2019 Teams

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

We thought it might be a good idea for the ORSC racers to get to know each other, so we sent an email with a few questions to every team. Of course, we KNOW that everyone will be more than happy to say something about himself/herself.

For those that are too lazy, I put a little sentence there as follows; “Also, if you do not send it, I will bombard you with the same request until you put a restraining order on me. Then I will break the order anyway.” – And I was serious. Let us call this new series GETTING TO KNOW YOU.

JON STRACK

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Paul’s note:
We go way back with this fellow. I think I was under the car (off the road) at Galway Cavendish road when I heard somebody coming very, very fast into the spectator’s corner. Then the sound suddenly stopped. I bump my head into the floor of the car, them pulled my body out of there and went to push Jon out of the ditch. I do not think he slowed down much afterwards…
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So here is his write-up:
Driver: Jon Strack, 35 year old Capricorn, married w/ 2x cats. Hates cars, Loves rally.
Co-Driver: Haven’t started looking yet.
I have been out of the racing community for the past few years; lost the stomach for spending all my money.
Participated in some RallyCross events with my daily driver before I ‘upgraded’ to the Lada Samara where I competed in a handful of Performance Rallies in Ontario, 2007-2008.
After that I decided it would be a ‘good idea’ to build my own car…..all my money gone and all my time gone.
Ran it in 2x Ontario events and some Rally Crosses before tucking it away, waiting for a rainy day.
Then last year, after Mr.Hartl (*) told someone my car was for sale….which it wasn’t… I made the decision to bring it out again.
No longer interested in spending the crazy amount of cash to run full performance rallies, RallySprint seems like the thing to try. Lets see how it goes.
The car is a 2000 Ford Focus.
Once upon a time my daily drive, I drove if for 200K then I built it into a Race car. Took a few years, 2010-2013.
While I say ‘I built’, truthfully so many great people helped to put the car together. Especially Peter at HotBits, Sang’s Automotive and Warren Haywood.
The motor is stock, but nothing else is.
Looking forward to playing in the forest again at full chat!

DAVID COTIE

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Paul’s notes: I have seen David volunteering at the Tall Pines Rally, I think (?) in VW Scirocco (?) with Anthony Tremblay and then finally at the Bancroft Rally Sprint about two years ago. Yep, he has done it all. And I mean ALL.. Since he more or less answered the questions I will post them here as well.
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1. How long have you been involved in rally? In what role (spectator volunteer, crew, driver, co-driver, etc)?
I have been involved with rallying for 19 years, mostly at the Rally of the Tall Pines, in various roles. I have also volunteered at other Performance Rallies, TSD’s, Rally-X, etc. I have co-driven a Rallysprint with Anthony Tremblay and I drove a Rallysprint with Tom Bye in the RH seat.
2. What other motorsports or competition have you been involved in?
I have volunteered at a road racing event at Shannonville.
3. Tell us a little about you and/or your team…
Like most volunteers, I have wanted to get on to the stages in a competitive role. I have always focused on driving and besides who wants a guy my size in the silly seat, unless they need ballast!!! The journey to get a car is a long story!!! I am pretty handy with cars and have doing my own repairs for years. I have progressively worked up to more challenging things, like full engine swaps. Basically I picked up a WRX wagon with a blown motor and a 2nd WRX wagon with a good motor but a chassis that was literally dropping rust as it drove down the road. Each one I managed to pick up for $500. I swapped good engine into good chassis and parted out what was left over. I then worked out a deal to sell the complete car. BOOM – Rally Car fund. I located a car north of Montreal that seemed to have everything needed – Logbook, good suspension etc. I then embarked on a marathon 2-day, 26 hour driving trip – first to Toronto to drop off WRX to new owner and collect the cash. Then to my brother’s place in Ottawa for the overnight stop. Then up at 5 am to Lantier QC (about an hour east of Tremblant). Made the deal and loaded the car and the huge amount of spares (pretty much everything but a shell!) and then home to North Bay.
Brandon Pace will be joining me as Co-driver. If anyone out there is interested in crewing let me know.
4. Tell us a little about your rally car…
My car is a 2000 Honda Civic SiR (technically an Si, since it is a US car but the equivalent spec up here is SiR). It has been Logbooked and raced since 2005. It has quite the pedigree – 6-time Coupe de Quebec (2WD) Champion with 2 different drivers. I have owned it since 2016 and ran the MLRC Rallysprint in 2017 (2nd overall and 1st 2wd). Life has gotten in the way since then. I had to make a few changes, especially to get my seat in the car and maintenance (brakes, axles and tow points). I call the car the Rally Pumpkin – self explanatory when you see the pictures. The paint job is about a “50-footer” and you can still see the base paint in spots (it was blue). Pretty sure that it’s rattle can special.
5. Do you have plans to move up to OPRC?…
I hope to eventually jump into the OPRC, but need to get life sorted out first.
6. Anything else? Serious, funny, interesting or even boring?
Interesting?? – Wait until you see the sticker that was on the back window when I bought it!!!

