SCCA PRO Doo Wop Preview

MICHELIN PRO RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP STARTS '98 SEASON WITH WASHINGTON'S DOO WOP EVENT; CHOINIERE EYES CAR OWNER BUFFUM'S CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD OLYMPIA, Wash. -- March 10 -- The 1997 Michelin PRO Rally Championship season kicks off its 26th season this weekend, March 14 - 15, with the running of the Doo Wops III and IV PRO Rally in Olympia, Washington, and PRO Rally's main man - Paul Choiniere - has his eyes on the record book. Only his car owner (and step-father) John Buffum shares Choiniere's six straight championships performance, and Paul - along with co-driver Jeff Becker - would love to make it seven in a row. Choiniere and Becker, who won the Doo Wops III & IV event last year in their Hyundai Tiburon 4WD - one of five events they won on the way to the '97 title - are the overall favorites for this year's rally as well. Challenging Choiniere will be the 410 h.p. Carl Merrill/Lance Smith Ford Escort Cosworth, winner of the Susquehannock Trail event last year in Pennsylvania, and contender for the crown until electrical problems put him out of the hunt in Minnesota last summer. Rui Brasil, a Portuguese-born racer now living in San Jose, Calif., will also be in the hunt with his new Audi Quattro S-2, which won one of the Doo Wop divisional events last month. Rui, always at top three threat, replaced his older Quattro with an new S-2 over the winter. The event, which leaves PDE Auto Body in Olympia (in the Capitol Auto Mall) on Saturday morning, March 14, will run approximately 85 racing miles over 10 different stages through the Capitol and Montesano City forests between Olympia and Aberdeen. In a PRO Rally, each team consists of a driver and a co-driver (or navigator), and the exact course is kept secret until just before the event - different from World Rally, where practice is allowed. The cars start at one-minute intervals and race against the clock over 10 stages which range in length from four to 25 miles. The racing stages, closed forest roads in the Capitol and Montesano City forests, present a variety of conditions challenging to the drivers. Most of the rallies include night stages, making it necessary for competitors to adjust their driving style. Speeds of more than 120 miles- per-hour could be reached on long straight-aways, with the team achieving the fastest combined times winning the event. Besides the fastest, overall competitors, there are less exotic cars running in different classes which allow less modifications. The cars mentioned above are all highly-modified racers - most with 4WD and turbocharging, while various Production classes allow very few changes to the stock vehicles driven on the street. All PRO Rally cars have safety equipment including aircraft-style safety harnesses, roll cages, and fire extinguishers. In some of the other classes, defending national Group 5 champion Sam Bryan is the favorite in his factory-sponsored Saab 900 turbo. Bryan, a Boeing engineer, also won the Group 2 championship in 1995 in a 2WD Saab 900. Ralph Kosmides/Joe Noyes, also a Northwest-based team, will challenge Bryan in a Group 5 Toyota Supra. The Group 5 class, the two- wheel-drive version of the Open class (cars over 2.4-liters adjusted displacement, but with open engine, transmission and suspension options), are not quite as fast as the Open cars, but will finish well overall in this event. The other top contenders are in the Production GT class, which allows turbocharging and four-wheel-drive, but limited suspension and almost no engine modifications. Oregon's Lee Shadbolt lead the class for much of the season in '97, only to miss out on the championship when he rolled his car last fall in Arizona. Challenging Shadbolt will be local favorites - Janice Damitio from Montesano and co-driver Amity Trowbridge, whose Toyota Celica 4WD won one of the Doo Wop divisionals last month. The other two classes include Group 2 - modified 2WD cars with displacements less than 2.4 liters - and the Production class, in which vehicles must be completely stock except for the roll bar and safety equipment. Racing fans who want to watch the rally action should pick up observer instructions from PDE Auto Body on Saturday morning, or call PDE t (360) 352-5888 for additional information. As always, all the rally activities are free of charge (schedule follows this release). The Michelin PRO Rally Championship is not only a contest of who is the best driver on forest roads, at high speed in the middle of the night, but also a competition between car preparers and manufacturers. Competitors whose car is sturdily built and who can avoid damaging off-course excursions into trees or ditches, stand a chance of winning. Tires play an important part in a winning rally effort. They must be equally reliable on many driving surfaces; the asphalt of the transit roads that rallyists traverse to get to the competition stages, as well as varying conditions on the competition stages themselves. Stages, many of which are unpaved, can change from sandy to clay to gravel in the space of a few hundred feet. Sometimes rain will turn a perfectly ordinary dirt road into a quagmire within minutes. Most of the top competitors will be using specially constructed Michelin Pilot High Performance XGT Rally tires, which not only come in various compounds for different road surfaces, but have rugged carcass and sidewall designs to resist puncturing under the stressful rally conditions. The tire company sponsors the series to promote one of the fastest growing motorsports in the country as well as its Pilot line of high performance street tires. Michelin, which brought the radial tire to the world more than 50 years ago, is the world's largest tire company. It has 19 plants in North America and produces tires to fit every type of vehicle, from bicycles to the Space Shuttle. The 1998 Michelin PRO Rally Championship consists of eight events, and is sponsored by Michelin Tire Corporation, and sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). The 1998 Doo Wops PRO Rally is presented by the Northwest Region, SCCA. PRO Rally information, as well as scores, updates, membership, or other SCCA material can be found on the SCCA web site at www.scca.com/amateur/prorally.