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Leon Styles, U.S. Champion

For immediate release
For more information, contact: John Dillon
Creativity in Action
P. O. Box 1231
Thousand Oaks, CA 91358-0231
web site: www.WidgetRacing.com
e-mail: John @ WidgetRacing.com

Like many boys growing up on a farm, Leon Styles learned to drive at a very young age. In Leon's case, the family farm happened to be outside of Auckland, New Zealand, a country whose national passion is the motorsport known as rally. Naturally he gravitated to the sport, such that even at the age of thirteen his sisters reported he'd be "doing skiddees" and sliding the family Studebaker sideways on the twisting uphill family driveway.

When he grew a little older he tried his hand at the sport, first racing a 1953 Morris Minor before moving on to an old Ford Anglia (van!), a Ford Escort, and finally a Mazda RX2 against Rod Millen and Possum Bourne. After leaving home Leon had to set aside his rally driving aspirations as he struggled to make ends meet. Even then he found himself in the dirt, driving 200 ton dump trucks in the gold mines of Australia. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1993 he opened Tombstone Paintball Park in Corona, CA and began marketing his own line of high-performance paintball guns. With the success of his business he finally managed to climb behind the wheel of a rally car in 1999.

Leon's sideways driving style, coupled with a heavy foot for fast times, quickly drew the attention of the southern California rally community. Many recognized his potential he displayed as he learned the challenging roads of the area and developed his driving skills.

Though Leon proved consistently fast behind the wheel, his equipment too frequently failed him, leaving him on the side of the road instead of on the podium. Despite these setbacks he finished second in the CRS Group 2/5 championship in 2000, and finished fourth overall in the Open 4WD class in 2001.

For 2002 Leon finally acquired a solid, reliable rally car, an Audi Quattro S2. At the same time he enlisted the services of experienced co-driver John Dillon to handle navigation and team management duties. These changes led to immediate and positive results, such that they won two southern California championships, the California Rally Series and the SCCA SoPac ClubRally series. Along the way they also picked up overall victories at the Gorman Ridge and Prescott rallies.

2003 saw a repeat of their SoPac championship even as they stepped up to a Mitsubishi Evolution, replacing the aging Audi with a rally-bred high-performance race car. In 2004 Leon claimed his first ProRally victory, winning the famous Pike's Peak International Hill Climb along with the inaugural Pike's Peak Rally.

"We're leading the Open class championship comfortably right now," said his co-driver in August of 2004, "but you can see from the results that we're in the hunt for the overall title as well."

Leon Styles hopes to keep on winning rallies on the way to his first national championship. If recent history is any indication, he's on the right track... and he's still "doing skiddees" in the dirt.

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