Dave Peters and his best in his Fabtech-sponsored Chevy.

It was early morning as I was driving to Glen Helen Raceway for the first of three FRX (www.formularallyx.com) Rally-X races being held there for 2009. I was heading north on the 15 freeway and the sun was peeking over the majestic San Bernardino Mountains revealing a crystal clear sky and snow-capped peaks in the distance. This got me pumped because I knew it was going to be a good day for racing. 

The gates opened at 7:00 a.m. and the racers started to slowly trickle in.  By 9:00 a.m. there was a nice sized crowd of racers and spectators alike. You could feel the excitement in the air as the drivers walked the almost mile long course. There was a bit of curiosity amongst the competitors because this race was going to be different from other Rally-X races. The organizers wanted to try something new and exiting. They had done a “Dueling” format in the past where two cars raced head to head on the same track. That format was popular with the competitors, so the organizers took it to the next level and came up with a new “Triple Chase” format. With this format, three cars are on the same course all chasing each other. This fired up the drivers as they knew they had to step up to the next level or be left in the dust, literally.  Also on the line were the prizes for the event.  Rally Innovations and Sports Racing Fuel were in attendance to give away $75 dollar gift certificates towards merchandise to the first-place class winners. Live Sockets was also kind enough to donate some DVDs that were given away to podium finishers.  On top of the prizes, Rally Innovations brought along two cars and they were giving free rides to the spectators so they could get small taste of the racing action. 

The Stock 2 class was first up, and it had some very interesting matchups. Guy Sappington was in a rented Chevy Aveo and he is no stranger to the podium. He was coming off a win at the Ridgecrest Rally-X race in February and wanted a repeat performance. Chris Walker was there in his 1996 Toyota Celica in full rally trim, and he placed third at Ridgecrest. The last heavy hitter of the Stock 2 Class was Dave Clark in his trusty Dodge Neon. He also happened to visit the second tier of the podium at Ridgecrest.

Dave Clark put his furious four banger to work right away and laid down a 2:21.7 first lap. The next fastest was Patrick O’donahue with a 2:28.0 in his Ford Ranger. On lap two, Dave Clark continued his domination with a 2:16.5. The rest of the field was getting faster as well with Chris Walker, Ismael Orsorio, Tony Sun and Guy Sappington all running in 2:23s. For Lap 3, Dave Clark slipped a little with 2:20.6 and left the door open for his competition. Chris Walker took advantage of this and turned in a 2:16.0.
The stage was set for a tight battle on the last lap. Chris Walker continued to push his Celica and turned in a 2:18.0, but it was not enough to hold off Dave Clark as he sealed his victory with a blistering 2:14.9.

Stock 2 Results
1st Place, Dave Clark @ 9:13.7
2nd Place, Chris Walker @ 9:29.8
3rd Place, Ismial @ 9:36.3

A WRX dodging cones on the course.

Up next was Stock 4. There was some big power in this class with three Subaru STIs driven by Justin Bergman, Mike Catacutan and Art Singtoroj. Through the first two laps, Justin Bergman had pulled small lead posting a 2:20.0 and 2:15.3, respectively. On lap three Justin fell a little off the pace and hit a few cones, which left room for John Stewart in his WRX to come roaring back with a class leading 2:11.8. Mike Catacutan also took advantage and ran a 2:16.9 on lap three.  Lap four came down to a cone-killing spree with four of six competitors destroying the poor little cones.  Justin Bergman was not one of those killing cones and ran a clean 2:14.8 for the win.

Stock 4 Results
1st Place, Justin Bergman @ 9:12.0
2nd Place, John Stewart @ 9:16.4
3rd Place, Mike Catacutan @ 9:29.4

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Kyle Jackson getting sideways in his WRX Battle Wagon (photo by Corey Newman).

