Middle Village, NY -- The Rally of the Tall Pines was the final event in the 1999 CARS Subaru Canadian Rally Championship and the last chance for Team Artex Motorsport to win the 1999 NEDiv ClubRally Open Class Championship. The Rally of the Tall Pines was held on November 20th in Bancroft, Ontario. Tall Pines has a reputation for treacherously icy roads, however unseasonably warm weather this year meant the roads were wet and liberally covered with water crossings, water holes and washouts.

Driver Arthur Wojcik needed rudders at times to keep the car on course. One water crossing sent the car sliding toward the side of the road, barely missing a photographer who got a closer shot than he bargained for. Another water crossing created enough pressure to force water into the transmission breather, which promptly sprayed the resulting oil/water mixture on the windshield and co-driver Chuck Cox's feet.

Despite the challenges, the team finished second in Open Class in the Regional rally which was enough to clinch both the Driver's and Co-Driver's NEDiv ClubRally Open Class Championships for 1999.

The Rally of the Tall Pines will be broadcast on TSN/RDS at the following times in December: 18th at 18:00, 20th at 01:30, 21st at 15:00.

Team Artex Motorsport would like to thank our competitors for a great season, especially Alex Erisoty and Ben Greisler who challenged us all season for the NEDiv Championship. We look forward to continuing our competition and friendship.

1999 was a great year of growth for performance rallying in North America in general and NEDiv in particular. We are especially proud of this year's rookies, including SCCA Rookie Driver of the Year Alex Erisoty, NEDiv Group 2 Champions Jason and Jeff Williams, and our own Chuck Cox. We expect the next class of rookies to raise the standard even higher.

We would like to thank all of the volunteers who helped us with service throughout the season. They gave up their weekends to help us change tires and pour fuel, and we couldn't have done it without them. Thanks also to the rally organizers and workers who face increasing challenges as the sport grows. We also want to thank the spectators for their encouragement. Finally, thanks to our sponsors, Artex Motorsport and SynchroSystems for their support.

Arthur reflects, "I'm very happy with our performance this year. A big 'Thank You' is in order to my co-driver Chuck for his efforts. This was our first year as a team and the very first time for Chuck as navigator. His professional approach to co-driving chores still amazes me. And I thought that he would not co-drive after I spun the car on the practice stage just before our first event." Chuck adds,"I couldn't have asked for a better rookie season. Arthur helped me get up to speed quickly, and we worked well as a team. His well prepared Galant and conservative driving style meant we had only one mechanical failure and no crashes the entire season. I want to say hello to our fans, and I promise to learn more Polish and French. I also want to thank Erika and Robyn at the Musee de la Biere in Montreal for listening to my rally stories after Tall Pines."

The team is still finalizing the details of their 2000 rally schedule, however the first event will be the Rallye de Quebec, which is part of the Carnaval de Quebec.

Upcoming events:

date	event	location	series	tv	web
Jan 28-29	Rallye de Quebec	Quebec City, QC	CARS	TSN/RDS	www.oricom.ca/rallyeqc

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 a computer engineer 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 developer located in Cambridge, MA.