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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 13, 2005 |
For more information, Contact: Kristopher Marciniak E-mail: webkris@yahoo.com Website: rallynotes.com |
Irvine, California -- For their second event, the team traveled to Prescott Arizona for the 18th running of the Prescott Rally presented by Scott Roofing. The goal for the weekend was to attack the stages and start to see the speed that this team is capable of. The result was some good stage times on Friday and a 4th in class on Saturday. The rallynotes.com team set a 4th fastest time on the super special stage at the Yavapai County Fairgrounds, fastest of the production cars. Fuel pump issues caused them some delays on Friday night and Saturday morning. "I had my foot planted! We love the fast flowing roads and I wasn’t worried about the jumps or ditches. The Rally Neon can take the abuse," said driver Kristopher Marciniak. "If only I didn’t have to hop out to get the fuel pump going again. We got the issue sorted by making a nervous decision to pull part of the fuel tank skid plate. The exhaust was overheating it and causing our fuel pump to fail. We pulled it right before the Limestone stages, the roughest on this rally!"
Setting some good mid-pack times and stretching the Dodge "Rally" Neon to its top speed made the 400 mile trip well worth it. "Christine is getting really good with stage notes. I asked her to call ‘ones’ and ‘twos’ as ‘hairpin,’ as any tight turn following a 100MPH straight IS a hairpin. Growing up in New Hampshire I have no idea what a ‘cattle guard’ is, so I asked her to call it as a ‘grate’ and she did awesome all weekend. My favorite call of the weekend was ‘right six, two fifty, so stay on it!’ She knows I can go faster and pushed me all weekend," remarked Kris.
"I know Kris could have pushed harder but that wasn’t the point of this weekend. We finished our second full rally, as well as improved our ranking, and set great times for stages even when we had problems with the car. I also worked on proper timing with calling the notes. Overall, I’m pleased with our performance and achieving these goals we had set for the rally," commented co-driver Christine Wittish.
The service crew consisted of volunteers from an Arizona based car club AZ2GNT.net. Serving as the Team manager and last minute Service Crew Chief, Brian Driggs handled a lot of responsibility for the team. Nicole Miller, Dave Wenzlick, and Kim helped to keep the Neon running all weekend. "We did really well in service. I was so happy someone was waiting for us at Depot 89," exclaimed Kris. The crew performed one service on Friday and three on Saturday.
Not wanting to end their short season early, the team is actively looking for sponsorship for the Ramada Express Rally in December. "We’d like to finish out the season and run Ramada, but we’re going to need a partner as we’ve only budgeted two rallies this year. We’ve got two finishes under our belt and I think we’re starting to show our potential. I’d love to keep that going," said Kris.
Kristopher is a computer technician and support analyst working for the Alteer Corporation in Irvine, CA. Christine is a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine in the field of molecular biology and the lab of Dr. Douglas Wallace.
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