| Good Finish to Tough Season
For Immediate Release Vancouver B.C.- Rowdy Rally Racing ended the 2003 Western Canadian Rally Championship on a positive note, finishing 7th overall, 3rd in class at the snowy Kananaskis Rally. Needing points, and never having raced on snow and ice before, the team took a conservative start to the rally. After the first two stages the rally had claimed 2 cars and Rowdy Rally Racing had moved up to 11th. As the rally pressed on, the teams speed began to increase. The team would get a little too anxious on stage 5 when the car left the road twice, clipping a tree on one occasion. �We were starting to feel confident with the car, and I was getting used to the conditions. At a well populated hairpin, I over cooked the exit, dipping the rear wheels into the ditch, however I kept the throttle in and the car popped back onto the road,� noted Driver Budd Stanley. �500 meters down the road, I hadn�t learned my lesson and came into a Medium Left way too fast. I pitched the car sideways, we slid off the road, clipped a tree with the rear, and managed to bounce back onto the road only loosing a couple of seconds.� Coming into the Service stop, the team had moved their way up into 8th place, 2nd in class. As night began to fall, conditions would get even trickier for the team as the road turned to glare ice and the off light of dusk made vision a challenge. Nonetheless, the MR2 kept pushing, reaching speeds of 160kph on the famous Powder face Stage. �We were traveling very fast down a straight and over a crest into a deep valley. The car got very light at the top of the crest, the force of the compression as we went up the other side of the valley, drained all the blood out of my head, making me a little woozy for a second,� explained Co-driver Scott Martin. At the Rally end, Rowdy Rally Racing finished with a 6th place overall, and 2nd in the superior Open class. Protests, however moved another competitor into the team�s current position, moving the team down one space both in overall and class placement. Despite the disappointment, the team was happy with their first ever performance on snow. Rowdy Rally Racing finishes the Western Canadian Rally Championship in 4th place in Open class, 17th in overall placing, and 9th in Novice scoring after only competing in half the season�s events. Rowdy Rally Racing would also like to thank its 2003 sponsors Bavaria Car Studio, Optima Batteries, MRM motorsports of Scotland, RPM motoring monthly and Watkins Trading. With out the help of these sponsors, the team would not have been able to put in the performance that it did, and with their help, and the help of new sponsors, 2004 will prove to be an inherently successful year. -30- |