Los Angeles – Rally Colorado made its debut on the California Rally Series (CRS) Championship calendar last month in spectacular fashion.  Set in the mountains in the north-west corner of the state, Rally Colorado featured complex stages with large elevation changes and breathtaking scenery.  Variable weather also played a factor with monsoon thunderstorms rolling through adding to the drama. On Saturday August 24th the CRS championship returns to the Hungry Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Park for the Gorman Ridge Rally, one of the oldest events on the calendar at 40 years since the first running.  Located just over an hour north of Los Angeles, the rally features a compact, spectator friendly format with twelve stages packed into a single day of racing. As in years past, the roads comprise a twisty and technical course, with big air expected over the famous jumps on Wheatfield Trail.

Open Lite was the class to watch in Colorado, with brothers Dave and Mike Brown winning not just the class but the event overall in their Subaru Impreza RS.  They had a clean sweep of stage wins in their home event, which solidifies their lead coming into the Gorman Ridge Rally. Second place in class went to Krishna Gandhi who rolled his Subaru Impreza wagon on the last stage, but kept going to cross the finish line in true press-on-regardless fashion!  Going into the Gorman Ridge Rally there is a close battle for second place between last year’s championship team of driver Kurt Northup and co-driver Will Smith, and Michael Seidman and co-driver Tommy Luhrs. The pair of Subarus will be battling each other on the twisty stages and keeping the Brown brothers honest.  The Gorman stages can be unforgiving, with many overconfident drivers ending up stuck on a berm, car teetering over the edge of a cliff.

CRS members in the Open Four-Wheel Drive class had some hard luck in Colorado, with both the teams of Travis Fienhage / Ryan Dunham and Ernie Manansala / Steven Harrell retired by the end of the first stage.  Manansala’s heroic crew was able to replace the transmission in his Subaru overnight and return for Saturday’s stages. The stages at Gorman will provide Manansala an opportunity to move up the championship standings.

Performance-Stock, the production based two-wheel drive class for cars less than $4,000 Blue-Book has been a mainstay in the CRS championship for decades, and the entry list for Gorman shows the class is still going strong.  With six entries, it is the largest class in the rally! Driving a VW Golf GTI, the wife and husband team of Jen and Terry Stonecipher have a large lead in the championship thanks to their double win at Idaho Rally International earlier this season.  They will face competition from Chris Palermo and Andres Bautista in a Toyota Tacoma, as well as Travis Fienhage and John Dillon. Fienhage rolled his Subaru at Rally Colorado, but will be competing at Gorman in a borrowed Dodge Neon.

The large displacement, two-wheel drive CRS-5 class has Brian Tullio returning in his Mazda MX-3.  Tullio has been very fast in that car, but was forced to withdraw from High Desert Trails earlier this season with overheating issues.  A strong finish at Gorman would move him up the leaderboard.

In the small-displacement two-wheel drive CRS-2 class, Kyle McLennan and Nick Cheever also suffered from bad luck in Rally Colorado.  A transmission failure in their Ford Escort forced them to withdraw after three stages. As if that wasn’t enough of a setback, after repairing the transmission, McLennan rolled the car at a rallycross just two weeks before the Gorman Ridge Rally.  After a mad scramble to pound the body panels back into shape the team will be ready to take the start this Saturday.

The Gorman Ridge Rally has a reputation for Side-by-Side (SxS) utility vehicles fighting with the cars for the overall lead.  This year promises to be no different with Stephane Verdier and Erica Sacks, who will be competing in the SxS Production Turbo class with their Polaris RZR XP Turbo.  Verdier hold the stage record on three of the stages being run this year, so expect them to be setting top times and possibly clinching the class championship.

The Gorman Ridge Rally is based in Lebec, CA, located just one hour north of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.  The rally features 48 miles of hard-packed dirt stages located within the Hungry Valley Off-Road Vehicle Park. For more information, including a spectator guide with instructions on how to see the action in person, visit http://gormanridgerally.com/.

