Peeling Out at 100 MPH with Ken Block

Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino at the starting line of Rally New York 09.

Photo: Neil McDaid

Forestburgh, New York (January 16, 2010) Earlier this week, the Town Council of Walton, New York approved the special use road permits for the 2010 edition of Rally New York USA. Together with the three-year contract with the Town of Thompson that encompasses the Village of Monticello, Rally New York, Ltd. has road permits for the event in place.

Rally New York USA, a two-day tarmac rally, is unique in that it is the only National Championship event in North America that is run entirely on tarmac roads. Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino won Rally New York USA in two previous years. Ken Block recently announced the formation of Monster World Rally Team and its participation in the 2010 World Rally Championship.

2010 Rally New York USA will be entirely based and headquartered in Walton, New York. The rally is a round of the United States Rally Championship (www.usrallychampionship.com) and allows full reconnaissance of the rally route and pace notes. Each of the two days is a separate round of New York Rally Championship (http://www.rallynewyork.net/nyrc.htm).

The program is as follows:

Thursday, April 15 – afternoon/ evening: Registration and scrutineering of competition vehicles
Friday, April 16 – morning: Reconnaissance of special stages in Walton
Friday, April 16 – afternoon / evening: Reconnaissance of special stages in Monticello, Ceremonial Start at Sullivan County Center in Monticello, racing at Concord Resort in Monticello, return to Walton in the evening
Saturday, April 17 – all day: Restart in Walton, racing in Walton, Ceremonial Finish at Delaware County Fairgrounds in Walton, post-event party and dinner in Walton
Sunday, April 18 – morning: Awards Ceremony

Rally New York, Ltd. is headquartered in Forestburgh, New York located ninety miles northwest of New York City in spectacular southern Catskill Mountains of Sullivan County. It is dedicated to furthering the sport of stage rallying in the United States.

The United States Rally Championship will continue its bold steps to make national competition in 2010 more affordable and accessible to a larger number of rally teams. The Championship structure minimizes or, for many teams, eliminates the need for repeated cross-country travel during the Championship season by providing competition on each side of the country. The final round of the Championship at the end of the year counts both in the Atlantic Division and the Pacific Division and together with the results from all previous rounds decides the top spots in the Championship. As a result, 207 competitors, drivers and co-drivers, participated during the 2009 USRC season, nearly twice as many as in any other championship series in North America.

Atlantic Division teams will be again competing for coveted cash travel subsidies that will be awarded to top six teams in the Division. The total of $12,000 in subsidies will be distributed to Atlantic Division teams to assist them with travelling to the final round of the 2010 United States Rally Championship in Prescott, Arizona.

The Championship season consists of a combination of snow, gravel and tarmac events. Rallies in the United States Rally Championship allow for reconnaissance and pace notes. Tarmac events, full reconnaissance and pace notes make the United States Rally Championship unique in North America as no other series in North America encompasses all these features.

Source: Rally New York Media.

