CAR
 #    (DRIVER/CO-DRIVER)        CAR       SEED    SCORE

 15 David White/Kyle White     VW Golf      1   1:34:32    1 Two WD
 70 John Brasil/Bill Brasil    Audi 4ktq        1:41:07    1 4WD
  8 Bill Malik/C Edstrom       Volvo 240    1   1:42:52    2 Two WD
 66 Doug Robinson/Bill Hidde   Mazda RX7    3   1:46:30    1 Perf Stk
 35 Mark Brown/Ken White       Toyota FX    2   1:47:14    2 Perf Stk
311 Bradney Boli/Gary Gorman   Honda            1:47:48    3 Perf Stk
777 Alex Tissot/Violet Tissot  Volvo 240        1:57:34    3 Two WD
 71 Matthew Tabor/K Tabor      Toyota           2:04:15    4 Two WD
 52 Steve Bender/Craig McHugh  VW Rabbit        2:11:07    1 Stock
 50 Eric Oyague/A Oyague       Toyota       6   2:16:28    2 Stock
 72 Bruce Tabor/Jon Tabor      Nissan           2:20:41    5 Two WD
 41 Rui Brasil/Carlos Tavares  Audi S2      1      DNF
 20 George Plsek/Ben Bradley   Saab 99      2      DNF
 14 Pete Morris/Nick Taylor    Toyota              DNF
 51 Robert Shibao/Matt Gabler  Mazda GLC    4      DNF

   

This year's Reno Rally turned out to be a stark contrast to the previous year, when only 4 cars made it to the event last December, due to weather and other problems. This year's event, being a CRS and NWR sanctioned event, generated 18 entries, with 15 starting on Saturday. Fred Ronn, unfortunately broke his hand while working on his car, and couldn't make it to the event. Another car that didn't make it to the event, was the Medeiros 323 GTX, due to the team being unable to find their trailer in any of their warehouses. The third car, was the Toyota Celica All-Trac of Tony Tavares, who lost a bearing in his engine on the press stage on Friday. The team found a set of bearings in a wrecked All-Trac, but discovered later that the bearings were oversize instead of standard, so they wouldn't make the field.

Out of the cars that started, there were a few top national competitors who made it to the event. The list included Rui Brasil in his Audi S2 Quattro, Bill Malik in his Volvo 240, Dave White in his VW Golf GTI, and George Plsek in his Saab 99. The cars started out Saturday afternoon at 2:00 PM, with Rui first on the road. Rui's rally came to a quick end when he lost his transmission downshifting to second, going into the first turn on the first stage, causing him to go off and high center the car. This left John Brasil as the only remaining 4WD car, in Rui's old 4000 Quattro.

The two fastest cars in the event were Bill Malik's Volvo 240 and Dave White's VW Golf, who were running very close stage times. Bill was using this event for a test session for the upcoming Maine Forest Rally, coming up in three weeks time. Dave White had a new co-driver for this event...his son Kyle, who just turned 16, and was competing for the first time!

Bill Malik had about a minute lead going into latter half of the rally, but it all went for not when the team had a flat tire on Stage 8, costing them 4 minutes, and giving the win to Dave White and son Kyle by a margin of almost 7 minutes. In second, were John and Bill Brasil in the other Audi Quattro, who were turning fast and consistent stage times throughout the event, and finished in second after Bill Malik's flat. Bill Malik and Christian Edstrom finished in third a little over a minute behind the Brasil's Audi.

Of all the classes, the competitors in the Performance Stock classes finished the closest together, with Doug Robinson and Bill Hidde finishing first in Performance Stock and hung in for fourth overall in their Mazda RX-7, with the Arizona based team of Mark Brown/Ken White 45 seconds behind in their Toyota, coming in second in Performance stock and 5th overall. The Bradney Boli/Gary Gorman Honda was slightly behind by just over 30 seconds from Brown, and coming in third in class and 6th overall.

Third in 2wd was the new Tissot Racing Volvo 240. This was the team's second event and first finish following their first rally at Rim of the World in Palmdale, Ca. Their Volvo was beautifully prepared and encountered no troubles throughout the entire event. Following the Tissots was one of the two Tabor family cars from Oregon...Matthew and Kristen Tabor who finished in fourth in 2wd in their Toyota. The Steve Bender/Craig McHugh VW Rabbit followed behind by several minutes, with the Oyagues from Peru, in their Nissan, finishing a little over 4 minutes behind Bender/McHugh. Rounding out the finishers was the second Tabor entry of Bruce and Jon Tabor in their Nissan Sentra.

The one major incident in the event was the roll over of George Plsek and Ben Bradley in their Saab 99. They apparently came in a little hot to a double caution left over crest and put the car over. George and Ben were OK, but the car sustained heavy damage to the roof, hood, and chassis. George is building a new Audi S2 Quattro, and I suspect he'll be concentrating his efforts on building that new car now ;-).

All-in-all, this was a good event, and things went relatively smoothly. Many thanks to all the competitors who came out for this event and to all the workers who came up from CA, WA, OR, UT, NV, and wherever else...THANK YOU!!

The next event for the CRS is Goreman Ridge on August 22. The next event for the Northwest is the ORV park rallysprint in early August (check out http://www.nwr-scca.org for details).