Photo by Chris Ford JPIII RALLY SPORT STARTS SEASON WITH A WIN IN THE SANDHILLS OF SC - DEEP SAND NO MATCH FOR HONDA PRELUDE VTEC The JPIII Rally Sport Honda Prelude VTEC opened the 1996 SCCA/Michelin PRO Rally Season with a Production Class win on the sandy roads of the Sand Hills State Forest, near Cheraw, SC. The weather started out nicely with clear and mild conditions. The road conditions were far from ideal for the 'Lude. DEEP Sand was the order of the day with a red clay base. If it rained, it was going to be nasty! The Prelude had not seen action since late August '95, so the team was anxious to attack right from the first special stage, especially while it was still dry. And attack we did! After the first 4.73 miles of SS1, we held a 24 second lead over the second place Production class car, another Prelude VTEC. Over the next 3 stages, we pulled out a total lead of 54 seconds and positioned in 8th overall.

All aspects of the car worked flawlessly.

Then the skies opened up and dumped heavy rains on the forests turning the sand roads into oatmeal on top of wet clay, making the conditions extremely slippery, especially for those 2wd cars with an open differential such as ours.

On the first wet stage, despite not being able to see very well through the fogging windshield, we caught and passed the car ahead of us on the stage advancing our lead by more than a minute in class! From there, it was a matter of not making any mistakes and maintaining a reasonable pace into the night stages. We finished the rally 1st in Production and 10th overall for a fantastic opener to the 1996 season. All aspects of the car worked flawlessly including the Hella Lights, Michelin tires, and some Honda Lawnmower parts, too. The team is looking forward, though to getting more power from a new Lightspeed exhaust and more traction from the addition of a limited-slip differential.

We're looking forward to getting more traction by adding a limited-slip differential.

The next event for the 'Lude is the inaugural Beech Mountain Hillclimb held at Beech Mtn, NC April 26-28. While this event does not count towards the SCCA/Michelin PRO Rally Championship, this Solo I event will be a short, high speed challenge on the highway up the mountain with a few hairpins thrown in for good measure and should provide good exposure to the western part of North Carolina.