CHUCK STORRY

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Paul’s notes: Once again I have to take the 5th. But one thing is for sure – I will always confuse “story” and “storry” in my writing – remembering good times we used to have. On the other hand, Chuck (an extremely polite man) can only remember listening to my “stream of consciousnesses” of choice words in the car… 🙂
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My name is Chuck Storry and I have been an Italian car fan for a long time. After numerous car show type events with my Italian cars over the years I found that they were really bred for performance use. One of my favourite Italian brands is Lancia and they have a long and storied history in rally. My rally history is not so long but I find myself living only a short distance from the 1974 Rideau Lakes WRC event which was won by a Lancia Stratos.
I have spectated, volunteered as part of the event, volunteered on service crew and co-driven in performance rallies and participated in a couple TSDs. I co-drove in all National performance rally events in 2013 as part of the “Over the Hill” rally team ending up as Canadian 2WD champions with Paul. Now 5 years later I am really over the hill so I need to get on with this driving thing while I still can. My rally experience as a driver is limited to rallycross events (summer and winter) in my Lancia’s (Montecarlo and Delta integrale).
I enjoy restoring cars as a hobby so I am re-building my 1988 Lancia Delta integrale which started life as a Group N rally car from new in Holland. It came to me just over 5 years ago from Amsterdam to Nova Scotia in a container and I trailered it the rest of the way home. While it was a rolling shell at the time I have had to upgrade to modern safety specs, new cage, etc and refurbish all systems in this 30 year old car. My goal is to expose a new generation of rally enthusiasts to the Lancia history. Hey if you can’t drive good you should at least look good – right ! Having built the car myself, for me success will be having the car make it all the way to the finish line in one piece.
Given that it is still in pieces I haven’t asked for a co-driver commitment yet but will be doing my best to be ready in time for the first event and signing up a co-driver and support team.
I very much enjoyed past regional and national performance rally events as a co-driver and would love to do that again as a driver in a Lancia. The car is prepped to meet all the current performance rally specs so that option will be there if the car (and me) makes it in one piece. If not I hope there will be lots of photographic evidence to prove I gave it a try 🙂
I look forward to swapping stories with the rest of the rally sprinters and hope this is the beginning of a growth spurt for rally in Ontario.

