Press on! Rallysport Week 27 Recap: A record breaking thrill show!

[spspears]

Press on! Rallysport laid siege to Central Europe this week, and came away with a team record 864 points. Steven, Bryan, Justin, and Bret all finished the week with 125 points or more. Aaron, who just missed the century mark with 98 points, scored the team's only podium finish.



Steven and Brett were in Bulgaria for the 7th round of the World Rally Championship. This was an all-tarmac event, with plenty of fast, bumpy stages and changeable weather conditions. Both drivers competed in the Junior World Rally Championship (J-WRC) for two wheel drive cars - Steven in a Peugeot 207 R3T and Bret with his familiar Super 1600 Citroen Saxo.

Bret's rally got off to a difficult start. An incident with a tree near the end of SS1 that caused him to retire from Leg 1. On the third stage of Leg 2 he struck a guardrail on the fast and bumpy SS11 and had to retire once again. Taking the “standard time” on several stages placed him far down the running order, but unlike many others he pressed on to Leg 3 and had several fast runs. His persistence paid off, as he was among the 93 finishers out of the 316 crews that started the rally. He was classified 30th among the JWRC entries – an excellent recovery.



Steven had a very good rally, though he had some shaky moments when the weather turned bad on Leg 1. A couple of spins and a costly off-course excursion within sight of the finish of SS8 cost him several places in the standings. He gained momentum as the rally progressed, however. Other than one spin on SS12, he had clean runs on the remaining stages en route to 44th overall and 13th in JWRC. His point total of 314 was the best for the team so far this year.

Justin and Bryan continue to put in extremely strong performances in the France Cup. This week they competed in the Burgundy region of France in the Rallye de Bourgogne. As usual they had a great Subaru – Mitsubishi duel, with very comparable times. Other than a couple of minor incidents that cost a few seconds here and there, both ran clean rallies, giving the service crews time to enjoy a long day under the French sunshine. Bryan finished 5th in Group N and 4th in N4, but was only 27 seconds out of second place in both group and class. Justin finished only 30 seconds behind Bryan, but 11 positions behind in the general classification – a testament to how close the racing is in these France Cup events.

Last but not least...neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night could keep Aaron from delivering at the ninth round of the Hungarian Championships. Despite setup problems that left his Peugeot 205 as tippy as a Ford Explorer with 15 psi in the tires, he fought on through every condition imaginable on his way to 45th overall and 3rd in class N1.



When he needed a new crew chief after the car switch thing, I told him we shouldn't hire that guy away from the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show. But did he listen? Of course not. By my count he had at least 7 rolls before getting everything sorted. In the end, he nearly pulled back the 2nd place finisher in N1, before transmission problems left him to finish the final stage in 1st gear. I think Aaron will have a new crew chief this week, but the guy still doesn't understand why Aaron couldn't just use two wheels like Joie.



On a more serious note, this was the best week for PoR this year. With a great team effort, we finished 9th among all stables for the week, and moved up a place in the overall standings for the second week in a row.



We also want to welcome Rick Smith to Press on! Rallysport. Rick has already contributed a lot to our team discussions and can drift an Impreza with the best of them. Hmmm...maybe we have a spot for Aaron's crew chief after all.