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3 March 2003 - 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

2003 Doo Wops Rally Report

Los Angeles, CA. The Universal Rally team has dispersed and headed to various parts of the west coast to resume their normal lives after the Doo Wops rally this past weekend. The weekend was a coordinated effort between the Universal Rally Racing team (Andrew Sutherland, Los Angeles, CA, driver) and the Tombstone Paintball Widget Rally team (John Dillon, Thousand Oaks, CA, navigator). The goal for the teams this weekend was to finish the rally and get some much needed gravel seat time. The team raced a rented Mazda 323, non-GTX, in the Open class. It proved to be a bittersweet event.

With the sun shining and the roads in near perfect condition from rain the night before, the team set out to do battle with the roads, but it wasn't meant to be. 1.16 miles into the first stage the car sputtered to a stop right in front of Jamie Thomas and her broken PGT Subaru WRX. Sutherland and Dillon were unable to restart the 323, but they helped get Jamie's car fixed and underway to keep her in Saturday's rally. After spending the entire rest of the day tracking down the problem, they discovered the tachometer had an internal failure that was shorting out the coil pack. With that resolved the team prepared to redeem themselves on Sunday.

Sunday brought clouds with some occasional rain showers. The car appeared to be running fine and the team set off to slide around the woods. And slide they did, right into a drainage ditch on the outside corner of a hairpin left five miles into the first stage of the day. The car's right rear wheel was dangling over the ditch as the lowly front tires tried unsuccessfully to pull the car out. The team lost almost 15 minutes until car # 212, driven by Peter Hadfield, stopped briefly to lend a hand and extricate the Mazda. Once under way they completed their first stage of the weekend.

Hoping their troubles were over, the team attacked stage 2. According to Andrew, the car started to lose power as the miles went by. By the end of the stage, the car was barely able to climb the final hill. "We couldn't pull the last steep section of stage 2. I was in first gear sputtering up the hill where I should have been wide open in second. The car just wasn't running right", said Andrew.

The team continued to lose time as the power slowly faded each stage. With the last four stages of the day consisting of wide-open autobahn style roads, the team struggled to keep pace and continually had to watch their mirrors for fast approaching healthier cars. The team limped the car through final stage of the day, Brooklyn Tavern east. "For a minute there, I didn't think we were going to make it through Brooklyn Tavern because we almost couldn't get up the last steep incline. On the final hill, Mark Tabor in his Production class Nissan Sentra went by us like we were standing still!" said Andrew.

"Despite our car problems, we had a great time and the rally seemed very well organized with no major delays. The roads in the Northwest are addicting and we look forward to making the journey north again, but with our new car," reported Andrew.

With the Rim of the World Rally fast approaching, the Universal Rally team is focusing on getting their new Group N Subaru completed in time. It's a race against the clock!

For more information about the Tombstone Paintball Widget Rally Team, visit www.WidgetRacing.com.

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