Next weekend March 12-14 the California Rally series starts off the 2010 series with the Desert Storm Rally based in Blythe, California. The two day event is scheduled to include over 70 stage miles on Saturday with another 41 stage miles on Sunday. Saturday stages include a super special at the Palo Verde College in Blythe as well as a stage under the lights on Saturday night at the I-10 Speedway. The Rally kicks off on Friday night by having Tech inspection and Parc Ferme at the annual Blythe Volunteer Spaghetti Dinner starting at 4:00 PM.
Streetwise is happy to be supporting the event with worker volunteers and supporting the entry of Nick Taylor and RJ Olchawa in the 365rally.com entry.
This event counts in the California Rally Series championship as a coefficient 3 rally on Saturday and a coefficient 2 rally on Sunday. A banquet and awards ceremony will follow the rally on Sunday at the college.
The California Rally Series is celebrating its 35th year this year, and has announced a strong schedule for competitors. The season starts off with Desert Storm Rally headquartered in Blythe, California the weekend of March 12-14.
The series then heads to High Desert Trails in Ridgecrest, California for a one day event on April 17.
After a three week break it is back to the desert east of Indio, California for the Plan B rally, another one day event on May 8.
One month later it is up to the Reno, Nevada area for the North Nevada Rally the weekend of June 4-5.
Five weeks later, the weekend of July 16-18, the series heads as far north as Idaho for the Idaho Rally.
Gorman Rally, based out of Frazier Park, Califorina takes place on August 28, and is the closest rally to the Los Angeles area, only an hour north on the Grapevine.
October 1-2 the rally series heads off to Prescott, Arizona for a combined event that also sees it as the final round of the United States Rally Championship.
The CRS series wraps up its championship with Seed 9 Rally, based in Goodsprings, Nevada on November 6, 2010.
The schedule promises to be a challenging collection of events and the winners for 2010 will have certainly earned their finishing positions in the championship.
For more information and official rules go to Californiarallyseries.com.
Streetwise will be attending all of the rallies this year as competitors or support staff. See you at the races!
Close to 100 ralliests and their guest gathered in Sante Fe Springs, CA last night to honor and celebrate the 2009 California Rally Series Championships. The rally series held their final event of 2009 in the beginning of December and now has officially celebrated the winners and competitors for 2009. It was a great party and the high light of the evening was the celebration of CRS starting their 35th year! Several of the founders were on had to recount the beginnings of rally in California and the US. It was truly amazing to compare the level of safety and performance of cars between 35 years ago and today. The night also included the regular banquet agenda with awards for all of the rally and rallycross classes.
The 2010 season starts off in just 6 weeks with Desert Storm Rally. The complete 2010 schedule can be found on the California Rally Series website.
See you all at the races in 2010
On January 23, 2010 the California Rally Series will have their annual banquet to honor the 2009 Season Champions. The ceremony, or more accurately party, will be held at Maggie’s Pub in Santa Fe Springs, CA. The series awards championships for drivers and co-drivers in five rally car classes, two Rallymoto ™ classes, as well as six rallycross classes. The banquet is open to any wishing to attend, you do not need to be a member, and is a great way to meet others interested in Rally and Rallymoto. RSVP is required and directions and other information can be found at californiarallyseries.com.
Now through the end of the year Spot is blowing out the Spot GPS Messenger. They are offering a rebate of $50.00 back on the purchase. Since the tracker sells for $99.99 usually this works out to a pretty sweet $49.99. You can get the Spot on our website along with the Rebate form.
We have just spent the last couple of days at the SEMA show in Las Vegas on the lookout for new products for 2010. We have found some great ideas and will getting the new stuff up on the web page over the next few weeks. Some of the items will make great Christmas gifts and we should be able to put a couple of deals together we can pass on for some great holiday savings. Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter so you can get all of the deals first, as some of the deals have limited quantities available.
Last weekend the Streetwise crew headed out to Toyota Speedway at Irwindale to support the DVM Mustang for the final round of the Formula Drift 2009 season. Most of practice was spent getting the 2004 Mustang and the driver Doug Van Den Brink tuned up for the speeds required to run at this track, as he was only one of four drivers with no experience at The House of Drift.
By qualifying, the car speed was up to third fastest through the trap and Doug’s lines were improving. Doug was able to put together a run that qualified him in 26th position. This qualifying spot set us up against the 2009 points leader Chris Forsberg. With all eyes on us as a championship spoiler we entered the top 32 round.
The last time we ran Chris (earlier this year in New Jersey) he made it look pretty easy running against us. This time was to be different. If Chris were to beat us he would clinch the driver’s championship for 2009, if we beat him it would open the door for Ryan Tuerck to take the championship if he were to win the event. We only had one option on how to play our hand. Doug drove as hard and as clean as he could. The judges were hard pressed to call a winner, and in fact called for a One More Time after the first tandem run. After the second tandem we all waited axiously as the judges made their decision. In the end Chris moved on and was crowned 2009 Formula Drift Champion.
Although we were not able to make it into the top 16 this round we left the event with a positive feeling. Doug was able to gain valuable experience at Irwindale Speedway and our fellow competitors were quick to share their thoughts on our top 32 performance and how they thought the judging should have been called.
