Team O’Neil Rally School and Ford Racing were pleased to provide the organizers of the Sno*Drift National Rally with two 2-day Team O’Neil Ford Racing Rally Schools to award to a regional competitor and to a pre-registered worker.  Both TON and Ford Racing are staunch advocates of supporting the sport of rallying on a grassroots level, and this means doing whatever they can to help support the “little guy” (no, we’re not talking about size here – we mean the competitor who doesn’t have big sponsors with big money behind him to support his rallying addiction), and also to recognize the scores of volunteers who are absolutely essential to the success of any given rally.

Carl Siegler (w/ co-driver Dave Goodman) at Sno*Drift 2012. Photo: Elliott Sherwood.

We caught up with the two winners (via email correspondence) to chat with them about their involvement in rally and have posted our interviews with them here.  The first, driver Carl Siegler, received the award as the “Highest finishing Regional Driver who has never been a class winner at the Regional Runoffs (combined results for both days, excluding road points)”. Carl took second place in the Open Class of both the Sno*Regional and Drift Regional Rallies.

TON: You’ve attended a class at Team O’Neil previously.  When did you last come, and how long was the course?  What did you learn from the course?
CS: I was last at Team O’Neil in the fall of 2009 for a 4 day school.  This was during my first season as a rally driver and I had just come off an event where I rolled and another with a minor off so I wanted to reset myself and break some of my bad habits and learn some new skills.  I think the most important thing I got out of it was getting back to basics – things like where to be looking, hand positioning, anticipating road condition and general vehicle dynamics.

TON: How long have you been a competitor in rallies as a driver?
CS: This will be my 4th season as a stage rally driver.  The 1st year was in an Open Light Subaru (2004 STI that was de-turbo’d).  The 2nd and 3rd were in an Open Class Subaru (the same 2004 STI).  This season I have a new Open Class 1996 Subaru Impreza because I retired the last one after a big off at Rally Minnesota.

TON: Have you ever been a co-driver in a rally?
CS: I have never codriven.  I have a feeling I would get car sick!

TON: How did you get involved in rally?
CS: In 2004 I bought a Galant VR4.  While doing research on the car I began to learn about its rally heritage.  Eventually I discovered the Ojibwe Forests Rally took place not so far from where I lived so I went up to spectate.  From that point on I was hooked but after examining the financials I realized it was too expensive for me at the time.  Since then I’ve volunteered at rallies, done rallycrosses, tsd rallies, and ice racing before finally building a stage rally car in 2008/2009.

TON: Besides the Sno*Drift regional rallies, what other rallies have you competed in?
CS: I have done Nemadji Trail 1, 2, 3, Ojibwe Forest, LSPR, STPR, Gravity Park Twin Performance Rallies, 100AW, Rally Minnesota, and Sno*drift.

TON: What are you hoping to take away from your next TON experience?
CS: The next time I’m at Team O’Neil I’d like to really focus on building from where I’m at as a driver.  I know there are lots of little things I should be doing to improve on my fundamentals and I’d like to try and identify where I can pick up speed.

TON: What are your goals as they pertain to rallying?
CS: The most important goal is to keep having fun!  Ideally in the next couple years I would like to try a season as a National competitor.

TON: Anything else you’d like to add as it pertains to your involvement in rallying?
CS: I’d just like to give a shout out to my codriver Dave Goodman!  He’s the key to our team’s success and a lot of fun to work with.  I’d also like to thank our wonderful crew and Ziptie Rally’s second driver, Anthony Israelson, for everything they do keeping things going and promoting the team!  Also a big thanks to our sponsors: TSSFAB, Morries Minnetonka Subaru, Gearhead Designz, Carbonetic, St. Paul Media, and Team Powder!

*  *  *  *

J.B. Lewis. Photo: Brenda Lewis

Since becoming a volunteer chairman of the New England Forest Rally, Tim O’Neil says he’s realized just how much effort goes into the overall production of the events and he wanted to do what he could to give back to the workers. Knowing that the workers often express interest in coming to the school, working with Ford to offer a 2-day course was an obvious way to say “Thank You.”  Our next winner, JB Lewis, was chosen out of a list of pre-registered rally workers by random draw.

TON: How long have you been volunteering at Sno*Drift?
JBL: I’ve been volunteering regularly at Sno*Drift since the 2001 event.  Before that I attended as a member of a team, though the very first time I attended, they were short workers and I ended up helping at a control on the first night.  That’s what first set me on the course to getting my radio license too, I think.