ANDREW MILLER

I’ve been at it long enough to be one of the old guys I guess… not one of the really old guys tho #denniswarton #rosswood #martinlovridge. Been rallying longer than I’ve been married… so in matrimony years it’s like 250-300 or so?
Done pretty much all the rally things… driver, co-driver, worker, organizer, mechanic, spectator, moral support, vocal advocate, apathetic bystander you name it.
The car -1995 JDM WRX- was a daily driver whilst I was living in Hong Kong. When I caught a case of the grown-ups about 10 years ago I decided I should upgrade to something a little less yobbo and bought an e36 BMW convertible like every other expat in HK (don’t worry I came to me senses a couple year later and bought a Nissan 350Z as my daily).
So the Subaru was sitting there with its comically oversized tailpipe, boost controller, aftermarket rims and its lowered suspension just taunting me. My wife in a bout of spectacular generosity (or stupidity not sure which) decided to let me turn it into a rally car. And since a wise man once said “The urge to go rallying makes Crack look like a craving for popcorn” I took her up on the offer.
Ten months later and a great deal of sweat (the tin shack I was building it in routinely reached 46° and 90% RH) I had a rally car again. I did 100% of the work…strangely it’s hard to get friends to help when the Humidex feels like 63° C.
Off to Malaysia to run around on the plantation roads. Had a great deal of Fun for a couple years met some really cool people…and then got busy with life. So car sat fallow. Eventually I shipped it home to Canuckistan. Fast forward to today.
Ontario Rallysprint Championship seems like a good excuse to drag it out of its shipping container tomb and do something with it. Plus my wife lost her mind again briefly and said I could.
Beyond paying the entry fee I haven’t made much of a plan. I figure I’ll give a newbie or two a chance to co-drive and act as what the great John Bellfluer once described as “ Sac de Patat” since I won’t be paying much attention to you anyway…So if you wanna join the waiting list let me know I’ll make a random draw a some arbitrary point for second seat.
Driver details: Male 49 years old, only a couple cards short of a full deck
Co-Driver details: Anyone Gullible and willing
Service Support team: @Robin Fleguel, see earlier comment about gullibility
The Car:
1995 RHD JDM WRX
2003 JDM sti drive train with DCCD
34mm restrictor
Vipec ECU, Anti-lag launch etc.
Gratuitous Carbon Fibre

MATT WATERS (and by extension ERIC MCKINNON)

I got my first glimpse of rally in 2001 while cottaging in Bancroft. My buddy and I were waiting for our pizza, and you know what was on TV? Tall Pines of course! We looked at each other, jaw dropped when we noticed it was in Bancroft, ON! We both volunteered that Fall, working a finish on Old Hastings. Since then I have done it all, first competed in 2008 at Tall Pines, drove my Eagle Summit to class win and 12 o/a.
I have Spectated circle track at a young age, but never involved in anything but rally and a couple lapping days at Calabogie.
Nothing exciting about me… I work as a franchisee supervisor for McDonald’s, overseeing operations at two restaurants in Ottawa. I have two kids and a very patient wife, she might come and co-drive for me this summer. Eric Mckinnon and I are going to split the drives in the car, and potentially co-drive for each other, but that is still in negotiation.
I first got Kelleigh the mighty rally car in 2004 (I think), purchased from someone in Gatineau. It had seen RSQ competition before landing in my driveway. Never rolled, but my worst crash is when i spun out at Shannonville Stages in 2009, and nearly folded the car in half at the unprotected end of pit wall.
I plan to do it again one day, but not with the Summit… Maybe something intereSTing…
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Paul’s note: He was not the only one who spun at the 2009 Shannonville. The track was run in the opposite direction with a huge puddle in the fast corner just before the pit walls. “Yep, one should brake/lift BEFORE the puddle” I thought while spinning madly between the pit walls too.
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MICHAL and JACEK GIELAS

Our names are Michal and Jacek Gielas and Rally has been a part of our lives ever since we can remember.
We’ve been around the sport as spectators, media, marshalls for many years now. However, the beginning goes way back. Michal actually started walking at an ice racing event in Minden. The same event the sprongls showed up in their quattro. Our passion continued to grow over the years. Growing up in Peterborough, Ontario, we would glared in amazement as Carl Merrill’s escort, the Sprongl’s screaming quattro or the Mcgeer’s subaru rumbled up the hill through the liftlocks during the rally of the tall pines. Pretty sure at that point, we knew we were hooked for life.
Rally has always been a family affair for us. Our uncle (Chris Gielas) and dad (Roman Gielas) co-drove for Chris Rudzinski in a Mazda 323 GTX during the 90’s, which really was the key aspect of our addiction to the sport.
We have competed in numerious rally cross and rally sprints in the past together. Jacek has competed in several OPRC events in the past co-driving for John Merry.
Our car is a 1999 Subaru Impreza RS 2.5 which we purchased in 2013 off Danny Doran (which he competed in, in the early 2000’s) Ever since the purchase, we have been rebuilding and improving the car to the best of our ability. It is mainly stock engine/transmission wise, however we have made some ‘rally improvements’. Hopefully it holds together this year!
We are both planning to run the OPRC series in the near future. But for now lets have some fun at the ORS series. We are looking forward to meeting and competing with everyone.

