Photo by John Wynn HONDA PRELUDE VTEC POWERS JPIII RALLY SPORT TO ANOTHER NATIONAL WIN AT OJIBWE FOREST PRO RALLY - HOLDS OFF QUALITY PRODUCTION CLASS FIELD JPIII RS returned to the win column after an exciting battle between our Prelude VTEC and the Production-class points leader Lon Peterson on the sandy and often dusty roads of north-central Minnesota at the 10th running of the Ojibwe Forest PRO Rally. This event featured a 2 day format starting Friday evening at 7:00 and running that night until 2:00 am; then starting again Saturday afternoon 2 p.m. and finishing around 12:30 am covering a total of 460 total miles including some 160 racing miles on 21 Special Stages. On board for this event were some new faces. Anne Thomas joined the JPIII Team during this event to fill in for Martin Dapot in the Navigator's seat. Martin was unable to attend due to business matters, and Anne filled in perfectly. Also, Skip Morgridge made the journey to central Minnesota to be a one man service crew and also performed his Crew Chief role immaculately. The Production class consisted of myself, Peterson in the factory-backed Kia Sephia, and Dodge engineer Al Kaumeheiwa in a Neon ASR - not a big field, but definitely a quality one. A total of 18 National cars started this event, but 16 of the 18 entries were Seed 3 or higher drivers, making this a tough event to move up the overall leader board in the "slower" Production cars. Friday evening's first stage showed that the dust would be a problem, so the rally officials moved the cars to 2 minute intervals to give the dust more time to settle. It was also a nice, higher speed stage and we put 24 seconds on the light weight Kia and 38 seconds on the Neon.

Friday evening's first stage showed that the dust would be a problem.

Stages 2, 3, and 4 went well also, increasing our lead another 15 seconds. SS 5 went to Peterson by 2 seconds, but the VTEC went quicker on SS 6 by 13 seconds. By the end of Friday night and 9 Special Stages, we had built a 1:12 lead over Peterson. Kaumeheiwa in his Neon wasn't content with third, however. The Neon driver had snuck in front of Peterson by 2 seconds.

Saturday's stages did not go as planned. In rallying, "anything can, and usually does, happen." One flat tire, and we'd be in 3rd instead of first. On SS 2, we had a bit of a problem, when we hit a slick spot and went straight at a right bend. Fortunately, we found a soft spot to stop the forward progress of the car, put it in reverse and got going again. However, we lost ~20 seconds in the process. Later, on SS 6, the car was running low on fuel. It appeared I had miscalculated the mpg, so I had to short-shift to be sure we made it to the next fuel stop. Peterson capitalized by cutting 7 more seconds off the lead. Then, on the 15 mile SS 10 (the longest stage of the rally), we picked up a bad wheel vibration, forcing us to slow significantly. 20 more seconds of our lead evaporated as Lon was really attacking. The Neon had dropped out with a bad throttle position sensor.

The next stage was just 4 miles, but we finished it a whopping 12 seconds quicker than Peterson

Our lead had dwindled down to 20 seconds with 2 stages to go. Now was the time to counter attack. And that's exactly what we did. The next stage was just 4 miles, but we finished it a whopping 12 seconds quicker than Peterson, and on the final 9 mile stage, the Prelude VTEC pulled through 4 seconds quicker than Peterson's Kia preserving the win!

We also competed in the two concurrent Divisional PRO Rallies held Friday night and Saturday, finishing a very fine 3rd Overall and 2nd Overall, respectively, besting several highly modified machines in our Production-class car. These results gave Anne another Divisional Co-Driver's Championship! The chase for the National Championship tightens further as we continue to gain ground on the leader. Peterson now has 70 points from 5 events while Jim has 58 from 4 events. Remember, only the top 6 finishes count. With 3 events remaining, the champion will probably be determined at the final event in Washington State in November. Next on the calendar is the Sunriser 400 held in Chillicothe, OH September 26~27. The VTEC has done well on the asphalt there in the past, and we are definitely hoping for similar results this year! Many thanks to all of the JPIII Rally Sport sponsors!