TON: What job(s) do you perform for the rally?
JBL: At Sno*Drift, I’ve worked as a marshal and in Net Control.  I’m primarily at the event to help run the radio safety net; that is, Net Control is what I know I will be doing, but I’ll do whatever Barb needs when she needs an extra body on the course somewhere.

TON: Do you work at other national, local or regional rallies as well?  If so, which ones and for how long have you been involved in them?
JBL: I’ve worked at LSPR, Ojibwe Forest, Rally Minnesota, Headwaters, Rally Colorado, Shooting Star, and Cadillac.  Cadillac was a one-off club rally before Rally America took over sanctioning.  I have been driving course opening for Ojibwe and Rally Minnesota/Headwaters since 2003 or 2004, course opening for LSPR since 2004 or 2005.  I first earned my amateur radio license in September of 2001, and started volunteering for communications duties since then. At Cadillac and Shooting Star, I was a “Super Marshal”: a roaming marshal that fills gaps and solves problems.

TON: Have you ever driven or co-driven (or both) in a rally or other kind of motorsports race?  If so, please tell us about your experience.  If not, is it something you’re interested in doing at some point?
JBL: I first got involved in motor sports in 1991 when I got involved with the Sports Car Club at Ohio State. We put on autocross and TSD rally events.  I also joined the Akron Sports Car Club and SCCA, participating in autocross and ‘gimmick’ rallies.  From there I crewed for a few seasons with a Firestone Firehawk team based out of Mentor, Ohio, and with those contacts was introduced to stage rally crewing for Mike Burke and the legendary co-driver Yorgi Bittner at Magnum Opus in 95.  I crewed for them again at LSPR the following month. In 1996, Yorgi was co-driving for Selcuk Karamangalou, and I crewed for them at LSPR, as they won the PGT championship for that year.  During this time, I was very involved in autocross, travelling to many regional and divisional events.
In 1997 and 1998, I crewed for Wayne and Annette Prochaska with their G2 GTI.
In 1999, I co-drove for Lyn Dillon at Sno*Drift, and then for JB Niday at Headwaters, Ojibwe, and LSPR.  It was whil co-driving for JB Niday that I met Brenda Corneliusen, then co-driving for Bob Nielsen. A week after LSPR that year, I moved from Columbus, Ohio to Minnesota.  In 2000 and 2001, I crewed for Mark Utecht, with Brenda in the right seat, to two National Championships.
In 2002, right after Sno*Drift, I was diagnosed with Testicular Cancer. Following successful treatment, I started volunteering as a radio marshal.

TON: How did you feel about winning the 2-day course at the Team O’Neil Rally School?  Have you ever taken a rally driving course before?
JBL: I am very excited about the school.  I’m going to be calling to find out about applying the certificate’s value to a 3 or even 4 day school.  I was very happy for Mark Holden when he won a certificate for the Team O’Neil school a few years ago, and I know he had an outstanding time there!

* * * *

Congratulations to these two very deserving winners, and thanks to them for the time they took in answering our questions.  We look forward to welcoming them to our little slice of heaven in the northern woods of New Hampshire in the coming year!

Here we are wrapping up the third week of January, 2012, and we’ve been driving through all sorts of wacky winter weather here in Northern New Hampshire. And while perhaps in many places it hasn’t been the fiercest of winters so far, many of us have certainly had to contend with a variety of winter weather driving conditions like snow and sleet and freezing rain. Keep in mind, the typically heaviest snowfall months of February and March are still to come.  As such, if you have been as lax about your winter driving preparedness as Mother Nature has been about throwing the white stuff our way, now is a good time to make sure you’re in Winter Driving Mode and be prepared for the worst.

In this first of a 3-part series on what Tim O’Neil calls “Winter Driving Mode” (WDM), we talk about what it means to be in WDM.  Being in WDM means both having your car properly prepared for winter, and most importantly, making sure your brain has switched over to WDM.

First, let’s review WDM for your car.  We talked about this somewhat in our January newsletter “The Drift” and Tim is featured discussing some of this as well in the January/February issue of Yankee Magazine, but we wanted to recap it here too (hey – the more you hear something, the more it sinks in!).