The California Rally Series is the premier performance rally championship in the southwestern United States.  The Series incorporates events from various sanctioning bodies in order to create a meaningful regional championship for its members.  The Series celebrates more than 40 continuous years of performance rally, making it the longest running rally series in the United States.  To learn more about the California Rally Series visit www.californiarallyseries.com and follow @crspress on twitter. 

Photographs by Jon Seaton Dash-n-Cars https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYUSnXeU_BSGg94Mvifz8aQ

Los Angeles – The California Rally Series (CRS) Rally Championship returns to the mountains north of Boise, ID for the Idaho Rally International. The rally is back on the CRS calendar after a one year hiatus, but still has the same smooth and flowing roads that makes it a driver favorite. Competition takes place on June 22 and 23, 2019, with each day counting as a triple points event (Coefficient 3) towards the championship. The rally is the first of three sanctioned by the American Rally Association (ARA) on this year’s CRS calendar (along with Rally Colorado and Prescott Rally). Idaho Rally International also marks the first event of the CRS Side by Side Championship, followed by Rally Colorado and the Gorman Ridge Rally. The festivities will kick off with a parc expose at Larry Miller Subaru in Boise, ID between 4:30pm and 6:30pm Friday evening where the fans will have an opportunity to meet the teams and check out the rally cars.

Hot off their victory at the High Desert Trails Rally last month, Jason Cochell and co-driver Robert Maselli are leading the Open Four-Wheel Drive class with their Subaru Impreza. They will face stiff competition in Idaho from last year’s class winner Flynn Baglin who teams up again with co-driver Alix Hakala, in his Subaru Impreza STI.   Ernie Manasala made the move from Open Lite to Open Four-Wheel Drive at High Desert Trails but was forced to withdraw. He is teamed up with veteran co-driver John Dillon and is hoping for better luck in Idaho.

Kurt Northrup and co-driver Will Smith come into Idaho in a familiar position leading the normally aspirated four-wheel drive Open Lite class in their Subaru Impreza. Class rivals Michael Seidman and co-driver Tommy Luhrs, also in a Subaru Impreza, were just about matching their pace at the last event, but fell short by less than a minute. With so many points at stake in Idaho they could catapult into the class lead with a strong finish.

2017 CRS-5 champion Andrew Cowan started off the season with a win in the large-displacement two-wheel drive class. He will be looking to build on that lead at Idaho with his VR6 powered VW Jetta. He will face stiff competition from Brad Morris and co-driver Doug Nagy who are always a contender in their Mitsubishi Lancer.

The small displacement CRS-2 class always has a strong turnout. Erik Christiansen and co-driver Amy Floyd come into the event in the championship lead. Their VW Golf GTI will be up against Eliza Coleman and Andres Bautista in their Scion xD, as well as Kyle Mclennan and Tom Giese in a Ford Escort ZX2.

The Performance Stock (P-Stock) class is a CRS tradition, where lightly modified cars with Blue Book values less than $4,000 ensure the competition is more a battle of driver skill than all out power. The VW Golf GTI of Jen and Terry Stonecipher has been a mainstay in this class over the last few years. They return to the twisty stages of Idaho looking to take the fight to more powerful cars.

Side by Side (SxS) utility vehicles have exploded in popularity recently, and the California Rally Series has responded with dedicated classes for turbocharged and normally aspirated SxS vehicles. The tight and twisty Idaho stages are well suited to these short wheelbase vehicles, and it would not be surprising to see them in the front end of the field, especially with an experienced driver behind the wheel such as Stephane Verdier who will be in a Polaris RZR XPT.

The Idaho Rally International takes place June 22-23, and is based in Boise, ID and stages out of Idaho City, ID. The 2019 running of the rally features over 120 miles of smooth, twisty, and flowing stage roads. For more information and a spectator guide visit http://idahorally.org/.

The California Rally Series is the premier performance rally championship in the southwestern United States. The Series incorporates events from various sanctioning bodies in order to create a meaningful regional championship for its members. The Series celebrates more than 40 continuous years of performance rally, making it the longest running rally series in the United States. To learn more about the California Rally Series visit www.californiarallyseries.com and follow @californiarallyseries on Instagram.