Modified 2 was the smallest class of the day with only four competitors. But just because there was only four racers didn’t mean there was no competition.  Tyler Turnbull in his 1991 Acura Integra, Larry Gross in his 1981 Toyota Corolla and Steve Lechuga in his 1986 Subaru XT turbo were slugging it out from the drop of the green flag. Tyler jumped out to an early lead posting two consistent and clean laps of 2:13.4 and 2:13.5. Steve Lechuga was trying to follow up on his Ridgecrest victory and was pushing his car to the limit. Unfortunately Steve pushed a little too hard and DNFed on the second lap. He was now in a big hole and had to dig out fast. Larry Gross was tearing up the course and showing us that in the hands of a good driver, RWD can be fast. As fast as Larry was though, he could not reel in the Integra of Tyler Turnbull. Tyler posted the second fastest time of the class on his last lap with a 2:11.9. The fast time of the class was too little too late for Steve Lachuga, he ran a 2:11.1 on his last lap.

Mod 2 Results
1st Place, Tyler Turnbull @ 8:55.3
2nd Place, Larry Gross @ 9:05.7
3rd Place, Steve Lachuga @ 9:29.1

Modified 4 was a big class at this race with eleven competitors. Since the power modification rules are pretty much open in the Modified class, there were a lot of high HP cars in attendance. The king of the power wars was Tony Bertagnoli. He was driving his Mitsubishi Evo in “de-tuned” trim with “only” 330 AWHP. On the street Tony runs E85 and is knocking on the door of 400 AWHP!! On the other end of the spectrum were Katianna Phiakari, Cory Newman, Christopher Drong and Dave Haws all driving naturally aspirated, low HP Subaru Imprezas. But just because these racers did not have the power advantage did it mean they were out of the race. Dave Haws is the 2008 Stock 4 champion and was looking to deliver a knockout blow to the big power crowd.

Right out of the gate Dave Haws got out of control and hit a few cones posting a 2:15.1.  This was a good time, but it was not nearly as fast as a WRX driven by the incognito “Mr. T.” The mysterious Mr. T was driving fast and clean and was rewarded with a 2:09.8. On the second lap, Tony Bertagnoli put his power to the ground for a very fast 2:14.6. Mr. T got even faster on his second lap and pick up a full second with a 2:08.8.  Dave Haws’s hopes were fading as he slipped and slid his way on a freshly watered course to a 2:16.2. If Dave was to take down some of the turbo cars, he would have to speed up in a big way on his third and fourth lap. Tony in his Evo continued to get faster on the third lap and turned in a 2:11.6, this was right on the heels of Mr. T’s 2:10.6.  Dave Haws knew he had to make up time and he did not disappoint. He fired off a 2:04.1 on his third lap and a lightning fast 2:02.5 on his fourth lap. Mr. T now needed a 2:07.4 on his last lap if he was to hold onto the win, and he stepped up and delivered a blistering 203.9. Tony Bertagnoli refused to go down without a fight and posted a 2:08.1 to seal third.

Mod 4 Results
1st Place, Mr. T @ 8:32.8
2nd Place, Dave Haws @ 8:37.8
3rd Place, Tony Bertagnoli @ 8:53.6

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Rally Innovations gave spectators a taste of rally action at Rally-X.

Rally 2 had a very interesting mix of cars. On one side of the spectrum there was Dave Peters driving a lifted full-sized Chevy V8 pickup truck, and on the other side was Odi Bakchis driving a 1991 Mitsubishi Eclipse pushing maybe 110 HP. In between the two there was Mike Malsed in his Dodge Neon ACR, Bill Martin in his VW Rabbit with a 1.8L supercharged engine and Jon Rae driving a classic rally Datsun 510. This was a fun class to watch because of all the variety and it did not disappoint.

The first run for the Rally 2 class was a real killer on the cone front. Mike Malsed launched the first salvo by posing a very fast 2:16.2 raw time, but he was a little sloppy and hit two cones and that 4-second penalty brought him to a 2:20.2. Even with the cones, it was the fastest first lap for the R2 class. Odi Bakchis was right on his heels, but he also hit a cone and ended up with a 2:22.7. Ironically, the only clean run came from Dave Peters in his monster truck! On the second round, Mike Malsed continued his quick driving and turned in a clean 2:08.1. Bill Martin and Odi Bakchis were not far behind with times of 2:11.9 and 2:10.5, respectively. Odi must have felt the pressure to go faster because he fired off a class fast time of 2:05.5 on his third lap and followed it up with a clean and consistent 2:05.6 for his final round. Bill Martin continued to get faster with a 2:10.7 and 2:09.1; this was enough to secure third and hold off Thomas Smith who made a late charge in his Civic. Mike Malsed picked up some time on his third lap with a 2:07.6 but it was it enough to hold off Odi?  Mike needed a 2:08.4 to secure the win. On his last lap Mike was pushing hard and got a little sideways and took out a cone. Would this be a deal breaker? His final time with the 2-second penalty was 2:08.0.  Mike won Rally 2 by just .5 seconds!

