Terrific Finish at New England Forest Rally!

[Luke]

More updates and photos soon, but suffice to say. We had an amazing comeback from a rough start and ended up 2nd in class and 4th in the 2WD max attack championship!

Special thanks to all the Crew! Jordan, Max, Seth, Sam and others that came out and worked hard to help acheive this hard earned finish.

[Geoff]

We also finished 6th overall (out of 30ish starters) in the Berlin regional rally on Saturday! There were only two AWD cars in the top 7!

Things started out a bit slow with 2 super specials surrounded by services, parc exposes, etc. and then stages 3-4 being canceled because the ambulance didn't show up. The car also had NO power until after the first 3 stages on Saturday (we did 6 of the 11 stages with maybe 80hp). Our awesome crew got us a new intake air temp sensor before the 2nd service on Saturday where we got it changed and Luke re-mapped the ECU. We had a few other minor issues (mysterious metal shavings at the front end of the engine bay, some sheet metal weakening around one rear suspension mount, 2 damaged front tires that we moved to the rear) but that didn't slow us down! If the car had been running right we might have moved up to 3rd in MaxAttack but the car that won 3rd place was a G2 car and ours is G5 so they totally deserve the 3rd place finish!

I haven't found too many pictures yet (though Zach posted some pictures and video that I can't view at work) but here's one:


We had a TON of spectators come up and check out the car and comment how fast we were on the last 5 stages. Thanks to everyone who came out to see us!

[Luke]

A bit of a suprise, but it turns out that we are the 2009 Rally America eastern region G5 champion! There are no more points in the eastern division this year and our two wins at STPR and good results at NEFR put us on top

[max]

Woo hoo!

[Geoff]

And out of the top 3 co-drivers there are two that earned all their points in your car!

woo hoo! I'm in 3rd! Luke beat Chris Duplessis!

[79-99]

Nice to meet you guys! Great job at the NEFR. I tried to agitate the X-games crowd by saying the following after your car went by; "now there goes the REAL rally car". No fights, but they did give us extra room!!!

There was this guy at the Fish pond spectator area wearing a Swedish flag and viking horns...I thought cool, a supporter of Sorensen rally team, I'll go meet him. When he turned towards me he had freakin 199 written on his chest... I figured he bought the flag at the dollar store on Mexico, oh well.

I really don't care for that drive from Berlin to Fish pond Rd. Paul Choinere was driving the 0 car (one of those SAAB SUVs) and passed me on a double yellow stretch, we met at the Subway in Errol and I asked him how his SAAB handles and he just laughed. I followed a p/u with a camper in the bed for a while , we came up to an RV towing a jeep and this guy just pulls out and passes the RV truck camper, swaying left and right going about 75!!! I watched him do it a second time and then followed him into the Irving in Errrol. I went over to him and said , " that was some great driving", he smiled and said "you can't be scared". Maybe the landowners will open the Magalloway and Parmachene roads again.

I never did meet Seth. I'll have to email him about the 78 99.
Ed

[Crazyswede]

I never did meet Seth. I'll have to email him about the 78 99.
Ed

I hear that he lurks on here from time to time.

[Geoff]

I saw that guy with the horns and flag and cheered him on. "Va Sveirge!" and made horns on my head with my fingers. The funny part is 199 used to be Mike White's number on his '80 99 rally car.

That Berlin-Wilsons Mills transit went OK for us, but any slower and we would have been late. I ran across the timing line after we arrived at 59 seconds on our minute. One second later would have got us a penalty. A lot of teams left direct form service and ended up late. I drive that route a lot (my parents have access to some cabins on land right around there) and I've never seen the road that busy. There was a lot of rally traffic but also a lot of boaters, rafters, vacationers, etc. all at the same time.

From what I hear there were land owners on the VIP bus and it sounds like they had a good time. There was also work being done to get some of those other stages run (Parmachenee, the rest of Magalloway) this year but there was issue with some of the roads being in bad condition due to rain (washed out).

[79-99]

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/89830 ... 7816_YoYXC

[79-99]

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/89830 ... 4943_2cqat

[max]

Awww Greg has a new friend!

[Geoff]

Awww Greg has a new friend!

"AWWW YEEEEAHHH!!!"

There are a bunch of good pictures of the 99 on that Smugmug account, especially on stages 6 and 9
http://gtluke.smugmug.com/RallyAddict/838210