IVAN BELJIN

Hi my name is Ivan Beljin, I’m 25 years old and I have an adrenaline addiction. This is my first time talking about it openly but by the sounds of it I’m in the right place 😂. I spent a few years racing downhill mountain bikes in Quebec before I could get my hands on a license and a car. I was never around race cars as a kid and it was something I took upon myself to learn more about. When I was 18 I purchased my red FC RX7 and restored it from the ground up with my father. We spent a few years competing in the local autocross series before he got the bug too and bought his own car. This was my first time wrenching on cars and learning a ton about engine building, suspension setup, and tuning in general.
I’ve always had an interest in rally because it’s a very pure form of Motorsport. You could almost go as far as to say it’s closely related to mountain biking as you bounce down the road dodging trees. Three years ago I decided I wanted to start taking steps in that direction and purchased the “trashback” with the intent of breaking it at a local rallycross event. I was successful at times.
Just as I had jumped headfirst in restoring my first car, I decided that building a roll cage was something worth trying. Fast forward a few years and a couple of curveballs later, she’s almost complete!
The car is built to compete in production 2WD and is intended to be as cheap to run as possible. I selected this vehicle on the basis of parts availability and the fact that my local wrecking yard is full of them.
I’m very excited to see somebody organizing rallysprint and I would love to make my way into the OPRC when the time is right (and if the car makes it that far 😊😊😊).

TERESA AND ANDREW MAREK

We are Teresa and Andrew Marek, a husband and wife team who discovered rally about 7 years ago, when we purchased a used Jetta that happened to come with a manual transmission and a google search led us to the Kitchener Waterloo Rally Club where we caught the rally bug.
We have participated in rally as competitors (navigational, performance and rallycross), as a co-driver, volunteers, marshalls and media, having taken a lot of pictures and video for club events as well as for others. We are currently also responsible for the KWRC Facebook pages.
Although late to the rally game, we have had a few successes that we are pretty proud of. Two years ago, we were the Novice champions in ORRC Navigational rallying. At the same time we were doing well in navigational rally, Andrew got the idea that he wanted to purchase a rallycross car and learn how to drive. We purchased a 1998 Subaru RS …. with lineage of Jeremy Norris and Dan Sprongl, and participated in several rallycross events, including those hosted by MLRC, the KWRC series and most recently the PMSC events hosted at Burnt River.
Two years ago Andrew co-drove for Zoltan Kovacs at Tall Pines and although they crashed, the opportunity to experience performance rally, even in the silly seat spurred another idea… let’s build a performance rally car and we started to do that. With Zoltan’s guidance, we purchased a 2006 Lancer Ralliart and the process to make it into a performance car began. Our cage has been built by Ryan Huber and we still need to put together some items to make it complete.
In addition to building the rally car, Andrew also realized that he needed experience to drive, hence the continued involvement in Rallycross and now the Rallysprint series. When we say it takes a village, it really does. People like Zoltan, Jeff Lantz (KWRC), Jason Crandall and Randy Zimmer have all taken Andrew under their wing to make him a better driver. This year, the season has already started on a positive note with Andrew placing 2nd overall by one tenth of a second in the first day of the KWRC rallycross event and 1st overall with a seven second lead in the second day of the event, doing so in his daily driver. No barrels or pylons were knocked down, a testament to all his teachers!
We are so proud to be a part of this special group of people who enjoy rally but more importantly enjoy and support each other. Look out for the red and white Ralliart, a homage to our Polish-Canadian heritage!

