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| 2003
RIM OF THE WORLD
Big news is the MTX/Streetwires team Escort ZX2 finished “Rim” for the fist time and the Ronquillo / Johnston team is fast! The Gravel Crew takes on the Rim of the World Rally, stop number two on the Western States Rally Championship for Rodney Wills & John Burke and marking the five-year anniversary of the Ford Escort ZX2’s first start at “RIM”. Teammates Marvin Ronquillo and Scott Johnston makes their forest debut competiting on the California Rally Series with his ’02 Subaru WRX. Wills / Burke finished 9th in group 2 / class of 16 cars and 36 over-all of 80 cars. Marvin Ronquillo set the fasted stage time for a seed 8 driver (first timer), but on Saturday, clutch failure would put him out of the race on Saturday. The weekend started with the threat of rain. The threat was real and the race was nothing less of a good’o Alabama mud bog event! Friday night the rally started with a surprising amount of spectators up on the stages and standing in the rain while the Gravel Crew cars ran flawlessly! It was raining cats and fog; the fog was quite thick at higher elevations and had the teams slowing down to see where the road was going. Upon the transit back to the service area from a canceled stage four, Wills / Burke Ford Escort ZX2 developed axle problems with no solutions for repair during service hours as Gravel Crew chief Chris “opie” Tusow and team worked until the wee hours in the morning. Saturday was the day of mud and axle survival for the Wills / Burke team. Rules state that the cars must be on display from 9:00am to 11:00am and the race starts at 12:00. The team mission was to have the car survive the next three stages along with transits and service the car during the service break. Meanwhile crew members drove to Fontana to pick up new axles to be ready for the service time. Due to the rain and muddy conditions the event was cut short and the axels survived the abuse, thus we never used the new axels. The Marvin / Scott WRX team meet a hill that killed the clutch on the beginning stage of Saturday. This marked the 20th anniversary of the RIM of the WORLD Rally event and was a fun event to drive even with all the mud and support team was very happy, as the cars did not incur any physical damage. Next stop for Rodney / John– back to Washington for round three on the WSRC. Next stop for Marvin / Scott is the Gorman Ridge Rally. Photos
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