24 November 2001 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

Seamus Burke, fresh from his attack for the SCCA National championship, flew out from Georgia to compete in the November 17th Treeline Rally headquartered at the Holiday Inn in West Covina, California. His mission was to test drive a new Subaru prepared by Arizona's AV Sport for U.K. rally star David Higgins. Higgins would be racing the car at the Ramada Express International Rally a month hence.

In the end, however, it was the Widget Rally Team of Lauchlin O'Sullivan, co-driver John Dillon and crew chief Tom Laeng that funished first overall, racing a Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX. Two minutes back, Ralph Kosmides and Josh Jaquot raced a Group N Subaru WRX to second overall, while Stephan Verdier and Allan Walker completed the podium, another two minutes in arrears in their classic Mazda 323 GTX.

The coefficient three event Treeline Rally, which took about eight hours to complete, might better be named "The Cliffs of Treeline" for the many stage miles of "exposure," those places where where the daytime vistas inspire and where a driver's mistake could wad up a car before it's halfway down the mountain. The narrowness of the roads, the roughness of the surface, and the incredible number of switchbacks insured that driver and co-driver both received serious workouts.

The first stage, the Round Table Express, warmed competitors to the rhythm of the roads. Named for the pizza sponsor of the after-rally party, the 4.3 mile long Round Table Express limbered up the arms of the drivers, the stomachs of the co-drivers, and the suspension of the cars for stage two, a challenging seventeen mile knotted string of roads.

The second stage, called the Subway Special and presented by the famous sandwich chain that fed all the volunteer marshals, proved grueling to man and machine. While Burke and Lawless led the field, George Plsek, third on the road and teamed again with Alex Gelsomino, discovered problems with the transmission. Plsek planned to use Treeline as a warm-up for December's Ramada Express International Rally, so with difficulty shifting between first and second gears (the most critical gears at this event) Plsek chose to retire at the end of the second stage. Ralph Kosmides, who was second fastest behind Seamus Burke on the Round Table Express, suffered a flat tire on the Subway only four miles in. Rather than lose valuable time changing the tire, they drove the next torturous thirteen miles on shredded rubber and ruined rim, losing over three and a half minutes to O'Sullivan and Dillon.

Further back, John West's rookie co-driver Scott Bottomley suffered the tortures of the curves, his stomach failing partway through the stage. They nonetheless soldiered on to finish 21st in their maiden outing together. John Shults and Doug Mitchell lost the differential on their Mazda RX3, leaving them stranded half way into the 17 mile stage, while overheating problems slowed Steve Winter's car (with new co-driver David Faron on board). Alternator failure finally ended their day.

Newcomer Gabe Pari teamed up with Wayne Cunningham in a Sentra after completing their car preparation the night before. (They recently rolled the car at a Tombstone Paintball charity RallySprint.) After a cautious first stage to learn to read the roads and the route book, they kicked it up a notch on stage 2. A near-cliff experience (only one wheel was hanging off the edge, we're told) they pushed on again was followed later by broken suspension after being surprised by a large boulder that launched them into the air.

Reseeding took place after the second stage, with Burke still in front overall, followed by O'Sullivan, then Kosmides, then the Eclipse of Brian Scott and Sean Gallagher.

The third stage comprised of eight pages of instructions covering only seven miles of tight, highly exposed roads, began near Fire Camp 19 where prisoners cheered loudly as the rally cars drove by on the transit. This proved to be one of the tightest, twistiest, narrowest stages anywhere in America. Dave Turner put his front two wheels over the edge after hitting a bump, but his Jeep's four wheel drive helped him back out of harm's way.

Don Shreyer and Ken Tooker, campaigning a Mazda RX7, found their rotary engine overheating and retired after the fan belt abandoned ship. "I loved the seventeen miles of the Subway Special, but didn't much care for this stage," noted Shreyer. "The cowl of these cars is too high and I couldn't see much of the road. I had to drive by watching the upper face of the cliff." Shreyer's crew included road racing champion Dan Edmunds, Cal Club Flag Chief Ceci Smith and her husband Mark, and seasoned tech inspector Tim Chamberlin.

The third stage claimed several other cars too, including the Toyota of Jay Streets and Bill Feyling, the VW of Steve Jasik and Mario Azernitzky and the Datsun 510 of Dave Coleman and Larkin Hill. In this, her first rally (she attended the Palmdale Rally School in October), Hill reported problems with a broken tie rod, another victim of the punishing roads.

