Other rally

USRC: Gorman Ridge: Round five preview

Hot, Dry, and Challenging Conditions Await Gorman Ridge Rally Competitors. The eighteenth running of the Gorman Ridge Rally brings top Western States rally teams together in Lebec, California for round five of the United States Rally Championship.

Edited: Dec 21, 2009, 6:12 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Hot, Dry, and Challenging Conditions Await Gorman Ridge Rally Competitors.

The eighteenth running of the Gorman Ridge Rally brings top Western States rally teams together in Lebec, California for round five of the United States Rally Championship. Twenty-five teams are slated to take the start on Saturday, August 16 including current USRC Pacific Division points leaders Brian Scott with co-driver John Dillon. Also entered is X Games silver medal winner Chrissie Beavis.

Scott and Dillon took their Subaru Sti to an early lead in the all-wheel category with an overall win at the Idaho Rally in July while Bruce Davis and co-driver Jimmy Brandt picked up the two-wheel drive lead in their Dodge Neon. The husband and wife team of Jimmy and Melissa Keeney are currently leading the Pacific All-Wheel Drive Production Cup in their Subaru WRX. Another husband and wife team, Kris and Christine Marciniak top the Western Two Wheel-Drive Production Cup in their Neon.

The current leaders will be facing plenty of competition on the rough mountain roads of the Gorman event. The reining two-wheel drive national champion, Bill Holmes and a new co-driver Sean Gallagher are debuting their new Ford F150 two-wheel drive pickup. The off-road racing champion and former Pro Rally national champion proved to be a formidable force at the Gorman event last year, taking the overall win after displacing a raft of lighter and more agile all-wheel drive competitors. Fresh off her silver medal performance at the X Games, Chrissie Beavis is jumping from the co-driver's seat to drive her VW Jetta where she has consistently proven herself among the fastest of the two-wheel drive teams.

On the all-wheel drive side, points leaders Scott and Dillon will have to contend with fellow Subaru pilots Jeff Regester and co-driver Duncan Smith. Regester and Smith are looking to vindicate themselves after a mechanical failure took them out of the Idaho Rally while they were challenging for the lead.

This year the rally also includes motorcycles in the exciting new RallyMoto group. "These are basically the same kind of bikes you see running the Dakar Rally. They are big dual-sport motorcycles designed for long distance cross country travel over challenging roads like those in Gorman", stated Ray Hocker the event chairman. He explains, "RallyMoto is attracting a group of new competitors to rally." Just like their four-wheeled counterparts, RallyMoto bikes must be fully street legal and licensed. All racing is confined to special sections of closed roads located inside the Hungry Valley State Vehicle Recreation Area.

After the Gorman Ridge Rally, the United States Rally Championship heads to the final round of the Pacific events at the Prescott Rally (www.prescottrally.com) in Arizona before the final round of the Championship at the International Rally New York (www.rallynewyrok.com) in October.

Pacific Division teams are competing for coveted cash travel subsidies that will be awarded to top six teams in the Division. The total of $12,000 in subsidies will be distributed to Pacific Division teams to assist them with traveling to the final round of the United States Rally Championship in New York.

The United States Rally Championship is taking bold steps to make national competition more affordable and accessible to a larger number of rally teams. This is the second season of the new Championship structure that minimizes or, for many teams, eliminates the need for repeated cross-country travel during the Championship season by providing competition on each side of the country. The final round of the Championship at the end of the year counts both in the Atlantic Division and the Pacific Division and together with the results from all previous rounds decides the top spots in the Championship.

-credit: usrc

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article IRC: Pavel Valousek Belgium test summary

Next article IRC: BFGoodrich Drivers Team is huge hit in Italy

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Why NASCAR's Zane Smith fine for Carson Hocevar contact was consistent

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Talladega II

19 min

Why NASCAR's Zane Smith fine for Carson Hocevar contact was consistent

Jimmie Johnson on the NASCAR business world: "It's a war"

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup 30 min

Jimmie Johnson on the NASCAR business world: "It's a war"

David Alonso lashes out at Dani Holgado: "When you’re not a good person, there’s nothing you can do"

Moto2

MOT2 Moto2

Phillip Island

30 min

David Alonso lashes out at Dani Holgado: "When you’re not a good person, there’s nothing you can do"

Super Formula Leader Kaku Ohta targets North American move across IndyCar and IMSA for 2027

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 31 min

Super Formula Leader Kaku Ohta targets North American move across IndyCar and IMSA for 2027

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts