PoR Week 37 - Jerry Shines in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Week 37 recap – Jerry shines at WRC Japan!



For week 37 Jerry and Steven headed east, as in Far East, for Rally Japan – the 10th round of the RSRBR World Rally Championship. A total of 398 crews rolled away from the start for this all-gravel event, which was comprised of 135 kms of special stages over three days. Jerry has been on a roll lately, with a 49th overall at WRC Germany and a 34th in Flanders last week. He continued that hot streak, putting in consistently fast times en route to a 40th place finish in his Ford Focus WRC.

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Steven wasn't quite as comfortable with his rally in the SWRC class. Having only competed in AWD cars a handful of times this year, it took a while for him to get to grips with his Peugeot 207 Super 2000. Other than a couple of early mistakes though, he kept it on the road and came home in 71st overall and 27th in SWRC.





Closer to our European home base, Rick and Bret competed in the Rallye du Suran. Based in Bourg-en-Bresse, between Lyon and Geneva, Suran featured 7 stages beginning in fog and ending with damp tarmac. Rick put on a good show, the highlight of which was setting the 6th fastest time in class N4 on SS3. He guided his Prodrive Impreza to 50th overall and 9th in a very competitive class N4.

Bret, who had been under the weather during the week, didn't fare as well. He got stuck in a ditch near the start of SS1 and later a rock dealt a fatal blow to his trusty Peugeot 205 Rallye. It was his first DNF since switching to the N1 class seven rallies ago.



Finally, Aaron competed in the Criterium del Berguedá in the Catalunya Rally Championship. A couple of weeks out of competition left him anxious to get back to it. Unfortunately, his rally didn't start particularly well, as he rolled his 205 Rallye on each of the first two stages.

At the first service, after surveying the damage, Aaron's crew chief asked his co-driver what happened. “Itchy”, was the reply. “You mean he was itching to get back to racing? Trying too hard?”, asked the chief. “No, he was literally itchy”, said the navvie. “He was trying to reach a spot on his back when he lost it the first time. It went downhill from there.” Shaking his head, the chief grabbed the biggest mallet in the toolbox and started taking mighty swings at the little 205's battered body. Itching solved, Aaron pressed on valiantly through the rest of the rally, coming home 7th in class N1 with a restyled Peugeot and an exhausted service crew.

On balance, it was another very good week for PoR. Jerry's finish at Japan was our second best WRC result this year. Aaron and Rick both finished inside the top 10 of their classes, and all four of our finishers were inside the top 100 overall. We also made up some ground on 24th place stable Rallye-Normand.com, who failed to score this week. Here are the cold, hard facts: