Subaru Rim of the World Rally, Friday, April 28, 2006
Lancaster, Calif., Press Notes – Friday evening

4. The organizing committee worked closely with the Angeles National Forest crew to help grade the entire rally road surface before the event – the first time this has ever been done. The expense was great, but the competitors will see the difference in a rally which has traditionally taken its toll on the rally field.

5. The first stage started in the 7,500-seat arena at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, where the organizer has set up a one-mile side-by-side course which featured a cross-over section (like Olympic speed skating and a jump on the front straight-away that rivaled the old Mickey Thompson off-road stadium. The traditional wisdom is to take the jump lightly as to not ruin the car on this spectator stage, but most of the drivers learned that if they didn’t attack the jump, the lead car would throw up enough dust in its path that the second car would lose 10-15 seconds from lost visibility. The Travis Pastrana/Jakke Honkanen Subaru WRX STi was one of the first car to realize this in its battle with the Wolfgang Hoeck/Piers O’Hanlon Mitsubishi Lancer, as Travis jumped his car almost ten feet in the air to get past Hoeck, and beat him by more than 17 seconds as Wolf was forced to eat his dust around the closed-corse stage. But George Plsek in his Mitsubishi tied Pastrana to join him in the lead at the end of stage one, The other crowd favorites included the two trucks – the 4WD Chevy S-10 of Chad Dykes/Bill Graham and the 2WD Ford Ranger of Jeff Rados/Guido Hamacher – which got the most air and had the best landings of most of the competitors.

6. Pastrana continued to turn fast times, winning stages two and four as well, and takes a 23-second lead over teammates Ken Block/Alex Gelsomino in Subaru WRX racers as Friday night rallying came to an end. On stage #2, the Toyota Corolla of Jun Andrada/Alan Marasigan went off the road into a gulch. The drivers were okay, but the car could not continue. Also, removal of the car caused a delay in the event. On the final stage of the evening, the local Palmdale entry of Rem Wyatt/Pamela Wyatt in a VW Golf was reported off the road and waiting for the sweep vehicle for help.

7. Top ten national cars after four stages (finish of Friday night):

National Standings – Rim of the World Rally - Friday Night – after four stages

1. #199 Travis Pastrana / Jakke Honkanen Subaru WRX STi 34:16

2. # 43 Ken Block / Alex Gelsomino Subaru WRX STi 34:39

3. # 30 Plsek George / Jeff Burmeister Lancer Evo 35:45

4. #96 Brian Scott / John Dillon Subaru WRX STi 36:04

5. #374 Leon Styles / Mark McAllister Evolution 36:22

6. #360 Randy Dowell / Jonathan Schiller Mitsubishi Mirage 37:20

7. #376 Blake Yoon / Nathalie Richard Mitsubishi EVO 7 37:30

8. #165 Dennis Chizma / Andrew Cushman Porsche 964-C4 39:07

9. # 14 Amy BeberVanzo / Alexander Kihurani Mitsubishi 40:29

10 # 60 Bruce Davis / Jimmy Brandt Dodge Neon SRT-4 40:32