• Have the Right Stuff in Your Vehicle.  That is, be sure to have a survival kit that consists of a scraper or brush, jumper cables, emergency triangles, flat tire kits, flashlights, and windshield-wiper fluid.  Have an extra cell-phone battery on hand or alternative means for charging your phone.  Also, during the winter months always make sure you have an extra jacket, gloves, hats, appropriate footwear for the snow and cold, and a blanket.

• Check Your Tires.  The best tires for winter are snow tires, which are made with a softer rubber and are designed to ride over the snow and compress it to make it grippy.  Studded snow tires offer even more protection against icy conditions.  It’s important to note that the better the snow tire, the worse its tread wear rating.  Proper snow tires are noisy, feel squishy, and won’t last very long, but they’ll be a lot better in the snow, and your ABS and dynamic stability control will improve with good snow tires.  Also, be sure to have four of the same kind of tire – having just two snow tires can lead to poor control when driving around slippery corners.  And finally, you’ll want to adjust your tire pressure, which should be slightly lower in the winter than in the warmer months.  Not sure what tires to use or what pressure to set your tires at?  Ask a mechanic that you trust.

• Understand what ABS Brakes Can – and Can’t – Do.  ABS brakes are designed to allow you to brake and steer at the same time.  However, while ABS works great on paved roads or on glare ice, it’s not as effective on snow or gravel or other loose surfaces under which there is some grip.  With ABS, you should increase your braking distances in snowy conditions (so if you have a tendency to ride up on other drivers’ rear ends, well, let’s just say you should back off when the weather turns snowy…).  You may also want to consider turning off your traction control.  Not sure how to do that?  Check out your car’s manual.  When you’re plowing through deep snow, you will want that traction control turned off so your tires can dig for grip on the road under the snow.  But if your tires are only going to find ice under it, leave the traction control on.

• Learn How Your Vehicle Responds in Different Conditions.  Find an empty parking lot after the next snowfall or sleet event and get to know your car again.  Slam on the brakes while going straight, slam on the brakes while turning, switch to different modes (for example, if your car has summer, sport and winter modes, try the same move in all three modes), and note how  the car responds in each instance.

So now your car is prepared for winter driving, and perhaps in empty parking lots you are too.  But what about you while you’re cruising around on the road with other drivers?  The single most important thing you as a driver can do to be in WDM is to PAY ATTENTION!

In the next installment of our WDM series, we’ll get more specific about what to be aware of when conditions change.  But for the purposes of this blog post, let’s just say that multitasking while driving is unsafe, and especially when you’re driving in hazardous conditions.  When the snow, sleet or freezing rain starts to fall, or when you hit snowy or wet or icy roads, it’s time to turn the cell phone off, turn the radio off, and focus on your surroundings.  Be aware of the conditions – the weather conditions, the road conditions, the external temperature.   Slow down, allow more braking distance, and adjust how you brake.  You can’t be truly tuned in to what is going on around you while driving if you’re chatting away on your phone or even with the person next to you, or singing along to Lady Gaga or Twisted Sister at the top of your lungs (just sayin’…).

Also, another key component to making sure your brain is in WDM is to remember to slow down.  If you’re going all out assuming that you’re ABS and winter tires and AWD are going to keep you safe on slippery roads, think again.  Even the best drivers with the best equipped cars know they need to slow down when conditions call for it.

Stay tuned for our next blog, in which we discuss factors to be on the look-out for when driving in wintery weather.

NOTE: This blog was written by Gene O’Neil for Team O’Neil Motorsports and published on 12/29/11. We wanted to make sure this recap of TON student & instructor successes made it into the Team O’Neil Rally School files too!  If you haven’t read it yet, check it out.  Here’s to a 2012 filled with more successes, wins and glory (hey, who doesn’t want a little glory now and then?) for our students and staff.

***
The 2011 Rally America and Canadian Championship seasons have very special meaning to Team O’Neil Motorsports. Team O’Neil Rally School instructors and students enjoyed various degrees of success in 2011.

Travis Hanson
Travis Hanson celebrated the most successful season of his career as the newly crowned Rally America Super Production Class Champion.

The 26-year-old from Littleton, NH flawlessly campaigned a 2007 Subaru Impreza WRX STI with his father Terry as co-driver to a remarkable third place finish in the overall Rally America National Championship – a feat never accomplished before by a Production driver.

