This year’s 20th Annual Prescott Rally, held in beautiful Arizona was a fantastic event for the team. With a 10th place on the Friday regional event and a 10th place on the Saturday event, the team scored a 9th overall for the USRC National weekend, with a much needed 1st in Production 2WD. Setting a good pace on Friday and bumping it up on Saturday, Driver Kristopher Marciniak and Co-Driver Christine Marciniak set 8th fastest on SS6 in their Production Stock Dodge Rally Neon.

“There was a little bit of warm-up time needed on Friday. Christine and I haven’t been in the rally car in about six months, so we didn’t charge out of the gate like usual, but everything about the car was working well and we were 100% on Saturday morning. I gave the service crew plenty of time to watch us on the computer,” said Kris. The crew utilized their new APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System) to keep tabs on the rally car all weekend. This system also allows fans and friends alike to watch the rally on the web from anywhere. It tracks location, speed, direction, and altitude. Check it out at: rallynotes.com/rallycar-tracking/

On Saturday the team encountered its only minor mechanical issue during the event. The inner front pads had begun to wear to metal. Fresh brake pads were procured and installed with time to spare during the evening service. The Bilstein suspension worked effortlessly all weekend and the team is looking forward to a set of RumbleSoft Racing machined housings for its next event – The Laughlin International Rally in Nevada.

The dedicated service crew was made up of volunteers who trekked all the way from Southern California for the event: Judd Barber (Team Manager), Harry Bushling (Crew Chief), Kevin Patterson, and Dan Green made up the group. The team would like to extend a special thanks to Kevin Patterson for the use of his vehicle for reconnaissance on Thursday.

Everything is building up to the final round of the USRC in Laughlin Nevada. With its fast roads and even faster national competitors the Rallynotes.com team will be pushing for a class win!

For our first uploaded video (in a while I might add) I chose Witty Tom North SS9. We set 10th fastest and I must say I was sliding the car more then usual. By this time in the rally - the car, driver, and co-driver were all working as a unit.

I also have a handful of pictures up in the 2007 Prescott Gallery.

Prescott Rally - Witty Tom - SS9 65.1MB WMV
Low-res preview

UPDATE: I had some fun with SS6 and I turned it into a time lapse video of a rally stage. It’s actually cool to see it as one small unit like that. Perkinsville is an 11 mile stage and we take you down it in 1:26. Now if I could only go that fast on the straights… hrm

Prescott Rally - Perkinsville Time-Lapse SS6

We are really excited to have our APRS tracker up and running for the Prescott Rally. What this means simply is: Friends, fans, and family can now watch our progress in real time on the internet! Updates should be around every 5 minutes. The map interface is now Google Maps, so it’s very easy to use and navigate. If you click on the dots on the tracked route you will be able to see the following:

KI6IUC-9 - Is my Amateur Radio call sign.
(The -9 is to indicate the rally car.)
Date and time in 24 hour UTC
speed in MPH, direction, altitude in feet
/Short message that will indicate our status.
[how that packet got to you]

Itinerary for the Prescott Rally 2007 Times are all PST
Wednesday - October 3rd: Drive out from California to Phoenix, AZ (12:00PM - 7:00PM)
Thursday - October 4th: Drive to Prescott, AZ - Reconnaissance (10:00AM - 6:00PM)
Friday - October 5th: Rally day one (4:00PM - 10:00PM)
Saturday - October 6th: Rally day two (1:00PM - 9:00PM)
Sunday - October 7th: Drive back to California (10:00AM - 7:00PM)

** Don’t miss Friday and Saturday, these are the days to watch. We will be in the rally car racing at speed on the roads around Prescott!
Times are LOCAL - Pacific Standard Time or GMT -7:00
This may help…

Live scores and results of the Prescott Rally will be available here!