Subaru Rim of the World Rally Challenge
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Lancaster, Calif.
Press Notes – Saturday AM

1. Welcome to the 26th consecutive running of the Subaru Rim of the World Rally (30th anniversary of the first Rim), Round #3 of the United States Rally Championship.

As of this writing, Saturday mid-morning Pacific Daylight Time, the 34 rally cars entered are practicing on the new Super Special Stage at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, where all seven stages will be run this year over the two-day rally weekend. Gone are the traditional forest stages on the Rim roads as the regional office of the National Forest Service which controls the Angeles National Forest did not renew the Rim organizer’s permit to run the rally, citing “a revised master plan for the forest.” Rim organizers Ray and Donna Hocker hope to continue the application renewal process in order to secure the use of the forest roads in the future.

2. So, with all the activities now taking place at the Fairgrounds, it makes things easy on the spectators, who don’t have to drive from stage to stage. This morning’s practice session gave the

drivers and co-drivers a chance to try the course, which was the scene of an off-road truck race last weekend. The teams will run the dirt course both clockwise and counter-clockwise – alternating by stage – in pairs of two. The fastest speed-rated pair will start stage one first.

Unlike past years, when the Super Special Stage was a small part of the elapsed time, and the competitors played it safe rather than risking car damage, everyone will be pushing hard on every stage. Between stages, the spectators will have a wide variety of activities to choose from, including the Team Blew Autocross challenge, The Subaru Games Family Adventure Rally (on Sunday), The Rim of the World car show, the Rally Expo center with vendor displays, remote control car racing and more.

4. The United State Rally Championship has run two previous events – the Sand Hill Sand Blast rally in South Carolina and Rally New York in upstate New York. Because of the split sanction of the two professional rally series (the other being the championship administered by Rally America) since the demise of the SCCA Pro Rally series, most of the drivers to not make it to all the events being run by either organization. If you visit the websites of the two series (www.unitedstatesrallychampionship.com and www.rally-america.com), you will notice little cross-over between the series, and, in the USRC points, little participation of the East coast competitors at this West Coast event. Not unlike road racing and Indy Car racing, the sport has not benefited from rival sanctioning organizations.

5. George Plsek, from Solano Beach, Calif., who is the top-ranked competitor in this year’s event in his Mitsubishi Evo, finds himself looking for a co-driver less than 30 minutes left before the start of the first stage (noon PDT). Jeff Burmeister, from Minneapolis, could not make the event, and the rules say you must have a co-driver to compete. Plsek, who has run Rim for more than a decade, was impressed after this morning’s practice on the course, calling it fast and challenging. Like everyone else, he will miss the forest stages, but said, unlike other twisty and slow closed course stages around the country, this course – with its banked turns – lets you get on the gas.

6. Leon Styles, from Irvin, Calif., in a new Mitsubishi Evo, compared the Rim forest event to Pikes Peak, saying that it was one of the events that you were elated just to finish. Styles is debuting a new car this weekend, and reported the typical new car issues during practice – first a thermostat issue and finally a broken turbo hose.

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