Clinton Township, Michigan - With a fresh start to the 2002 SCCA ProRally series, Paul White Racing earns a podium finish. With unpredictable road conditions and an under the weather co-driver, the team of Chris Whiteman and Mike Paulin went to battle at the Sno-Drift ProRally held in Atlanta, Michigan. Atlanta is a small town approximately 270 miles north of Detroit. "Being a Michigan based ProRally Team, we felt that this event would be good to us even though we had never competed in a winter rally" explains Whiteman.

The Paul White Racing Team had their work cut out for them after struggling to find a comfortable pace and going of the coarse six times in the first five stages. Whiteman explains "Our strategy was simple, the first night we would drive conservative, find a good pace and compare our times to the competition. It turned out that the pace of class competitors Matt Johnson and Eric Burmeister would be quite high." Stage 5, the last stage of day one, proved to be a real struggle. "We were approximately 1 mile from the end of the stage and we went into a 90 degree right hand corner to fast. We hit the outside snow bank and got stuck in the snow. Mike had to get out and push. As we got underway we realized that the left front tire hade been punctured" explains Whiteman. The team managed to drive the car to the finish of the stage but found their stage time would be 2.5 minutes slower than the same stage earlier that day.

Day two started early with a clean car, a much improved starting position and a firm third place in class position but with eleven stages left anything could happen. The day started out with stages of glare ice soon changing to slush and mud covered frozen road. "We decided that we were going to stop worrying about people catching us and were just going to drive our own race" explained Whiteman.

The sixteenth stage ended and the teams position was the same as it was at the beginning, third place in the Group 2 class. "I wanted to make sure that we were in it at the end, with a little luck we would have moved up" said Whiteman. "The most important thing is that we saved the car and our team finished safely in an event that claimed many cars."

Paul White Racing would like to congratulate The Burmeister Rallysport Team and Matt Johnson's team for a great race, and thank team sponsors North American Radiator, American Graffiti Graphics, and Burmeister Engineering. Paul White Racing would also like to thank their crew for their efforts throughout the event.

North American Radiator is located in Utica, Michigan and can be contacted at (586)739-7330.

American Graffiti Graphics can be contacted at www.VINYL4ALL.com

Burmeister Engineering can be contacted at (313)792-2397, lurch3@prodigy.net