Sprongl wins Maine Forest Rally!

[Mark Nelson <mnelson@brls.com>]

Hello Audi Nuts!

Just checked Andy Shupack's latest press notes from the Maine Rally that
happened over the weekend and it appears to have been a good rally for
Audi fans.  After the first four stages Friday night, Carl Merrill was
in the lead, with Noel Lawler in the Libra Racing Hyundai Elantra in
second, and the Sprongls in third.  All of which were separated by ~20
seconds or so.  Henry Joy in the Mitsubishi Lancer was in fourth, while
Choinere was back down in the field after a rollover.  It turns out that
the first two stages were run on Tarmac in Rumford and at the Mead paper
factory, and Choinere supposedly got a little over aggressive in the
second stage and rolled the car into a hole.

Anyway, after 8 stages, Merrill was in the lead still, but Sprongl had
moved to second.  Noel Lawler in the Hyundai hit a bank and the car
stalled and they were never able to restart it, they DNF'd.  During this
time Choinere was moving back up from being several minutes down from
the leaders.

After 12 stages, Sprongl passed Merrill in the Escort Cossie for the
lead, and never looked back.  Frank said the car was running excellently
and the only problem that the Four Star Racing team encountered was when
their clutch plate got soaked in some kind of fluid.  They used the old
racer's trick of dumping Coca-Cola and Flour on the clutch plate, and
they had no problems after that.  Choinere managed to grab 6th.  Sakis
in the twin turbo 90Q (divisional only of course) finished in 5th
overall, but was apparently plagued with turbo problems around their "T"
hose arrangement.

Anyway, all-in-all it looked like a very good rally.  I think it will be
interesting to see the ESPN footage of Choinere's roll ;-).  Maybe some
listers that attended the rally can enlighten us further.  Anybody
actually see the rollover or the results of the rollover?  BTW ESPN is
due to air this rally August 17.  Sorry I don't have the times, but you
can either go to ESPN's site or go to Ben Bradley rally page at
http://www.reed.edu/~bradley

cya!

-mark nelson
incline village, nv

'90 s2 (building for pro rally)
'86 4kcsq
'85 4kcsq
'88 mazda 323 GTX