Rally Enthusiasts!
Black Box rally team wins 2012 United States Rally PAWD Championship!
Photo credit: Kurt Womack
Well we did it. With our 1st in Production AWD class/3rd overall finish at Prescott, we clinched the United States Rally Championship Production AWD Cup. Prescott was an awesome awesome rally. I thought the drop-offs at Gorman were bad but Prescott made those seem like child's play. I spent the first day getting used to ridiculous, RI-DICULOUS speeds. No amount of training prepares you for cornering at 100+mph.
To give you a taste of what Prescott was like, imagine doing a track weekend except, the entire course runs over a fine, loose gravel surface. Now imagine flat footing it over completely blind turns. Add some sheer cliffs on either side of the turn and a dose of car eating ditches, and you're starting to get the picture.
It was great to see some familiar faces from Gorman Ridge rally. Like most rallies, Prescott had her fair share of cars. Hoche-mong/O'Hanlon, went off on stage 2, when they hit a bank. The dust got the best of Psara/Fahring and sent them off on a fast corner on stage 3, a night stage. On the first stage of the second day, Cem / Mustafa clipped the inside of a wall, spun, and came within inches of falling off the cliff edge.
And proving that the rally ain't over till it's over, Joseph Burke/Alex Kihurani rolled their evo on the very last stage, Gate/Hegel blew a a rear tire 1.5 miles from the end of the last stage and drove on it to finish, and we discovered that we too had shred one of our tires on the last stage and had to change it before transiting to finish!
Hats off to Keith Jackson/Marra Estep. They were contending the overall win when they saw that Burke/Kihurani rolled on the last stage; stopped and towed them to the finish at their own expense. Sarkis and Mike Mazmanian later also towed Burke/Kihurani to the MTC rally finish. Kudos to them for showing true sportsmanship in US Rally.
Photo credit: Billy Machin
Photo credit: TurnDriverSide.com
All in all, I am proud about our team’s performance during our first season rallying. We started off with a bang at International Rally New York, finishing 1st in class, 2nd overall. We ran our first canadian/winter rally at Perce-Neige, followed by our first tarmac rally; Rally NY USA. We got to compete at Hyperfest rallysprint at Summit Point and take the overall win - the same event that we were volunteers at the year before. We got to go to our first west coast rally, Gorman Ridge and won the overall AWD class. Two weeks later, we put another overall AWD win in the books for us back on the east coast, at Black River Stages, the rally we originally planned to start at.
We capped off the season at the legendary Prescott with our 6th class win since we started this rally adventure less than a year ago. So there you have it, we are the 2012 USRC Production AWD Champions, and despite running an underpowered production class car, we also finished 2nd in the overall United States Rally Championship, against a field of predominantly open class cars. (we would have finished first had one of our scores not been dropped - but that's another story!).
Can't wait for 2013 - have some things lined up for the upcoming year i can't wait to unveil
!I know I’ve said it before, but although I’m the face of the team, much more behind the scenes time and effort went on that made our season such a success. I really have to thank the entire Black Box rally crew – William, team manager/driving instructor, co-drivers Marra Estep, Billy Machin, and Amber Stacy, and mechanics Michael Ortega, Wes Morrill, Catherine Stirbis. Special thanks to PPD Motorsport for putting together our build, Laengworks Racing for supporting our west coast rallies, and RKT Motors for supporting our post-rally needs. Thanks to Unlimited Signs for sponsoring us this past year.
Finally, special thanks to the organizers and volunteers for making these rallies possible, and our family, friends, and supporters for their endless encouragement throughout the season! we also finished 2nd in the overall United States Rally Championship, against a field of predominantly open class cars. (we would have finished first had one of our scores not been dropped - but that's another story entirely). Can't wait for 2013 - have some things lined up for the upcoming year i can't wait to unveil
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Last edited by Robevo RS; Oct 22, 2012 at 06:30 AM.
There is a really high money sport , when it comes to the point where you want to be a bit more seriuos. Literally you WILL loose something in your car in every heat, if not you will have a dent .
Plus you need to be really pumped up HP wise also. So the parts will braking very easily etc. If you want we can sit down togethere and talk about it. But as right now i would say just focus on teh Rally as much as you can. You doing great there, and if you start spreading different directions , financially you might be streched which can cause troubles in your rally races.
but of course this is my opinion only.
Other then that it is awesome to be there LOL