Wild West Pro Rally

[Mark Nelson <mnelson@brls.com>]

Hi All!

Well, I just got back from Washington tonight (yup did a nice 755 miles
from Seattle to Reno in 10.5 hours), and thought I would post some of
the things that happened.

I was only able to spectate Friday night, the first stage, due to time
constraints, but it was interesting regardless.  An interesting note to
Audi enthusiasts, was that the Sprongls were unable to make it to the
event as they had planned.  They apparently did not have all the parts
they needed for the car, and the weather was an issue coming from
Toronto.  Needless to say I was rather disappointed, since he and
Choinere were tied in points.

A couple of interesting notes on Carl Merrill's brand new '97 Escort
Cosworth: in the first stage Friday night, he broke a front half shaft,
crippling the car.  As a result, from the spectating position I was in
(off of I-8 on the second Summit Lake Exit), Rui Brasil in his
smooth-running 4KQ was only 30 seconds behind him, and was running quite
fast.  

In the second stage, Merrill broke a left rear suspension piece on his
car, giving him a DNF for the rally.  An interesting tid-bit pertaining
to this, was that on my way back home today, I surprisingly caught up
with his car being towed back to Maine (now there's a long haul), just
south of Olympia, and was behind him for a good 300 miles (or in some
cases beside the car).  This was an unusual way of getting a very close
look at an EXTREMELY fast and exotic rally car.  I didn't realize that
he was out of the rally until I caught up with his car on the Freeway
:-)

Anyone else out there have any other interesting info on the event?

Best Regards,

Mark Nelson
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mnelson@brls.com
SQA Engineer	
Borealis Technology Corp.
Incline Village, Nevada
http://www.brls.com

1990 Audi "S2" Quattro (Building for SCCA Pro Rally)

Past Audis: 1987 5000CSTQ, 1987 5000CSTQW
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