|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 21, 2005 |
For more information, Contact: John Cassidy Last Ditch Racing E-mail: John@lastditchracing.net Website: www.lastditchracing.net |
Bangor, Maine, USA -- Last Ditch Racing travelled across the continent and completed the 2005 Pacific Forest Rally in Merrit, British Columbia, taking 3rd in the P4 class and 8th overall.
The event presented many challenges for the team. An unfamiliar event, a rented car - a new different co-driver. Combine these factors with a lack of sleep, the team were lucky to stay on the road at all!
Said Cassidy, "Co-Driver Dave Shindle and I arrived at 3AM PST, meaning we'd been up for 24 hours straight at that point! A few hours of sleep and we were up to do recce all day, then race all night, finally getting to bed about 1 AM. We were up early the next morning to race all day. To say we were a bit tired and apprehensive about the weekend is an understatement! This race was probably one of the biggest mental challenges I've faced in my racing career to date."
Friday nights' stages saw the team settling into the car, a 2004 WRX rented and serviced by local rally shop Rocket Rally. Rocket Rally's team principal is 2005 North American and Canadian Champion Pat Richard. The team suffered a flat on the treacherous Princeton Cutoff stage and Cassidy decided to drive it out rather than stopping to change it as the road was too narrow. Valuable time was lost and and the team was passed by Scott Trinder late in the stage. After changing the tire, the team realized they had no turbo boost. Without boost, speed was difficult to maintain, and more time was lost due to lack of speed as well as time penalties for late arrival at the next time control.
Having inspected the engine bay, Cassidy felt it was safe to continue the final two stages. "Dave and I thought about ending the rally right then, but I was confident we wouldn't damage the car by continuing. We drove as fast as we could, but it wasn't the pace we would have liked to have set. We were exhausted and somewhat dejected by our performance at the end of Fridayl. We knew that the Rocket Rally crew would have the car in great shape for Saturday and I was determined that we would up our pace in the morning."
Saturday dawned and the team was greeted with cool weather and rain. Having gotten a generoust 6 hours of sleep, the team felt fresh and wasted no time in settling into a pace that would see them setting top 4-6 stage times throughout the day. The team were held up by a vigilante group of cows on the Nicola stage for what seemed like an eternity until they cleared out of the road. The team also stopped on Special Stage Helmer to render aid to fellow competitor Warren Currie, who rolled his car several times into the scenery, landing on his roof. The team was found to be ok and Cassidy and Shindle continued on after several minutes.
Times for Saturday's evening stages dipped due to some auxillary lighting issues, but the team was able to claw their way back up to 8th position by the end of the event.
Cassidy and Shindle were pleased with the effort. Said Cassidy, "After the disappointment of Friday, it was good to be able to show some pace on Saturday. The event was extremely well organized and run. The scenery was incredible, and we hope to return next year, hopefully in our own car. I can't say enough good things about the service and support provided by Pat Richard and the Rocket Rally crew."
The team is currently in the process of building a new car for the 2006 season and hope to debut it at the Rallye Perce Neige in Quebec in late winter.
Last Ditch Racing would like to thank their 2005 team partners for their continued support!
For more information on Last Ditch Racing, please visit: www.lastditchracing.net
For more information on the Pacific Forest Rally, please visit: www.pacificforestrally.com/home.html
For more information on Rocket Rally Racingl, please visit: www.rocketrally.com