Terry & Travis Hanson at New England Forest Rally

Hanson began making history and headlines at the opening round of the 2011 season when he became the first Super Production driver to ever claim an outright win in the National Series, defeating the factory-backed Subaru team, the privateer Rockstar Rally team, and a slew of fast Open Class cars at the Sno*Drift Rally. The under-sponsored crew of Hanson and Hanson immediately captured the hearts of fans and gained significant attention from the media with their story of underdog triumph. Hanson went on to control the points lead of the overall Championship well into the fourth round of the six-round Series, another first for a Super Production team, and clinched the SP Class Title by the fifth round.

Chris Greenhouse
Greenhouse, a graduate of the Team O’Neil Rally School, was no stranger to the victory podium even before the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally.  But on June 3rd and 4th, he teamed up with fellow school graduate Billy Elliott Mann and took a c

Chris Green house at STPR

ome-from-behind victory in the fiercely contested Two-Wheel Drive National class at the fifth round of the Rally America National Championship series.  Against substantially higher-powered cars and team budgets, the team pressed on through a punctured tire, electrical problems, and pouring rain to take the victory and proved that perseverance and consistency are some of the most valuable commodities in rally racing.

Adam Yeoman, Rookie of the Year

Adam Yeoman
Every year, the Rally America Championship recognizes the driver who has made the most significant progress in their first year of national competition by bestowing them with the ‘Rookie of the Year’ Award. This year, FY Racing’s Adam Yeoman was nominated as Rookie of the Year for his improved performance. The 28-year-old driver from Houghton, MI piloted his Open class 2002 Subaru Impreza WRX into fifth overall in the Rally America 2011 Championship. Adam is a 2010 graduate of the Team O’Neil Rally School.

Chris Duplessis
Chris helped build the Team O’Neil Motorsports Ford Fiesta R2 and alm

Chris Duplessis at NEFR

ost drove to a STPR win in June before a crash at a late stage with a seven minute lead in the 2wd class ended the R2 debut. Chris rebounded at NEFR with an impressive victory. In October, Chris was selected by Ford Racing to drive in the WRC Academy Wales GB Rally with a very impressive showing before a rollover on day 2.

Wyatt Knox with Jon Wooden Cup

Wyatt Knox
Wyatt Knox and Ole Holter put together an impressive season in the Mazda Speed3 and capped it off with a November Tall Pines victory in the Team O’Neil Motorsports Ford Fiesta R2. After Holter came on board as Co-driver, they earned back-to-back 2WD victories at 100 Acre Wood in February and the Olympus Rally in April. With 86 total points, Knox captured the Jon Wooden Cup representing the top 2WD driver in the Rally America Championship.

Ed McNelly
TON lead technician “Fast Eddie” showed that he is an “up and comer” in Rally. Having some success at NEFR and Charlevoix in 2011, Ed drove the Team

Ed McNelly at Tall Pines

O’Neil Motorsports Ford Fiesta R2 Stage 1 at Tall Pines in November. After entering late and being assigned #62 he moved from 58th to 34th on the first day. Ed displayed his driving skills and finished an impressive 3rd in the 2WD class.

Octane Academy
Tim O’Neil and Ken Block participated in Ford’s Octane Academy in September and tested the Team O’Neil Motorsports Ford Fiesta R2. Two days of testing the R2 really open the eyes of many who got to see the Rally Car go through the paces.

Ken Block & Tim O'Neil at Octane Academy

Ken Block had a pretty impressive Rally highlight reel of his own in 2011. Ken has become one of the biggest stars in the World Rally Championship and is still learning his trade. Ken often comments on how his success is directly related to his education at the Team O’Neil Rally School.

Team O’Neil students in the Rally America Championship
An impressive number of Team O’Neil students finished in the top 40 in the Rally America Championship in 2011. Dave Mirra (4), Adam Yeoman (5), Dillon Van Way (7), Mason Moyle (11), Andrew Comrie-Picard (12), Brian Gottlieb (13), Joseph Burke (14), Andrew Wickline (15), Chris Greenhouse (18), Heath Nunnemacher (22), Viorel Dobasu (26), Nick Allen (27), Lars Wolfe (32), Justin Carven (34), Mark Fox (34), Tracey Gardner (39), and Travis Pastrana (39).

We at Team O’Neil would like to congratulate our students and champions for a very successful 2011 season and offer best wishes for another successful one in 2012.