Driver Has Already Clinched M1 Class Championship
Harrisville, NY. Brad Morris (Charlotte, NC) and Doug Nagy (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA), head to upstate New York to compete at the Black River Stages Rally on the 19th and 20th of September. Morris has already clinched the M1 class championship for drivers of two wheel drive cars in the NASA-sanctioned series, while Nagy has a handsome lead in the race for the codriver title.
The pair won their last event together, Rally Tennessee, last May, as well as earning the class win at the March Madness Stages last March in Florida.
“We’ve built a solid relationship in the car,” observed Morris. “It’s gratifying to see how well we connected, and how quickly. This teamwork is what made it possible for us to do so well in competition. We plan to continue racing together and hopefully winning together! Next stop: New York!”
Geography prevents driver and codriver from getting together between rallies (they live on opposite sides of the country) which makes their success harder to achieve.
“Brad has a smooth, consistent driving style that is conducive to fast stage times,” explained Nagy. “I’ll keep up with him on the notes and he’ll keep with up with some of the the four wheel drive cars!”
He added, “The team just switched to Yokohama tires (available from StreetwiseParts.com). We know that with their tires on the car we can expect a higher overall finishing position.”
The 2002 Lancer is prepared by the Morris Motorsports Group in North Carolina, with engineering support, performance parts, and west coast preparation by Streetwise Motorsports. They receive valuable support from Promotional Management Group, StreetWiseParts.com, Larry J Mitsubishi in Charlotte, Performance Friction brake pads, and Carquest Auto Parts.
I co drove this weekend at Gorman Ridge Rally for Julian Parmann in his new (to him) Subaru Impreza 2WD car. This was Julian’s first time at a rally ever, and he did an excellent job of getting the car to the end. We picked up speed through out the event and avoided many of the mistakes that first time drivers make. We finished Third in the USRC National Championship Rally in Open 2WD and finished second in the California Rally Championship CRS-5 Class. It was a long couple of days, but finishing well always makes you forget how much work it was. Looking forward to my next event which is Black River Stages in New York with Brad Morris in the Mitsubishi on September 19-20.
Brad Morris and Doug Nagy Move Up in the Standings
Linden, TN. Brad Morris (Charlotte, NC) and co-driver Doug Nagy (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA), in only their second rally together, won their class at Rally Tennessee on 23rd and 24th of May 2009 in soggy conditions. As in years past, the NASA-sanctioned tarmac event took place on the lovely and sweeping roads in and around the town of Linden in Perry County. Along the way they set or tied fastest-in-class stage times on 7 of the 28 stages. The victory lists them as the M1 winners in the Atlantic Rally Championship and first in 2 Wheel Drive in the United States Rally Championship. The result moves them up to Second in USRC points for the season.
“This makes it two for two!” said Nagy. “We won our class at the Mad March Stages Rally in Florida a couple of months ago, our first time racing together.” They used the Floridian event as a warm-up for Tennessee in order to learn how they could best work together and get up to speed with pace notes.
The driver reported that “This was our first real tarmac rally. Our goal was to get up to speed on Saturday without giving up too much time to the competition, then see what Sunday brought.” Clearly the strategy proved successful. Morris added: “We had a good run from the very beginning and finished the first day third in class, less than 30 seconds behind the leader.”
Saturday was not without incident however. Explained the driver, “We had a ‘moment’ with a high speed spin on Owl Hollow, then a low speed spin in the same place going the other way on Owl Hollow Reverse.” The codriver pointed out that it happened in a “loose section” of pavement in the middle of the stage where the asphalt was “marbly.”
He continued, saying “Sunday was great racing. We were able to lay down some fast times early before the weather changed. Racing in the pouring rain was a first for me. It made the stages very exciting!”
“Brad did an excellent job of driving and really made up the difference as our car is down on power to the other cars, which are mostly turbocharged, in our class,” observed the codriver. (Due to multiplication factors, the Mitsubishi Lancer with its 2.4 liter four valve engine is classified in M1 in NASA, but it’s a Group 2 car under Rally America’s rulebook.) “Neither of us have much wet weather rally experience, but the car had a surprising amount of grip on the wet roads. The rain really ended up being no drama at all. As a matter of fact stages 19 and 20 were the wet ones and they were two of the ones we won.”
It was their first time at Rally Tennessee. “The roads were fantastic: all you could ask for, and more. They featured smooth, fast, rolling terrain, and the host community really made us feel welcome.”
On Stage 22 (Treefarm) the team felt like it was their best run yet on the repeated stage, but when they came up on the rolled Subaru of Patrick Brennan/Eamon Sweeney, they stopped to render assistance. Fortunately, the rules grants a time adjustment under just such an emergency situation, so it didn’t affect their final results.
“Doug was ‘on the money’ all weekend with the notes,” praised Morris. “I’m looking forward to our next rally together, Rally West Virginia in August.”
Morris thanked his sponsors, pointing out “We couldn’t compete without the valuable support from Promotional Management Group, Streetwiseparts.com, Larry Jay Mitsubishi in Charlotte, and Carquest Auto Parts. In addition, we received some great brake pads from Performance Friction that really made a difference in the changing conditions.”
The 2002 Lancer is prepared by the Morris Motorsports Group in North Carolina, with engineering support, performance parts, and west coast preparation by Streetwise ® Motorsports.
Streetwise on Twitter
Rally America NASA Rally Sport Rallymoto.net