DARRYL MALONE

1. Rally involvement?
I’ve been around for a bit, done a few different roles😉
2. Other motorsports?
My Motorsports experience of actual driving over the past 18ish years is mostly rallyX plus a couple rallysprints and couple OPRC events. I’ve also taken the rally Accent to the track and tossed it around.
3. You and/or your team?
I’ll start with the crew because I really appreciate the help I’ve received over the years. Co-drivers; it’s always changed but always great. Thanks to Jim, Chris, Tim, Jody, Danny and Tom. The crew of BIA Motorsports has helped me a bunch over the years. Great guys, fun to hang out with.
4. Your car?
The rally Accent was originally a parts car that I bought six years ago for 400 bucks. Shortly afterwards MLRC was having a rallyX and thought let’s try that. Slapped on a trip permit and the rally Accent was born. A couple years of rallyX was great but the new rules came out for Rallysprint. We had to move up to the next level. So began a very busy winter fabricating the roll cage and other necessary safety gear.
You might have noticed the hula hoop girl watching over the crew. She was in the car when I bought it. Her big smile and free spirit is a permanent part of the rally dream now.
5. Plans to do ORSC?
I have done a couple OPRC events in the past, which was fun and challenging. Loved Lanark Rally. Will definitely be going back to OPRC some day.

CHRIS KREPSKI

My interest in rallying started in the early 1990s while watching VHS tapings of the Canadian Rally Championship. The Sprongls, Tom McGeer and Jon Nichols were among my first rally heroes. I then went on to volunteer at Tall Pines and the other Ontario and Quebec events as a scrutineer, start/finish, radio marshal, in course cars, and as a service crew member.
My rally car is a Mk2 Golf. I grew up driving and wrenching on VWs, so it was a logical choice for me. It was built largely by myself, Sebastien Richard and some friends, and Ronald O’Brien built the rollcage. It has the stock 8v engine (105 hp when new), stock gearbox with a shorter final drive an limited slip differential. Currently collecting parts to install a more powerful engine.
I competed in the OPRC between 2013-2016. I then took a break to grow up just a little, get married, etc. Thankfully, I hung on to the rally car. Before rallying, I participated in summer/winter autocross, track days and did a partial season of road racing in the mid to late 1990s. This year, I’m looking forward to participating in the rallysprint series and 1-2 OPRC or RSQ championship events, as the budget permits.

CONOR MALONE/TYLER BLAUEL/RALPH BLAUEL

Here is some background on Team Chinook:
Experience:
Driver Conor Malone about 10 years
Driver Tyler Blauel no races just Crazy Leo driving class
Co-Driver Ralph Blauel 2 years and 6 events
What other motorsports or competition have you been involved in?
No other motor sports experience. Using this series to gage Tyler’s interest.
Tell us a little about you and/or your team:
Conor and Ralph have been friends since high school. Ralph has been Tyler’s dad since before he was born… The service crew, if we assemble one, is comprised of Tyler’s friends. None of us are mechanics, just tragically optimistic about our skills.
Tell us a little about your rally car:
Conor started driving the 1986 Mitsubishi Starion about a decade ago. The old girl has had a few knocks but still has a great paint job. This year’s sprint series may be some it last rally events.
Do you have plans to move up to OPRC?
No plans at the moment for Tyler and the OPRC.