FIESTA TAKES ON ESPN’S X GAMES

Dearborn, Mich. — The new Fiesta Rallycross cars have already created plenty of buzz in the enthusiast community with word of their North American motorsport debut in July’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado.
Now, the anticipation will be even greater as the Swedish Olsbergs Motor Sport Evolution team has announced it will compete in ESPN’s X Games 15 in Los Angeles, Calif., July 30 – Aug. 2. Olsbergs MSE is entering the race with the famous Swedish driver Kenny Brack. The team will also field Ford Fiestas with Rockstar Energy Drink for drivers Tanner Foust and Brian Deegan. All three Fiestas will comply with Rally America Open Class specifications.
Olsbergs Motor Sport Evolution will utilize BFGoodrich Tires at both the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and at ESPN’s X Games 15.
“The new Fiesta is already creating headlines around the world,” said Brian Wolfe, director of Ford North America Motorsport. “The announcement that it would compete at Pikes Peak was greeted so positively by enthusiasts everywhere. Now, to back it up with competition at the X Games will just create even more buzz for the car.”
The X Games, considered the premier action sports event in the world, features athletes from across the globe competing in a variety of sports, ranging from skateboarding, motocross, BMX and rally car racing. X Games 15 will be covered live on ESPN's family of networks, including ABC, as well as across ESPN's many digital media assets, including Xgames.com and ESPN360.com.
The three Fiestas will be driven by an all-star lineup, which includes an Indy 500 winner, a former X Games rally champion and a 10-time X Games medalist.
The 1999 Indianapolis 500 winner Kenny Brack, who will drive the 2009 Fiesta 3-door hatchback, is making his X Games debut. Brack was the ‘98 IndyCar Series champion and was a factory driver for Ford Racing’s Champ Car entry Rahal Letterman Racing. Brack sustained significant injures in a major accident at Texas Motor Speedway in ‘03 while driving for RLR, but he returned to the car at the Indy 500 in ‘05, subbing for the injured Buddy Rice and posting the fastest qualifying speed (227.598 mph) of the field. Brack has been retired since ‘06, pursuing his music career, but still drives competitively in special events. Olsbergs and Kenny Brack have had a long-term partnership and at present Kenny and Olsbergs are acting as mentors for a new promising Swedish racing star, 17-year old Markus Eriksson.
Rockstar Energy Rally driver Tanner Foust will drive a race-prepared ‘09 Fiesta 5-door hatchback. He is a winning competitor in rally, drift, ice racing and time attack with a proven track record of multiple podium placements and national championships. Foust has seen success in Drift and Rally in the last few seasons. In addition to winning the both the ‘07 and ‘08 Formula Drift Pro Drift Championship, he also took the Silver medal as runner-up in the 2008 Summer X Games Pro Rally race.
Foust won the ‘07 X Games Gold Medal in the Pro Rally for the Rockstar Energy Rally team. He was selected to represent Team USA in the annual Race of Champions at Wembley Stadium in London, UK this past December. He teamed with Ford Racing NASCAR star Carl Edwards to do battle with the world's fastest drivers and riders from Formula One, World Rally Championship, Superbike and Touring Car racing.
Joining Foust will be Moto X star Brian Deegan, a 10-time medalist at the X Games, including three gold medals for Moto X Best Trick (‘02, ‘03, ‘05). Earlier this year, Deegan launched a Pro-Lite class off road truck team in Championship Off-Road Racing under a newly formed Rockstar/Metal Mulisha/Caffaro Motorsports banner. Named one of the Top 100 Action Sports Stars by ESPN in ‘04, Deegan has competed at every X Games rally event and will drive a ‘08 Fiesta 3-door hatchback.
This will be the first time a Ford race car has been part of the X Games’ Rally competition.
"We are very excited to see the Fiesta competing not only at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, but also at the X Games in LA,” said Jost Capito, director of Ford Global Motorsport Business Development. “The competition will be extremely strong in both events, but we’ve put together a strong team with the Rockstar/BF Goodrich Tires Fiestas and our all star drivers. The Olsbergs Motor Sport Evolution race team is doing an outstanding job in preparing the cars for both of these world famous events."

Ford tightens its grip on leading places in dramatic day in Italy

BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team strengthened its one-two position at the head of the leaderboard in Rally d'Italia Sardegna today. Overnight leaders Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila retained top spot in their Ford Focus RS World Rally Car despite enduring the worst of the dusty and slippery road conditions.

The Finns are 9.9sec ahead of team-mates Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen and the Ford pair extended the advantage over their nearest challenger to more than a minute. The second leg of this sixth round of the FIA World Rally Championship was one of attrition. While the Focus RS WRCs ran free of problems, five leading drivers were sidelined as the rocky gravel roads and temperatures, which topped 30ºC, took a heavy toll on the entry list.After an early morning start from the rally base in Olbia, competitors tackled two identical loops of speed tests south-west of the town covering 130.74km.

The loops were split by a return to the service park in Olbia at lunchtime.Latvala faced the unenviable task of leading the 53 starters through the special stages, sweeping the roads clear of loose gravel to leave a cleaner and faster line for those behind. However, the 24-year-old delivered a superb performance over the three morning tests as he preserved much of his lead, his 39.8sec advantage only reduced to 27.0sec.

