It was a case of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for the Press on! Rallysport team this week.



First, the Good:

Justin and Rick both had excellent drives at the IRC Rallye Sanremo in their N4 class Prodrive Subaru Imprezas. Justin put in one of his best efforts of the year, stringing together mistake-free runs en-route to a 53rd place overall finish. He also set the 8th fastest overall time on SS15 and was 4th highest placed among the class N4 entries. I think we need to coax Justin out of his Evo and into the Impreza a little more often!



With Justin playing the role of rabbit, Rick was the hound, chasing at a steady pace. Contact with the barriers at the end of the super special on stage 15 was the only place he really put a wheel wrong all weekend, and he came home in 69th place - 8th fastest among the N4 entries.

Bryan also turned in a good performance at the Rallye du Pays de Fayence of the France Cup. Running our third Prodrive Impreza, he finished 78th overall, 7th in Group N and 6th in class 4.

Deciding to reduce his workload a bit and have some fun before WRC France this week, Jerry hit the Hillclimb Cup circuit at Malbuisson. The Celica ST205 that Aaron used earlier in the year at Madagascar had been sitting neglected on the back lot, and Jerry's been itching to get it out and play with it. He thrashed the little Toyota up the hill to 27th place in the Mitsubishi-dominated class A8.

The Bad:

Two relatively small mistakes led to a disastrous Rallye Sanremo for Steven. The first, on SS6, led to a crash into an embankment and subsequent roll. The assistance required to get back on the road and a missed hairpin led to a loss of more than a minute. He fought back, but clipped a bank at high speed on the first stage of Leg 2, two-wheeled into the woods, and broke the gearbox of his Peugeot 207, ending his rally.

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Bret, who decided to move up to class N3 for Pays de Fayence, arrived to find his trusty N1 class Peugeot 205 Rallye. Apparently his “new” 306 S16 wasn't ready yet. He finished off the 205 in grand style, rolling it several times. In the PoR spirit, however, he pressed on to finish 12th in class and score the second highest points total for the stable this week.

Aaron was also a little taken aback by his car choice this week. Apparently, his crew somehow drove off to Villa de Lanes with the trailer containing Justin's spare Evo 9, which was configured for class N4. Needless to say, when they arrived in Spain there was a lot of work to do! When Aaron and his co-driver returned (a bit earlier than expected) at the first service, there was a lot more to do - the car was nearly destroyed. Frustrated but unbroken, Aaron carried on, and his fortunes actually improved as the weather worsened and the car became more predictable on the slicker surfaces. When they got back to our home base in Ghent, Aaron's crew parked the trailer with the battered car in the exact same spot it left. Don't tell Justin, but he doesn't have a spare Evo anymore.

And, the Ugly:

Our collective points total. Lots of hard work went into this week, but we left almost empty-handed and scratching our heads. The 120 points we earned was our worst of the year, even though we had some really good performances. I'm not sure if it's the fact that everyone is back from summer holidays, or a lack of strategic choices on our part, but points have been hard to come by the last few weeks.



But, the beauty of the unrelenting weekly schedule of RSRBR is that there's no time to stew about what happened last week. We're all too busy thinking about the opportunities ahead...We have eight drivers signed up this week, including our two rookies Greg and Emmanuel. We have at least one entry in every rally on offer, including WRC France, the Dutch and Hungarian championships, and the France Tarmac and Hillclimb Cups.

Best of luck all! Press on!