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The winners in Open Light at Trespasser’s Wil was Charles Surdyke and Kim DeMotte in a ’00 Impreza, finishing Friday with a time of 53:52.3. The duo would repeat the win in Open Light during Saturday’s 100 Acre Wood regional with a 1:10.53.7.
I also want to give a shout out to my hosts for the weekend, Sam and Rachelle Kaltak. They were getting outside their comfort zone and giving FWD a shot in this rented Lancer instead of their usual Subaru Impreza. They pulled out from the event part way through Saturday due to some tire wear issues on one corner that raised some concern. Not wanting to crash someone else's rally car, they decided to quit while they were ahead. It was great seeing you guys again, I'm sure we'll cross paths at more events in the future!
Although it was far from being the fastest, this little two stroke ’63 Saab 96 of Jeff Keller and Jason McDaniel was definitely one of the coolest cars to be kicking up dust in the woods.
Fans from all over poured into downtown Salem for Saturday’s Parc Expose, it was so crowded you could hardly walk down the street, let alone park a rally car.
Saturday morning’s stages became pretty messed up when there was a serious car accident on Highway 19, a transit road heading into Salem. Those involved in the collision weren’t affiliated with the rally, but it required the attention of the ambulances stationed on the morning’s stages. Unfortunately this meant that only some of the competitors were able to finish stages 9 and 10, with stage 11 being canceled entirely. Once the accident was taken care of teams regrouped at the first service in Salem.
Bad luck befell the #75 Subaru STi after the first stage on Saturday, with a believed piston issue crippling the car and taking it out of the competition. This moved L’Estage into second place and Pastrana to third for overall, and also broke the streak of 22 consecutive podium finishes for Higgins/Drew.
Heading into the first service Block was in the lead with a time of 54:17.6, L’Estage with 55:41.2, Pastrana with 56:55.9, and Yeoman with a time of 59:15.9.
