Rally de Paris 2007

This weekend I had my first race with Rally Ready Motorsports. Since having moved to the Austin, TX area in March of 2007. We have been planning to race together for a while and it finally happened with some very exciting results.

The last time I was in Paris, TX was my first Rally with Preston Stempler in 2002. Preston and I met at the Team O'Neil Rally School in Dalton, NH just two months before the event and while we took off to an exciting start the fun quickly ended with a broken motor mount and a shattered distributor cap several stages into the event. I still have the video of me nearly getting shocked trying to hold the distributor together while Preston turned it over. You can see Preston and I partking in these shinannigans for a split second on the side of the road @ 5:03 in this in this YouTube video. We are also @ 5:44 rocking it in the blue VW (this was earlyer that day).

I met Dave Carapetyan, the driver for Rally Ready Motorsports, soon after moving to Austin. I quickly learned that he was graduate of the Team O'Neil rally school and having sat with a several Team O'Neil graduates I knew that he would have a solid foundation in rally car control. I became anxious to get in a car with Mr. Carapetyan. I looked forward to head back to Paris, TX with five years of experience under my belt to best the roads that once bested Mr. Stempler and I five years earlier.

Rally de Paris it is split into two events of near equal length. The roads are very smooth and hard packed. The hard packed might have something to do with it being a tank training ground! The first stage was met with chalanges as we lost a boost hose shortly after the start. Dave and I worked very hard to do the best we could on stage and get through as fast as we could with a very underpowered car. Even with the lack of power I could sense that Dave knew what he was doing with the car. Jay Yargeau, our cheif tech, and Rudy Lara managed to sort out the issue by stage 4 the last of the first rally and we managed climb back to third overall. Now we had the power back and we were ready to start with a clean slate. The second rally, Wand'rin Star was about to start and we were third on the road behind the leading 1988 Ford Mustang Utecht/Bohn and the Chevey S10 of Cox/Carlson. The road position was of little concearn at this point as a steady rain was now falling and dust was no longer a factor. To our surprise we came upon Utecht's Mustang on the first stage. We later discovered he was limping it out because he had lost his brakes. We we finished the stage seconds after Cox/Carlson who started one minute before us, meaning we were almost a minue faster. We added to our lead in the second and third stages . The rain continued and the hard compact surface became quite slick and our 4WD only proved a big advantage. Dave and I were really settled in at this point and were having quite a bit of fun. I think we may have given the finish board worker at the end of stage three quite a scare as we came through the last corrner very hot and sideways. We watched them jump back off the road as we flew by. By the end of the second event we were grinning ear to ear we had won the second event Wand'rin Star and proved the car and team could go.

The event was run very well and we look forward to heading back next year. Rally Ready Dave put it well, "Richard and Juanita promised to have it all wrapped up by sun down and spite the dark cloudy weather they did!" The scoring was good, and all the workers were great. I always have extra appreciation for the workers when they have to stand in a cold rain.

Rally Ready Motorsports plans for the 2008 season are underway as we next plan to head north to the Sno*Drift Rally round one of the Rally America Championships.