Meanwhile, Dennis and Claire Chizma quietly climbed the rungs of the leaderboard ladder. Racing a 1968 VW Beetle in the Production class, they moved up from 17th after the Round Table Express to fifth overall at the second service. Eventually the couple, whose tow from and to Seattle took 42 hours, finished just off the overall podium, fourth behind Verdier and Walker.

At the conclusion of the third stage the rallyists returned to the service area briefly, the last time the crews would see the teams until returning to the Holiday Inn in West Covina (race headquarters for the weekend). The day's first two stages would be split into three stages and run in the reverse direction. The cliffs were just as steep, but with darkness came denial--if you couldn't see the exposure, it must not be there.

Burke and Lawless maintained their overall lead through stage four, but on the fifth stage they shook loose a relay, leaving them stranded for almost an hour. A few minutes later Lauchlin O'Sullivan and John Dillon arrived on the scene in their Mitsubishi Eclipse. Burke and Lawless waved flashlights and motioned the second-place team to go around. "I thought the pass was pretty exciting," noted O'Sullivan. "There was practicaly no room to get around, so we sort of climbed up the side of the cliff face, just nicking our mirrors and collecting a light scratch of paint."

Someone once said "Never rally a car with 'roll' in its name." Marco Pasten and Sam Nambiar failed to heed this sage advice and found themselves upside down on the fifth stage in their Toyota Co-roll-a. Both were okay--the car isn't a Toyota Co-falldownthecliff-a, after all--but it took several of the following teams to help get the car righted and out of the way before the stage could continue. The fifth stage also claimed Dave Turner and Mike McComas in their Jeep and Patrick Rodi and Jonathan Schiller in their RX7, the latter due to a broken tie rod and failed ignition.

Kevin Kraack debuted a beautifully prepared Saturn and turned in presentable stage times, racing with Kevin Kaiser in the ballast seat for all but one stage. Kraack made the necessary arrangements prior to the rally's start to run with a potential sponsor as co-driver on the third stage, then withdrew on the final transit as to not disturb the championship points race in the Production and Stock classes.

Road penalties played an important part in Treeline's result set. William and Juli Yates, who clinched the SoPac Group 5 championship with their third-in-class finish in a self-built Toyota MR2, would have moved up two positions overall if they hadn't accidentally clocked into a control two minutes early. John West and Scott Bottomley lost one position to road points, but a couple of teams dodged a bullet despite their penalties. None was closer than the pair of Lon Peterson and Matt Monaco, who finished 13th overall, a position that didn't change with their one minute earliness. However, had they driven any stage just two seconds slower, the penalties would have dropped them to 14th.

When the hardware was finally distributed, the crowd recognized several class winners. Treeline, part of both the SCCA SoPac ClubRally championship and the regional California Rally Series championship, awarded points in both series. Bruce Brown and Bruce Moe clinched their SoPac PGT championship based on a string of finishes earlier in the season. Claire and Dennis Chizma won in SCCA Production and CRS Stock, Chris Burns and Brad Boli won SCCA Group 2, Leon Styles and Larry Scott finished first in SCCA Group 5 and CRS Group 2/5, Stephan Verdier and Allan Walker claimed the CRS GT trophy, Ralph Kosmides and Josh Jacquot took SCCA Open honors, and O'Sullivan and Dillon carried the biggest points awards, first overall, first in SCCA Production GT, and first in CRS Open 4WD.

In his awards speech, Dillon credited the team's perseverence for the win, saying "2001 has been a challenging season but we've proven that determination and a 'rally on' attitude will reward you in the end. You can't give up." He thanked O'Sullivan for a beautiful drive and the service crew (led by Tom Laeng) for building a strong, reliable car.

Several teams used the Treeline event to prepare for the Ramada Express International Rally, headquartered in Laughlin, Nevada. The mid-December event will see many of SoPac's finest competing for a piece of the $25,000 prize fund. In any regard, whether they were tuning up for Laughlin, running for fun, or hunting down points in the SoPac and CRS championships, the rallyists of Treeline agreed that the compact rally thrilled them even more than last year's event. Said overall winner O'Sullivan, "Treeline is one of my favorite rallies anywhere. I'll definitely be back next year."

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