Middle Village, NY -- Team Artex Motorsport entered Rallye Auto Charlevoix, the premier North American performance rally, looking to take the lead in the NEDIV ClubRally Open Class Championship. Rallye Auto Charlevoix Export "A" 99 was headquartered on the Isle aux Coudres and attracted an estimated 15,000+ spectators to the Charlevoix region, north of Quebec City. It is part of the Subaru Canadian Rally Championship and the North American Rally Cup.

As driver Arthur Wojcik warmed up on Friday night's stages, he drove with increasing aggression, and started to advance in the rankings. The Les Erables night stages were particularly good, with loose dirt and linked turns. As Arthur used all the road to drift around the turns, he gave the spectators quite a show and scared a few who stood too close to the action. Saturday morning brought the island stages, which challenged co-driver Chuck Cox with extremely rapid instructions. Arthur continued to drive hard through the afternoon tarmac stages, moving to second in Regional Open Class, and putting a lot of stress on the Mitsubishi Galant. During the tarmac stages the starter began to fail and the gearbox became harder to shift. By the time the rally returned to gravel, the Galant was stuck in third gear and had to be push started whenever it stalled.

The team coaxed the car to the La Pax stage and managed to start, but a square right followed by a steep uphill was too much for third gear, and the Galant stalled for the last time right in the middle of a major spectator area. The pounding sheared the lower gearbox mounting bolts, breaking part of the clutch and causing the transmission to go out of alignment.

As disappointing as it was to DNF, it was better than hearing Arthur "singing" karaoke at the after-rally party. Chuck, with the style expected of a co-driver, drowned his sorrows in Belgian ales and Cuban cigars with sympathetic rally fans at the Saint Alexandre Pub in Quebec. Arthur is positive about the experience, "Despite a DNF, this event was just a pure blast, great roads, thousands of spectators, great event. At this time the Galant has been repaired and we are ready for our next event, Rally of the Tall Pines".

Marzena Wojcik and Cezary Fidler provided excellent service for this event. The Rallye Auto Charlevoix will be broadcast on TSN/RDS.

The Rally of the Tall Pines in Ontario is Team Artex Motorsport's last event of the season and last opportunity to win the 1999 NEDIV ClubRally Open Class Championship. The team needs to take second in the Regional event to win the Driver championship or fifth to win the Co-Driver championship.

Upcoming events:

date	event	location	series	tv	web
Nov 20	Rally of the Tall Pines	Bancroft, ON	CARS	TSN/RDS	www.mlrc.on.ca/mlrc/tp

Team Artex Motorsport is a professional performance rally team that competes in SCCA and CARS events throughout the Northeastern United States and eastern Canada. They rally a Mitsubishi Galant GSX Turbo in Open Class. Veteran driver Arthur Wojcik lives in Middle Village, NY, where he works for a major telecommunications company. Rookie co-driver Chuck Cox lives in Cambridge, MA, where he is president of SynchroSystems and a part-time Harvard student. They are sponsored by Artex Motorsport, a rally car preparation shop located in New York City and SynchroSystems, a motorsport computer shop located in Cambridge, MA.