MATT FOLLETT

1. How long have you been involved in rally? In what role (spectator volunteer, crew, driver, co-driver, etc)?
First started spectating at Tall Pines 2001 with a group of friends. We managed to find Tech at the Canadian Tire on Friday night, and while most folks were ogling over the McGreer and Paynter Subies…. I found Roger Sanderson’s NX2000 to be particularly interesting. 😉 It looked cheap, I think there was rust in the spare tire wheel well… I thought “I could do this!” Spectated for a couple more years… Built the Justy in 2 months in 2004 and ran a couple of OPRC seasons pretty hard. Moved away… sorta moved back. Volunteered at a few events, co-drove for Alex Kuklov in his Impreza, resurrected the Justy in 2011, and ran a couple of Tall Pines (marginal success 😉 )
2. What other motorsports or competition have you been involved in?
Not much, I spent sometime on dirty bikes as a kid… built a couple hydroplanes, I had a wack of turbo Toyotas, including an Turbo MR2 I would track day at Shannonville. I ski raced and coached ski racing. Oh and I drove tree spades… which can be akin to rallying, with a 20 ton truck in muddy conditions and 13 gears.. there is similar foot dancing.
3. Tell us a little about you and/or your team – for example: built the car yourself because you are a welder (or have no money, or love grease), helped your mom (or your ex) restore an old junker, love to travel (such as driving for spare parts all the time), your crew are all circus people (notice that I did not say clowns), anything interesting – or not.
I like to tinker… not an engineer, or a mechanic by trade, but the story is, my parents got me a Honda 50 when I was 9. The next spring it wouldn’t start, and while my father would have been quite capable of getting it going in a minute or two, handed me the manual and said “your bike, your problem” or something to that extent. There’s a few other people who have been well connected to “the car and the team” Jeff, there from the beginning, and being my voice of reason, is well known for singing “the wheels on the bus” when all hell is breaking loose in the car (literally breaking loose and falling off), Generally it has just been Jeff and I to run and service the car… which on multi leg rallies has been a challenge (how do we move the “service car and the rally car when we both have to be in the rally car???”) But there have been some stout supporters along the way 😉
4. Tell us a little about your rally car: how long have you had it, where did it come from, how long do you expect to have it before your first significant off (or have already rolled it and fixed it), does it have a nick name (or you just swear at it all the time, or it is just your wife/girlfriend who does so), is it an odd car and if so does it have an odd team to support it, anything interesting.
In 2002 I bought a Subaru GL turbo… with the intent to cage it. It blew 2 head gaskets in the span of a a winter. Steve, one of other “idiots” had bought an ’88 Justy… he was going to cage it. He didn’t, he moved to France, I bought the car. I drove it as a winter beater 2003-04, and in late April decided to run Black Bear in June with it… It ran P1 (Production 1) the first couple of years and was just a Justy with a cage and some home brew suspension. If anyone knows anything about Justies, they will know the oil pump… they are undersized and hence under-oiled on the bottom end. In 2004 we put 2 motors in it in 4 rallies… That’s 3 motors, 4 rallies… and at the end of Tall Pines 04 (3rd motor) we had 3 pounds of oil pressure;). But the car is blast to drive, and so easy to work on. No center diff means it’s predictable, it always does the same thing. At under 1900 lbs and stock 66 hp, it burns less fuel in a whole rally then a real rally car in a single stage, yet it can set some surprisingly fast middle pack stage times until the motor blows. In fact it’s so predictable you can run a whole stage with no brakes, and set a better stage time then with them (Defi 2004)! 2005 it ran Bear and Pines, DNF’d both… it’s really cool to drive half a stage on 2 cylinders. Once the rod lets go completely and the piston is stuck at the top of the stroke, the engine regains some balance, and it goes pretty good, until the rest of the oil is gone. 😉 So began the quest for better oiling.
Jump to 2010 ish… after being mothballed for over 5 years, we decided to rebuild the car. Originally it had been built very quickly, and very poorly. Prior to the cage going in it was a winterbeater with bondo in the rockers, and foam in the fenders. So it was stripped to bear shell, sand blasted, and rebuilt. It needed a new rad… a replacement was $600!!! By definition of production rules, a non-oem replacement would put us in Open Class, but Open would let us do all kinds of fun things, we would never podium again (which we had before, but when there’s only 1 finisher in your class, you don’t get to stand on the hood and spray champagne at yourself.). So over the prospect of a $600 rad,the decision was made to run open. We’d get a rad from a Honda civic, and maybe a few other goodies. Pines 2011, we made a couple stages before the clutch cable snapped, drove in to service shifting on the revs, tried to fix it with a cable clamp…mal adjusted I was burning up the disc on transit, so we bailed. By Pines 2013 it was sporting triple carbs, 10.5:1 comp, a oil windage tray, equal length 3-1 header, porting, and better home brew suspension, it would lay rubber shifting to 3rd (in 2wd), and was estimated at over 90 hp (accelerometer dyno), up from the stock 66 ;). Running on very old snows… I nearly clipped a photog’s GoPro set on the side of the road. I tried to avoid it, and put the car in the ditch on to opposite side after going through the end of the stage! We went off at over 100 km/hr and slid through the ditch for over 50 yrds. The car pitched violently over, nearly rolling, and stopped. I restarted it and tried to climb out of the ditch. It made bad noises. Paul Hartl kindly pulled us out, and when the car pulled up on the road, I looked in the door mirror, and could see the inside of the rear wheel… While I beat on the remoulded suspension with a BFH, Jeff quietly handed in our time card to the steward… 2014 the car ran again at Pines. The car being better tuned, no throttle hesitation, we had some amazing stages. Until the windage tray and the brand new oil pump could not keep up any longer… and it once again released the number 1 rod from duty.
Frustrated… I bought one of the last known blocks for a car some 27 years young… and using 2 Melling 55 pumps from Chevy engines, some copper pipe and assorted commercial plumb supplies built a dry sump system. So the car is now a dry-sumped fire breathing monster. Mostly untested, but for a winter at the Ottawa rallycross circuit.
5. Do you have plans to move up to OPRC? (If you say yes we will be very happy to see you graduating there.)
Perhaps some day the car will again grace the stages of full rallies… 😉
6. Anything else? Serious, funny, interesting or even boring?
That about sums it up.

