Posted: January 26, 2010 9:54 PM - 6517 Hits
Posted: January 26, 2010 9:51 PM
New York Winter Rally 2010 ended in Narrowsburg, New York yesterday. The two day event was the first round of the United States Rally Championship (USRC). Each day was a separate round of the New York Rally Championship.
New York Winter Rally is an entirely new winter event. It takes place on the private roads at the 12,500-acre Ten Mile River Scout Reservation in Narrowsburg with headquarters at Villa Roma Resort and Conference Center in Callicoon, New York. It is the only rally in recent memory and the only National Championship rally in North America that allows studded snow and ice tires.
The tire studs were put to good use as the roads were covered with frozen snow and a lot of ice. The conditions were very difficult. At one point on Sunday afternoon, some main roads in the area were closed by the police because of ice on the roads caused by light freezing rain. However, the rally continued on time and all scheduled special stages were completed. The temperatures were as low as 12 degrees in the morning and barely above the freezing point during the day.
Tom Lawless, the 2005 United States Rally Champion and a participant in the FIA World Rally Championship Rally Ireland, with Dominik Jozwiak, an experienced codriver from Long Island, New York, won the rally in their Mitsubishi Evo 9. The second place was taken by Enda McCormack and Tommy Doyle also in Mitsubishi Evo 9. This was McCormack’s best performance of his driving career. Doyle travelled to the event from Ireland. The winners in the two-wheel-drive category and third overall were Claudiu David and Mihaela Beldie in Team O’Neil Mazda 3. This team, based in Romania, has previously competed in three FIA World Rally Championship events.
Celsus Donnelly and Bernard Farrell in Mitsubishi Evo 8 were leading at the end of the first day after a drive of their lives. The rally ended up for them in a heartbreak when their transmission failed on the way from Parc Ferme on Sunday morning and they finished under Super Rally rules. Another performance of note was the drive by Timothy Osterman and Joseph Sinkevich. This pair of engineering students recently built their Subaru WRX STi. They finished fourth overall on their first event in these difficult conditions.
Another heartbreak was experienced by the team of Michael Reilly and Josh Benthien in Ford Focus, who are the 2009 USRC Production Cup Winners. After outstanding performance in their two-wheel-drive car, they were in the fourth place overall, second in two-wheel-drive, until it was discovered that they failed to present their car at a time control and had to be disqualified by the Stewards.
Daniel O’Brien and Brendan McCabe, who took second place in the 2009 USRC, withdrew because of codriver’s family emergency, when running near the top of the field. Joseph Burke and Mark McAlister retired from the third place after an accident on Sunday.
Posted: January 1, 2010 12:32 AM
TreadZone, a Competition Tire Dealer has partnered with Rally New York, Ltd. to provide at-event and pre-event rally tires services for Rally New York competitors.
For New York Winter Rally, TreadZone makes available the excellent Hankook W409 I Pike ice and snow tires studded with single-flange approved studs. The best news is that someone will win four Hankook R201 gravel rally tires from TreadZone at New York Winter Rally. Any entering team is eligible to win rally tires in size of their choice. The set of tires will be awarded through a lottery drawing.
TreadZone (www.TreadZone.com
Joe Specht, General Manager of TreadZone and a man with experience in driving race cars, says about this new business relationship:
“We are excited about this new business opportunity. We have been in business for over 30 years and have 12 retail locations in southeast Pennsylvania in close proximity to New York. We’re also a Distributor for the Pirelli Rally and Road Race Competition Tires. The company is the northeast Distributor for the Hankook Rally and Road Race Tires and also a Dealer for Toyo R888 R-Compound tires for Tarmac Stages and the full line of Toyo tires including the T1R.
