From: MIKEatRRE@aol.com
Subject: SoCal DSM: Gorman Ridge SCCA Pro Rally Results
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 09:28:03 GMT
To: socal-dsm@dsm.org

Hi Guys
We had a great time at the rally. Just enough work to keep us
busy and every one of our cars finished.  Here are some results:

1st AWD Ron Wood    Audi Turbo Quattro

2nd AWD  Vartan and Ara in the 1G GSX (RRE), no big problems
through out the day. They smeared the bumper against a
cliff wall but only cosmetic damage. Came in with the coolant
boiling twice but no damage.

3rd AWD  Rui Brasil  Audi  Turbo Quattro. They broke early on as
usual but this time we had some parts for them. My wife Jacquie's
Quattro. Rui got down on his knees and begged her for her axle.
Since she is always talking big about how Audis are so much cooler
than Mitsus, she had to shut up and put up... she donated her axle
to keep the competition running. Rallying is that way, we would rather
have the chance to beat them on the road than because their car died.
The competition is fierce but we all help eachother out. More like
a family than any other type of racing.

4th AWD Paul Timmerman 323 GTX (RRE)  Paul with his
little 1600cc turbo did a great job. The car is new and will
be a contender for the overall win with a little tuning. The
guys from SCC were ther to shoot it and his 300 hp street
GTX.

1st 2WD  Robert Tallini (RRE) Corolla GTS  Tallini  hung on
for the win with so many other people in his class rolling
and breaking. He was 6th or 7th overall with a 1600 cc
2WD car, no turbo! He will be driving our FWD Road Race car
in the Ford LA Street Race in a couple weeks.

3rd 2WD Robert Garcia 1G FWD   (RRE) Robert had his car all ready
for the Mexico 24hrs Rally but the cars could not get into Mexico.
So he ran Gorman instead. This was his second rally ever and
his first since Ensanada in Feb '97. Good job of not parking the car
on it's roof and staying out of trouble. The car ran great and needed
little service, only one flat tire. 

6th AWD  Tony Chavez GVR-4.  (RRE)  Tony's strategy was to go
flat out from the start. Would have been a better strategy on a cooler
day. The more power you make, the more heat you make. 18 psi
on a 95 degree day was too much. He warpped the head on the
second stage. We re-torqued it and kept filling it with water. We told
him to take it easy but he was still leading the rally overall after stage 3.
After stage 6 he was down to 4th because of the over heating. On the
Stack Dash we saw over 600 degrees oil temp ! He wasn't letting up
much so we adjusted the throttle cable so he could only get 2/3
throttle, we didnt tell him. The car ran for no particular reason till the
end. He was still in 4th going into the last stage but 3 miles from the end
he was out of water and the oil temp gauge said 900 degrees. He had
to pull over and wait 10 minutes for it to cool down. He coasted as much
as possible on the down hills and got to the finish. It finally died on the
freeway back to the motel.

4th Stock Class    Robert Shibao  Mazda GLC (RRE)  Robert drives the
fast 2G GSX at the time trial events. He got the little stock class car
to get into rallying. He finished 4th out of 8 stock cars with his little
1500cc car. The srock cars run towards the end of the pack and the roads
get torn up pretty bad. Libra Gulch was so bad that the little car got
high centered from the ruts from the big HP cars. He had to get pushed out
by the course workers. It cost him 3rd place. Otherwise his car ran good
with the only poblem being his down pipe falling off. He finished with
2 pairs of vise grips holding it to the exhaust manifold.

7th AWD Bruce Brown 323 GTX (RRE)  Bruce is a friend of Bryon Farnsworth
that likes to go ot and have an adventure. He is retired now but he is
the guy that made Endless Summer and On Any Sunday. He bought
Paul Timmermans old 323 GTX  and cruised with his wife as co-driver
to 7th in AWD Open class.

Out of 32 cars starting only 22 finished. 1/3 of those were our cars.
We all need some serious sleep. Monday we will be putting the
shop back together and licking our wounds. Try to give us a little space.
Thanks go out to Steve for all the pics and the cool video. I can't
wait to see it.

Thanks for the support,
Mike W