 consisted of extremely soft and sandy technical roads. The grip level available to the team's Subaru STi was non-existent as the wide tires floated on top of the surface and Anton fought to keep the car on the road. A few miles into stage 9 the crew misjudged a 'T' junction and went straight off the road. No major damage was incurred but only a few corners later the car was in the woods yet again this time crumpling sheet metal and blowing out the driver's window. Both driver and co-driver were relieved to clear the stage with no serious problems and a loss of only 15 or 20 seconds. By stage 11 the character of the roads changed enough that they favored the wider tires. At this point the team began to push a bit and began to trade stage times with 6th place Gilligan. Anton recalls, "It was great fun racing against Chris. He'd pull a second or two on one stage, then we would match his time on the next. But at the end of the day he was just a bit faster than us and we did not want to risk going off the road like we did in Maine."
Congratulations go out to the Paladin Rally team of Matthew Iorio and Ole Holter for their 2nd place overall finish in a RalliSpec-powered Subaru! Team RalliSpec would like to thank their service crew of Gen, Eamon, and Brian for keeping the car running flawlessly. Team RalliSpec uses RS&SP suspension, Enkei Sport wheels, Ferodo Brake pads, and Motul oils. Check out www.rallispec.com. Catch the team next at Colorado Cog, round seven of the Rally America national championship. Top photo by Lars
Gange courtesy of Subaru of America (www.rally.subaru.com) |
Team
RalliSpec took their first class win in the Rally America series
this past weekend at the Ojibwe Forests Rally. At the same time
the team found themselves in an impressive 5th place overall. This
top result helps to solidify driver Dave Anton's lead in the group
N championship, now nearly 30 points clear of his closest rivals.
The
penultimate stage 16, a monster 22.5 mile stage of every imagineable
condition and corner, was to be a deciding factor in the overall
results. Anton and Jozwiak made a concious decision to run a fast
but consistent pace in the hopes that Gilligan would slow toward
the end. However, toward the end of the stage the RalliSpec crew
found a loose rock on the stage which bent a wheel and left them
thinking they had a flat. It was enough to force them to slow. Meanwhile
Chris Gilligan was flying in his Evo to a 3rd quickest stage time.
Tanner Foust and "DeDo" both suffered problems allowing
Team RalliSpec to move up two places to 5th overall. |
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