Rumors of the demise of Dillon Van Way and Ben Slocum were grossly exaggerated. The scores from Stage 4 had been sent back by text messages, and for some reason they were missed. The are still running, and are running very strongly.
Karen Wagner, Co-Driver, #90 Dodge Neon SRT-4 – The forest stages were a blast. It was everything they wanted, they couldn't wait to get on the real stages to get some serious mileage. The car is running great, Lauchlin's doing really great. They have a few things to look at in service. On Stage 5 they figured they averaged about 70mph, and Karen saw over 100 several times. The SRT-4 was really flying!
Chris Duplessis, Driver, #70 Scion XD – The forest stages were awesome. The second one coming back out was a lot more fun. They did a different loop, and it was a little more technical, they didn't need the horsepower to be fast. They were non-lift both stages, so they think they are losing a bit of time to the higher-horsepower cars.
Josh Wimpey, Driver, #213 Volkswagen GTI – They've had a bit of bad luck today. They had a loss of power steering on the superspecial in Mexico, then on the first real stage of the day they caught the Evo X that was in front of them in the first three miles of the stage, and were stuck behind them for almost four miles. Then on the last stage coming out they got a flat tire about three miles from the finish and they drove it to the end. It's been a rough day.
Eric Burmeister, Driver, #42 Mazdaspeed3 – The first woods stage they thought they were doing really well, they got about seven miles in on the nine-miler, and the brakes started fading really bad, so he was pumping the brakes every time. To add insult to injury the clutch went away as well so he was speed-shifting for the rest of the stage. They were able to bleed the clutch at the turnaround, which basically lasted for the stage back, but they were just boiling things up out there. On the way back they were very wary of their brakes, so they were picking their way through. All of a sudden it felt like they had a brake holding up, a rear brake just stuck or something. It was really causing the car to do some dodgy things. A mile-and-a-half from the finish it seemed to clear away. He's anxious to crawl underneath the car; there's nothing worse than having a problem that fixes itself , so you don't know what went wrong, so you don't know what to look for. So we're really going to be going over the suspension, the brakes and the axles with a fine-tooth comb, and then bleed, bleed, bleed.
Geoff Clark, Co-Driver, #501 VW Rabbit -- Reports that in Group 5 Luke Sorensen (#699 Saab 99) had a flat about half-way through Stage 5, looked like the left front. A little while after that Gary Wiggin (#289 VW Golf) was pulled over with a flat as well. It looks like they're both fixing it and getting back on.
Kim DeMotte, Co-Driver, #289 VW Golf – The tire gods were not kind. They were doing very well on Stage 5, and about four-and-a-half miles from the end we had a decision to make, whether to try and make it to the end or change it. It started to deteriorate on them, so they had to stop and change it, and that cost them a good four-and-a-half or five minutes. That's racing!
Luke Sorensen, Driver, #699 Saab 99 – A couple miles in from that rough section on Stage 5 they nailed a rock pretty good. They thought it was alright, it looks like they probably pinch-flatted the wheel and had a flat tire. They also had some jacking issues, and ended up losing about seven minutes, which is a shame because checking times after the first stage it looked like they were about second or third in two-wheel-drive.
Ben Slocum, Co-Driver, #600 Ford Focus -- Things are going really, really well. Dillon can drive. They are just holding it in, pushing really hard, and they think they are sitting solidly in second in MaxAttack!.
Ferd Trauttmansdorff, Co-Driver, #22 Nissan 240 – That last stage rocked, that was definitely a MaxAttack! stage. Their crew is now here, everything is golden now, they have some decent tires on (adds driver Martin Walter).