A trio of third fastest times this afternoon enabled him to stay ahead of a charging Hirvonen. "Today was almost perfect, apart from a small spin at a junction in an asphalt section of the penultimate stage," said Latvala. "I drove as well as I could in those conditions and expected to lose more time.

It was hard to judge the braking points this morning because as first car into the stages, there were no marks to help me. Running first was good for my experience and I needed to learn how to drive in those conditions."The gap to Mikko is very small and it will be hard for me to hold him off tomorrow as I will again open the stages.

I would have liked a lead of about 25sec tonight, or to be behind Mikko and force him to do the cleaning role that I had to do today. But if I can drive like I have today then a win isn't out of the question," he added.Hirvonen, second overnight, was equally impressive behind the wheel of his Focus RS WRC in both fighting off closest challenger Sébastien Loeb and closing in on Latvala.

He was fastest on the opening test of each loop and widened the gap to Loeb before the Frenchman lost a minute with a puncture on the penultimate stage. He then sliced almost 10sec off Latvala's lead in the final test to close on his fellow countryman. "I'm going for the win tomorrow," said 28-year-old Hirvonen, who has shaken off the effects of the fever which hampered him yesterday. "The situation looks good now. I took time from Jari-Matti today and he must clean the roads again tomorrow. It has been a great rally so far, but tomorrow won't be straight forward and it's easy to make a simple, but costly, mistake here. "My day was very constant and my only problems came in stage eight this morning when I twice had to slow to allow wild horses to cross the road.

On the first occasion there were about seven or eight and then I came upon two more, about 8km further on. It was like the Wild West!" he said. Abu Dhabi's Khalid Al Qassimi and Michael Orr enjoyed a good day to climb from 10th to seventh in their Focus RS. They enjoyed a close fight with Conrad Rautenbach this morning, swapping positions on every stage, before overcoming a lack of power steering this afternoon to move up the order. "The problem started on the liaison section after lunchtime service. I

contemplated retiring, but persevered and it was worth it – although my arms feel very tired now," said Al Qassimi. BP Ford Abu Dhabi team director Malcolm Wilson praised the efforts of both Latvala and Hirvonen. "It has been the best performance of the year so far. Both have driven fantastically well, especially given the disadvantage of their start position, and stayed out of trouble on the rough stages.

It will be hard for Jari-Matti to stay ahead of Mikko as he must sweep the roads again, but the most important thing is to retain first and second," he said. News from other Ford teams Stobart drivers Matthew Wilson and Scott Martin had a troublefree day to climb from ninth to sixth in their Focus RS WRC. Team-mates Henning Solberg and Cato Menkerud climbed to fifth on the opening stage, but a right rear puncture in the morning's final stage cost more than a minute and three positions. The Norwegians were sidelined this afternoon with broken front right suspension in the penultimate test and will restart tomorrow in 10th.

Munchi's drivers Federico Villagra and Jorge Perez Companc restarted under SupeRally rules after retiring yesterday but retired again at the lunchtime service when Companc felt ill. They will not restart tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Route The final day is the shortest of the event. After leaving Olbia at 06.00, drivers face two loops of stages, split by a return to the town for service. Two stages south of the town feature in both laps, with a single run in the second loop through a test to the north, near the Costa Smeralda coastline.

The finish is in Porto Cervo at 14.15. Leaderboard after Day 2

1. J-M Latvala/M Anttila FIN Ford Focus RS 2hr 58min 03.5sec

2. M Hirvonen/J Lehtinen FIN Ford Focus RS 2hr 58min 13.4sec

3. P Solberg/P Mills NOR Citroen Xsara 2hr 59min 16.1sec

4. S Loeb/D Elena FRA Citroen C4 2hr 59min 18.3sec

5. E Novikov/D Moscatt RUS Citroen C4 3hr 00min 49.5sec

6. M Wilson/S Martin GBR Ford Focus RS 3hr 03min 06.3sec

7. K Al Qassimi/M Orr UAE Ford Focus RS 3hr 05min 01.4sec

8. D Sordo/M Marti ESP Citroen C4 3hr 07min 22.3sec

9. M Østberg/V Engan NOR Subaru Impreza 3hr 10min 32.5sec

10 H Solberg/C Menkerud NOR Ford Focus RS 3hr 10min 33.6sec