New for 2012 and offered to satisfy demand, Team O’Neil Rally School has designed a two-day Rallycross class that will take place January 19-20, February 2-3, and March 1-2.

While the course is designed to provide instruction for drivers who participate in SCCA-style sanctioned Autocross and Rallycross types of events, it also will help any driver learn better car control.  Another factor that sets this course apart is that students will be able to choose the type of vehicle they want to train on – Rear, Front or All Wheel Drive – and use that type of vehicle during their training.  Additionally, students who wish to bring their own autocross or rallycross car may do so; these can be used on Day 2 of the course after using TON vehicles on Day 1.

Students will learn TON’s proven LFB techniques and how to apply them to that vehicle, as well as vehicle dynamics, five types of skids, lines and apexes, five types of braking, and more.  As with our popular rally schools, we will maintain a 2:1 student instructor ratio.

We expect the road conditions at our 600-acre facility in Dalton, NH to include packed snow and ice, potentially with some gravel showing through, depending on weather conditions.  Please note that if you plan to use your own vehicle it will need to be prepared for such conditions.  It is also important to note that TON will not take any responsibility for mechanical problems or damage to your vehicle.

Class size will be limited, so sign up now!  The cost for the two-day course is $1,897; if you use your vehicle on Day 2, the cost includes a $300 discount (so $1,597).

To sign up, call us at 603.444.4488.  If you have questions about the class, please ask for Chuck.

At Team O’Neil, we’re proud of the fact that our staff includes some really versatile people.  Last week we talked about how some of our instructors and a mechanic are going to be rallying as drivers in some or all of the Rally America championship events.  This week, we catch up with Chris Komar, a TON instructor who recently returned from Kenya, where we was invited to work as a mechanic for a rally team that participated in the legendary East African Safari Classic Rally (EASCR), an eight-day race that covers 2,000 miles.

Chris was working for Tuthill Porsche, a team that has participated in the Classic before, and which had nine cars racing this year.  Three of those cars were sponsored by Race4Change, which was racing to raise awareness of microfinance as a tool for women’s empowerment. Team members included Travis Pastrana, as well as Bjorn Waldegard – a rally legend himself who won the race this year with his son Mathias co-driving – and Steve Funk, R4C’s mastermind who finished the race 6th with co-driver Andrew Doig.  On a team comprised of over 50 people, Chris was the only American.

I asked Chris a few questions about the experience…

Q: What were your responsibilities on the team?
A: I was assigned to work on car #24, the car that Travis Pastrana drove for four days with co-driver Fabrizia Ponzi.  After Travis left (he couldn’t stay the whole 8 days of the race),  Patrick Njiru [Kenya's most successful indigenous driver] took over.

Chris Komar (background) works on a Porsche during the East African Safari Classic Rally

Q: How did Travis do?
A: He suffered some mechanical ills but he won the last stage that he ran and set the fastest time.

Q: You’re an instructor for Team O’Neil.  What are your qualifications for being a mechanic on a  rally team driving all Porsches?
A: Well, I have a long heritage working as a mechanic for Subaru Rally Team USA – I’ve worked with them since 2005 and I still work for them at the Rally America championship events, as well as at some rally cross events and at the X-Games, and I worked for them during several World Rally Championship rounds in 2007 and 2008.  I’ve been with Tim [O'Neil] for about 10 years – I was his mechanic during the RA championship series in 2002 and 2003.

Q: What were some of the high points of the EASCR?
A: Driving around and seeing the Great Rift Valley, Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti and game parks.  We were close to places like the Ngoro Ngoro Crater when we had a service in a little town near there, but we didn’t get to go in it.  I did have a giraffe nearly jump out in front of me!

Q: How was it driving throughout Kenya?
A: The highways were deadly! I couldn’t let my gaurd down ever. Dangerous, ill-repaired overloaded, un-regulated trucks everywhere… horrifing crashes, taxi vans speeding and passing as if they had nothing to loose. Livestock, donkeys, goat heards, cattle, monkees, zebras, and a giraffe, all in the roads day and night. Locals walk and bike at the edge of the narrow roadway as if there is no speeding traffic, and there were droves of school children everywhere too. I saw a man – roadkill – crumpled along the highway south of Nairobi.  I drove nearly two thousand miles. The upside was that I drove moran (dirt) roads of all types, night and day. Through Tsavo, Arusha and Amboseli national  game reserves, and around Kilimanjaro. I loved the back country travel and could go on for ever.

