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Macaire and Dillon Join Forces for Cherokee Trails

10 March 2002 - For immediate release
For more information, contact: John Dillon
Widget Rally Team
P. O. Box 1231
Thousand Oaks, CA 91358-0231
Phone: 805.906.7797
Widget web site: www.WidgetRacing.com
e-mail: John @ WidgetRacing.com

Macaire and Dillon Join Forces for Cherokee Trails

New York, NY and Thousand Oaks, CA. Eric Macaire of New York City announced today that his co-driver for the Cherokee Trails International Rally will be John Dillon of the Widget Rally Team. It will be Macaire's first SCCA ProRally and the team's first attempt to score points in the new Championship of North American Rallies (CNAR). The pair will campaign a Production-class Ford Focus prepared by Ivor Wigham's European Rally School headquartered in Florida. Principal sponsorship for this rally comes from the Bubble Lounge, a champagne club in New York and San Francisco, and the Jubilee restaurant. The Widget Rally Team is supported by Porterfield Enterprises for brakes and Shults Dot Com for web services.

Although this is Macaire's first pro event, he's no stranger to the steering wheel of a rally car. "I ran a pair of club-level double events in the last couple of years," reports the driver. He consistently finished in the top six, racing his Production car against Open-class machines with three or four times the horsepower. "One reason I think I do well is because I do a lot of testing at Ivor's rally school." Last year he claims to have driven more test miles than many competitors ran stage miles.

Macaire's codriver is looking forward to the rally. "Even though Eric is still a little new to the sport, I've got a lot of confidence in him. His record is good--he's a consistent finisher and generally does very well in the results." Macaire started his racing career in the Skip Barber Formula Dodge series and has since raced in the Pan-American in Mexico several times, driving a 1964 Porsche 356 in the Sport Menor class. "In fields of around a hundred cars, Eric finished in the top five a couple of times," notes Dillon. "Considering his car has only a fourth of the horsepower of most of the competition, I think it's an outstanding result."

"While this is only my first pro event, my goal is to run the entire series and win the Production class championship," said Macaire. His co-driver hopes to help him start off with a win, pointing out that "Mad Mike Halley gave me my first Production victory a couple of weeks ago at the 100 Acre Wood ClubRally. It would be nice to back it up with a ProRally win in Tennessee."

In addition to the SCCA ProRally championship, Cherokee Trails is the second event in the new CNAR series. "I'm excited about CNAR," notes Dillon. "It features seven races in three countries and truly represents rallying in North America. Eric and I hope to take away some CNAR points this weekend."

Unlike other U.S. rallies, Cherokee Trails allows teams to pre-run the course in a street car and develop their own "pace notes" based on the results of their reconnaisance. It will be Dillon's first time using notes so he has been reviewing last year's in-car video to get a feel for the flow of the calls. (In the 2001 event, Lauchlin O'Sullivan and Dillon finished first in the Production GT category.) Said Macaire, "This will be an exciting rally for us. We're looking forward to a strong finish in a highly competitive field."

The Cherokee Trails Rally races in the forest outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee on March 16th and will be broadcast on the Speed Channel a few weeks later. The rally's website is www.cherokeetrailsrally.com.

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