Subaru Rim of the World Rally Challenge
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Lancaster, Calif.
Press Notes – Sunday noon

21. A couple of overnight notes:

--The Leon Styles/Matt Gauger Subaru finally gave up after a myriad of problems, the last being a broken fuel pump.

--The Murat Okcuoglu/Burak Tuglu Mitsubishi Starion is also retired after suffering electrical problems on stage flour.

--The Kevin Welker/Nolan Sambrano Subaru Impreza blew a head gasket on stage three, and retired from the event.

22. Stage five started Sunday at 9:00 AM PDT, and the battle for the top spot raged on. The Marvin Ronquillo/John Burke Subaru WRX, which lost time on Saturday after leading the rally early, roared back into contention with fastest stage time of the weekend – a 4:05.8 – to stand fourth overall, 36 second from the overall lead. He had almost a minute with a stage three electrical problem. The Bill Holmes/Kevin Carter Ford Pick-up turned the next fastest time, 4:10.3, and took the overall lead away from Lisa Klassen/Guido Hamacher’s Mitsubishi Evo, which ran a 4:13.5. Lisa lost some precious seconds when the Blake Yoon/Andy Goubarev Subaru WRX had a flat tire during the run, and she caught up to him on the stage. Holmes now leads Klassen by two-tenths of a second. The Tim Moser/Dick Moser VW Golf GTi maintained its third place position by turning the third fastest stage – 4:14.1.

23. The watering of the course to keep the dust down has become an issue, as the stage seems extra slippery after the water truck has done its thing. To make matters even more complicated, the City of Lancaster called the Fairgrounds early Sunday morning to request that the watering take place more frequently as dust from the arena was drifting onto the adjacent highway. So, it’s almost the luck of the draw when your pairing runs versus when the water truck goes out. The high clay content of the dirt makes the course very slippery when wet. It also seems to equalize the difference usually noticed between 2WD and 4WD.

24. The Gary Long/Pam Long Ford Festiva, which ran so well on stage five, turning a 4:32.1 for the 13th fastest time – even though the car has the smallest displacement in the field. Unfortunately, during stage six, which started at 11:30 AM PDT, the car came to a stop on the course and had to be towed in. With only one stage to go, we are afraid that the Long Beach, Calif. couple are done for the rally. Gary, age 36, has been interested in racing ever since his parents took him to races at Riverside and Ontario. He has run both the Baja 500 and Baja 1000, the latter at night where adventures included hitting a cow. Jon Rood got him into rallying, where his first exposure was watching WRC on TV. This is wife Pam’s first rally, although the whole family gets involved in Gary’s motorsports activities. She was scared to death during their first stage on the course together – stage #3 yesterday, but now she is having fun. She hopes to go to a rally school, run the upcoming Gorman rally, and train for the Prescott Forest Rally next year.

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