Q: Tell us about the working conditions.
A: Sleep deprivation and long hours.  We’d be driving by 4am and wouldn’t be going to sleep until 11am most days.  We spent maybe 3-4 hours a day actually working on the cars, which were getting pretty beat up.

Q: Were there any particular fixes you found you had to keep doing on the team car?
A: We had to keep setting the ride height, work on alignment, replace torsion bars…

Q: What were the reactions of the people who lived in the places you were driving through (and that the race was going through)?
A: People were mostly excited and we had positive support.  We always drew large crowds everywhere that we serviced – people just showed up.  We were all over Maasai territory so we got to hang out with Maasai people of all ages – that was pretty cool.

Q: Last question.  Would you do it again?
A: Yes!

For those of you who live in a part of the world where the seasons change, you know there are multiple seasons beyond just Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.  If you’re from Northern New England, you’re no doubt used to talking about Mud Season, and maybe even the Tourist Seasons or the Off Seasons.  But here at Team O’Neil our fearless leader Tim has coined a term for yet another season: Silly Season.

No, we haven’t added any circus funny cars to the TON fleet of Ford Fiestas, VW’s, Jeeps or other vehicles, and this isn’t our seasonal version of April Fools’ Day either.  What Silly Season means here is that we’ve entered into a period of time –let’s just say it’s about a month or so – where we’re swamped with work on not one, not two, but FIVE Ford Fiestas that we’re prepping for our drivers as we get ready for the 2012 Rally America championship series, that begins with the Sno*Drift Rally held in Atlanta, Michigan, the weekend of January 27-28, 2012.  That’s a lot of cars to get ready to race in just over a month’s time!

A future championship-winning R2 in the making!

So here’s the lowdown.  Within the next week or so, Chris Duplessis is off to Detroit, MI, to bring home his new Ford Fiesta, in which he will be installing an R2 kit with the help of our master technician Ed McNelly and which he plans to race at Sno*Drift.  Meanwhile, Ed is working with Wyatt Knox to put the finishing touches on Wyatt’s new R2 so that it will be ready for final assembly and paint and be good to go for Sno*Drift also.  Tim O’Neil also just got his paperwork for the new Fiesta that Ford is giving him to run a limited championship series next year (more on that in a future post!), and that will also be getting the R2 treatment.   He’s figuring out when he’s going to head to Detroit himself to get the new car, in the midst of trying to make sure he doesn’t forget his wife’s and his mother’s birthdays (Happy Birthday ladies!) and so that he can actually enjoy some vacation time next week.  The Stage 1 Fiesta that Verena Mei drove (and rolled – good thing we fix stuff ALL the time too) at NEFR last year, and that Ed drove to a well-earned third place win in the 2WD category at the Rally of the Tall Pines in Ontario last month, is being reworked and upgraded with more power and better suspension so that she can drive it in the RA championship series next month as well.

As for Fast Eddie himself, he’s making upgrades to the R2 that Chris drove at the Susquehanna Trail Performance Rally (STPR) and drove to win the New England Forest Rally (NEFR) last spring and summer, that Joseph Burke drove at the Lake Superior Performance Rally (LSPR) for a 2nd place finish in the 2WD class, and that Wyatt drove to win the 2WD class at Tall Pines (yes, this is a car with some history in its short life).  Ed will be racing that car at some of the championship series rallies this coming year.

Inside the event-winning R2 that Fast Eddie will captain in 2012

Phew!  If you’ve been keeping track, you’ll note that we will have past champions, old champions, mechanics, instructors and movie stars building Fiestas here at Team O’Neil over the next month.  Next we want to make the office staff rally champions!  We know we can do it…

When you take all of this and consider that each build or rebuild takes potentially hundreds of hours to do, you can understand why Team O’Neil is in the midst of Silly Season now.   Join me in wishing them all lots of good luck, no power outages and an abundance of caffeine for the next month!

Check out Ford Racing’s press release below to learn about it’s “Tournament of Ovals” Facebook contest, and be sure to vote for TON instructor and 2WD Rally America champion Chris Duplessis!

DEARBORN, Mich., Nov. 30, 2011 – It has been a banner year for Ford Racing. As the ‘Blue Oval’ celebrated the 110th anniversary of Henry Ford’s historic win in Sweepstakes, its drivers in NASCAR, NHRA, action motorsports and road racing have been carrying on Henry’s tradition of excellence in their Ford-powered competition cars.