CURTIS ANTOINE & LIAM SCHNURR

1. How long have you been involved in rally?
– I watched rally as a teen and I always figured when I had a million I would go rallying. Still don’t have million and now that I’m rallying I realize I will never have a million.
– I made the usual mistake and bought a new car to build into a rally car, then realized it was way easier to buy a rally car. That was in February 2018. Sold the new car and bought a rally car.
– I volunteered at Lanark in 2018 where I met my soon to be CoDriver Liam Schnurr
2. What other motorsports or competition have you been involved in?
Prior to 2018 I had no previous experience in motor sports but I definitely had many hours building and fixing cars including:
– a 1955 chevy 210 wagon, designed owned and maintained.
– started a build on a 1955 cadillac
– rebuilt a 1988 blazer
– and also have lined up ready for the garage 1950 GMC cabover, a 1948 cabover and a 1931 model A
3. Tell us a little about you and/or your team:
TSD racing (Tires Side Down) Curtis Antoine and Liam Schnurr. Met Liam while volunteering at Lanark and asked him if he had a fire suit and if he would want to jump in a codrive. He didn’t have any experience but neither did I so we would learn together. Liam has great passion for rally and learned quickly what is involved in being a codriver. As for the driving part I did a day with RaceLab, 1 KWRC rally cross, then on to Black Bear and Tall Pines.
4. Tell us a little about your rally car:
– After buying the 2004 WRX production class from Amerik Lavasseur, I had to upgrade it to make it “work” as he was tall and slim and I am short and round. Therefore new seats, adjust positions…etc
– At Black Bear we had a little incident in which sweep had to pull us back out of the swamp. This led to me having to straighten out the fender, repaint the fender and bumper. (As the driver we always blame the codriver) I’m sure I heard left 6 when it was a right 3. 🙂 But unfortunately the camera wasn’t installed at the time. 😉
5. Do you have plans to move up to OPRC? (If you say yes we will be very happy to see you graduating there.)
Competing in OPRC Black Bear, Lanark and Tall Pines this year.
6. Anything else? Serious, funny, interesting or even boring?
Boring: definitely a procrastinator.