Steamboat Springs, CO — Rally America stops into Steamboat Springs, Colorado for the second to the last stop of the 2008 Rally America Championship. Top teams will all be on hand hoping to finish well and challenge for a place on the Rally America Championship podium. High speeds and high altitudes are the events stock and trade, with fast flowing stages and thin air that strangles the power from the cars. Commitment and smooth driving will lead to success at the 2008 edition of Rally Colorado.

While Travis Pastrana is almost guaranteed the Rally America championship, much of the top ten is still up for contention. Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard, who sits in second place in the series will likely be bumped down – skipping Rally Colorado to compete at Targa Newfoundland instead. Ken Block, presently in third place overall in the championship and winner of the event in 2007, had suffered a disappointing DNF at Ojibwe weeks earlier and will be looking to get back on top form in Colorado, an event where the fast roads favour Block’s flat out style.

Andy Pinker and Kyle Sarasin who sit fifth and sixth respectively in the Rally America standings, both finished on the podium at the last round and either one could leap forward in the standings with a strong finish in Colorado. Lauchlin O’Sullivan, a familiar name in US rally will be in Colorado to mix it up with other top teams.

While the competition starts on Saturday and wraps up on Sunday, after almost 110 miles of stage, there is plenty to see and do at Rally Colorado. Fans have a chance to meet Travis Pastrana on Thursday evening at Cook Subaru, and the Rocky Mountain Ferrari Club will showcase their cars with the rally teams on Saturday night. Please check www.rallycolorado.org for the event schedule and locations.

The National rally is spread over two days, while Saturday plays host to the first of a pair of regional events held within Rally Colorado, the second being held on Sunday.

Up in the mountains, the cars race along roads through wide open areas, making for excellent viewing. Teams will be challenged by both the roads, and the thin air that robs the cars of power. Despite this, the turbocharged open class cars will suffer less in the thinner air, putting them at even more of an advantage.

Rally car racing is considered the extreme sport of automobile racing and is often described simply as “real cars, real roads, real fast.” This all-season motorsport sees drivers and their co-drivers take modified road cars to the limit as they achieve blistering speeds over courses that cover more than 100 miles of gravel, dirt or snow-covered roads.

The 2008 Rally America National Championship series consists of nine exciting events that take place in a range of challenging weather and road conditions in a season that extends from February to October. Throughout the year, teams take on everything from the forest logging roads in Minnesota, to the high-altitude Yampa River Valley in Northwest Colorado, and the Pacific Northwest forest and coast paths.