Rally 2 Results
1st Place, Mike Malsed @ 8:43.9
2nd Place, Odi Bakchis @ 8:44.4
3rd Place, Bill Martin @ 9:00.0 
 
Rally 4 was deepest class of the day with twelve competitors. It was chalked full of good drivers, and everyone knew that they were going to be watching something special with all these cars on the course. The frontrunners were Keith Jackson in his fully stage prepared 2005 Subaru STI, his brother Kyle Jackson in his 2006 Subaru WRX “Battle Wagon,” and Trent “The Kid” Koury in his 2001 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS. Other notable competitors were Louie Minette in his 2.5RS; Louie is the 2008 Modified 4 Champion and is stepping up in class for 2009. Marvin Ronquillo was driving his stage prepped WRX and has been a member of the rally community for quite some time and has been on the podium many times. Aaron Ekinaka, Mr. Dirty Impreza himself was driving his newly stage ready 2.5RS and just completed Team O’Neal rally school and was here to test his skill. Eli Gilbert was driving his stage prepped WRX “Two Scoops” and is a three time Street Stock 2 champion. Last but not least of the notables is Andrew Holman in his WRX wagon.  Andrew has been competing in the Rally 4 class for a few years now and has proven that a wagon can be fast!

The stage was set for an epic battle.  Right out of the gate the Jackson brothers posted identical fast times of 2:02.4. This was followed closely by Andrew Holman who had a 2:04.8 and Marvin Ronquillo with a 2:05.1. On the second lap Trent “The Kid” Koury was the first person of the day to post a time under two minutes with a 1:59.2. There was some speculation weather this was going to be the overall fast time of the day, but it was not, the drivers of the Rally 4 class got even faster. Keith Jackson posted a 1:56.1, but it was spoiled by hitting two cones, so his time was a still fast 2:00.1. Louie Minette and Marvin Ronquillo both ended up with 2:01s and Eli Gilbert almost broke the two-minute barrier with a 2:00.1.

The third run saw the overall fastest clean run of the day. It was Trent Koury driving like he was being chased by the devil himself and he turned in 1:58.1. Also being chased by the dark one was Andrew Holman, who must have felt the heat and was right with Trent as he posted a 1:59.3 on his third lap. The devil must have had some little gremlin helpers because Kyle Jackson blew a steering line hose on his third lap and that knocked him out of race.  Louie was trying to hang on with a 201.1, but was slowly falling behind. On the last lap Keith Jackson tried his best and flew to a 1:57.3, but cones kept jumping out at him and he ended up with a 159.3. Was this enough for the win? Andrew Holman continued to pick up speed and got a 158.4, but it was not enough to overcome the two cones he hit on lap two and his slower time on lap one. The pressure was on Trent to perform and get a fast lap and he did. Trent turned in a 1:58.3 but he also got a little sloppy on his last run and killed a cone so his final time was 2:00.3. This was just enough to beat out Keith Jackson for first place.

Rally 4 Results
1st Place, Trent “The Kid” Koury @ 8:03.8
2nd Place, Keith Jackson @ 8:05.2
3rd Place, Andrew Holman @ 8:07.3

Overall, it was a fantastic day of Rally-X out at Glen Helen Raceway. The competitors loved the new format and the free ride-along program with Rally Innovations was a big hit with the crowd. There was tight competition in all classes, which made for some great action. The next Rally-X race at Glen Helen is being held on April 25, 2009.  For more information about Rally-X, visit www.formularallyx.com.