TreadZone has tire-shaving equipment in house to shave the competition tires and has tire studding equipment for special orders. Some of the other manufactures TreadZone is a direct Dealer for are Michelin, BFG, Uniroyal, Goodyear, and Yokohama. These products are available at www.TreadZone.com
As for myself, I have been in the tire business for over 20 years with experience in wheel alignment, retail and wholesale tire sales, with training in ultra high performance tires. I am a BF Goodrich Team T/A Top Achiever for 5 years. I am also a member of the Blue Mountain Region SCCA and compete in Time Trials on Toyo and Hankook tires for the past 10 years. I have attended Skip Barber schools and manufactures’ “Ride & Drives” and attended “Wide Open Offroad” for 3 days in Mexico.”
Rally New York, Ltd. is headquartered in Forestburgh, New York located ninety miles northwest of New York City in spectacular southern Catskill Mountains of Sullivan County. It is dedicated to furthering the sport of stage rallying in the United States.
Posted: November 29, 2009 2:12 PM
A notable Romanian team of Claudiu David and Mihaela Beldie (www.claudiudavid.ro
The team is the 2004 and 2005 Romanian Champion in N1.6 Trophy. David and Beldie were the surprise of the Production car World Rally Championship at the 2007 Rally Japan. They were fifth in Group N before the last stage of the rally and in the end finished 12th because of technical problems. They started their Production World Rally Championship career at Rally Argentina where they finished 32nd overall, 11th in Group N. The same year they retired from Rally Wales Great Brittain.
David’s and Beldie’s most recent successes are winning Group N and placing 4th overall at 42 Alliantz Rally and a string of first and second places overall and in Group N. They hail from Sinaia, Prahova in Romania.
Rally New York, Ltd. is headquartered in Forestburgh, New York located ninety miles northwest of New York City in spectacular southern Catskill Mountains of Sullivan County. It is dedicated to furthering the sport of stage rallying in the United States.
Rally New York, Ltd. is the organizer and promoter of events in the United States Rally Championship (www.usrallychampionship.com
Posted: November 23, 2009 3:58 PM
The New York Winter Rally 2010 will take place on January 23 - 24, 2010.
Note that we have changed the schedule to Saturday / Sunday from
the previously announced Friday / Saturday.
Each day will be a separate round of the New York Rally Championship.
The entry will open on or about December 1.
We will finish after lunch on Sunday. Eastern competitors will be able
to get home on Sunday. The registration and scrutineering will take
place on Friday afternoon / evening. In an extreme case, by a special
appointment, late registration and scrutineering may be done on
Saturday morning.
The Rally HQ and overnight indoor Parc Ferme on Friday and Saturday
night, and the short morning service each day will be at Villa Roma Resort
in Callicoon, New York.
The Keowa Rally Village is closed for the winter and will not be used.
The Keowa special stage will start on Route 26. The Central Service Park
both on Saturday and Sunday will be at Ten Mile River Scout Reservation
HQ located at 1481 Crystal Lake Road in Narrowsburg, New York. The
travel distance from Villa Roma to the Central Service Park is 23 miles over
main roads mostly with 55 mph speed limit, which will take about 30
minutes. There will be an opportunity to change tires for each of these
transits so these transits will not have to be done on studded tires.
We envision the following schedule:
Friday afternoon and evening: Registration and Scrutineering, Villa Roma
Friday night: Parc Ferme, Villa Roma
Saturday morning: Two pass Reconnaissance, rally cars allowed
Saturday after lunch: Official Start, Ten Mile River HQ
Saturday afternoon: Day 1 of the rally
Saturday night: Parc Ferme, Villa Roma
Sunday morning: Restart at Villa Roma and Day 2 of the Rally
Sunday mid-afternoon: Finish of the rally and Awards, Ten Mile River HQ
Studs no bigger than the approved DOT studs are authorized and highly
recommended.
DOT studs will be used to minimize the cost to
competitors as well as the road damage.
We will review this policy after
the rally based on our experience from this event.
Construction crews are working on the roads this week to prepare them
for competition before the ground freezes.
A large part of the course is
regularly plowed during the winter.
The rest of the course will be
maintained for competiton as best as our budget will allow.