RE: Wild West Pro Rally

[Mark Nelson <mnelson@brls.com>]

Hi Mike!

I completely agree that the Escort Cozzie is one heck of a car.  I
believe Carl's is a Grp A. car as it does have the double wing.  It
apparently is a brand new car for this year, and is supposedly much more
solid then his "old" '95.  The rumor is that he also is making a little
more power this year as well.

I know that to order one of these as a "street" ready car, will cost you
somewhere in neighborhood of $60K USD, and of course you do have to
order it.  Too bad you can't walk in to your local Ford dealer and drive
a new one off the lot :-)  From looking at the inside of the car, before
the rally, I noticed some rather interesting switches for differentials,
so it is quite possible this car does have the active diffs.  I guess if
you've got the bucks, money ain't no object...  Rui sure seemed to be
enjoying it, as he attempted to climb in the driver's seat before the
rally :-)

It did have all Ford pieces in it, and actually looks very similar to
the car that Sainz drives in WRC.  I was actually hoping to see Carl
have better luck, just to give Choinere a run for his money.  BTW
Choinere ended up finishing the rally 4.5 minutes ahead of the factory
backed Saabs in second.  I'm hoping to be competing with my dad in our
Mazda 323 GTX at Rim in May, so that ought to be a lot of fun and quite
interesting as well.  I hope to have my car built sometime in August, to
at least run a couple of rallies at the end of the year, but we'll see
;-)


Best Regards,

Mark Nelson
================================================================
mnelson@brls.com
Borealis Technology Corp.
SQA Engineer
   http://www.brls.com

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

Past Audis: 1987 5000CSTQ, 1987 5000CSTQW
================================================================

Mike Z. wrote:

>Hi Mark ..
>I can't wait to see it.
>
>That must be one great car. I am scared to think of how much he paid for 
>it. I heard somewhere that it is of World Rally Car spec, not GrA. 
>The way to tell is WRC Fords no longer have that big double wing. They 
>have a single wing on rear hatch. Ford has separate depatrment to service 
>high budget privateers like Carl. The cars they get are slightly 
>different than those Ford's builds for Carlos Saints and  Armin Shwarts.
>I wounder if he actually had active front and center diffs. Ford still 
>runs and sells Gr A cars for private entries. I wounder if he actually 
>uses Ford's ability to adjust track width. It would be interesting to 
>know what it does to drivability. 
>I live in NJ and plan to run all Eastern events in my Toyota. Ski Sawmill 
>divisional is first, than STPR and Main and selective Canadian events 
>budget permitting.
>Mike Z.
>