Now fans and followers of Ford Racing’s Facebook page can help celebrate 2011 by crowning a Facebook Fans’ Driver of the Year in Ford Racing’s first Tournament of Ovals.

The Ford Racing Facebook Fans’ Tournament of Ovals features a field of 34 drivers, including brackets dedicated to Ford Racing North America’s primary programs – NASCAR (Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series), NHRA Drag Racing (Funny Car, Pro Stock and Sportsman), action motorsports (World Rally Championship, Rally America, Global RallyCross, Formula Drift and Lucas Oil Off Road short course truck racing) and road racing (Grand-AM and Speed World Challenge).

Each bracket will crown a champion of the individual discipline. The four champions then square off in head-to-head competition until one remains. The finalist who earns the most fan votes on that final match-up will be the 2011 Ford Racing Facebook Fans’ Driver of the Year.

“It doesn’t matter if you are a fan, a driver or a crew member, when the season ends the banter and the bench racing begins,” said Jamie Allison, Director, Ford Racing. “We are bringing the passion of our fans and the inevitable driver discussion and debate online and inviting our Facebook fans to participate. It will be interesting because most of our drivers are very social media savvy, so who knows what we will see in the next 30 plus days as they look for the support of the Ford Racing fan base.”

The tournament officially kicks off on Thursday, December 1, 2011 and features a daily match-ups working through the bracket until the finale. The driver who receives the most votes from the Ford Racing Facebook Fans in each pairing will advance to the next round. Fans can vote once per match-up.

The competition begins with “play-in” match-ups on December 1 between action motorsport rally drivers Chris Duplessis and Dillon Van Way, and in road racing between Grand-AM drivers Ryan Daziel and Enzo Potolicchio. The winners of those match ups will be inserted into the Ford Racing field of 32.

Round 1 begins on December 2 and runs daily. Voting is open to all fans of the Ford Racing Facebook page and is open from 12 a.m. ET to 11:59 p.m. ET daily.

A new match-up will post each night at midnight.

Click here to see Ford’s “Tournament of Ovals” bracket and vote for Chris!

When Tim asked me if I wanted to go to Rally of the Tall Pines in Bancroft, Ontario, I said sure! Then Tim told me that I would be driving in the rally, he said I would be driving the Stage 1 Ford Fiesta.

Having just come off a DNF at Rally Charlevoix with the R2, driving the stock fiesta with Reiger Suspension would be fun, but the R2 is WOW. You have to get back on the horse no matter if it’s a workhorse or a thoroughbred. I stayed up late Wednesday night and prepped the Stage 1 Fiesta AKA the workhorse. Thursday afternoon I drove over to Ontario and did my first 2 pass recce on Friday. I was glad I had the workhorse because the roads were extremely fast, narrow and rough.

Because my entry was late and I had not participated in many Canadian rallies, they stuck me with car number 62, which happened to be the second to last car. All I could think about was “oh boy, this is going to be fun!” As my co-driver Pascal and I rolled up to the starting line I told him he better tighten his seat belts because it was going to be a bumpy ride. We left the starting line in a flash, I drove the whole first stage flat out, as fast as she would go, hammering the car bad.

After doing three stages we went back to service. Now by being a mechanic by trade, I didn’t think the car would look like it performed well, but I found out that we had moved from 58th to 34th and the car was still in perfect condition. After service we went back out and ended up catching four cars on stage and I just drove the car for all she was worth (sorry car). Tim O’Neil was our crew man, which is usually my job at rallies so the roles were reversed. Tim told me to just use the skills that I had been put through at Team O’Neil Rally School and drive flat out, so that’s what I did out on stage.

In the end, the car held up like any workhorse would and Pascal and I finished Third in the Group 2 class. What a ride! Thanks for the horse Tim. Congrats to Wyatt Knox, my teammate, for finishing first in the Group 2 class. Great thanks to Ford for the awesome cars.

Here's a quote from one of our favorite fans, Michael Skiny Power!

"Just wanted to say a heart felt thank you. Just completed the Baja 1000 and everything I learned from you came into play and saved our lives on some very hairy scary cliff roads. I thanked you in every interview and mentioned you in our press releases"…..Thanks for sharing with us Michael!