2002 Rim of the World Rally

Palmdale, California

USA

Here are the long awaited pics of the Race.

The Rally was huge this year. The crowd was bigger, there were more manufacturers displaying gear, plus Subaru has a great promo going on. Subaru owners were getting the VIP treatment. Free shirt, hat, food, fancy VIP ticket holder, etc. Just prove you were a Subaru owner and you got hooked up with Subaru swag.

Subaru threw down a big show. I counted 6 Subaru displays manned by different Subaru dealers from the area, plus the VIP area. Mitsubishi had a quiver of Lancers on display. Check out the pics of the Evo. Nice. Hyundai is even getting into the mix. Their tent had free shirts plus two new Tiburons on display. Apparently the Tiburon is a cool ride. Overall all this was bigger and badder than last year. Lots of entries in the Rally kept a steady flow of cars going into the darkness. The first set of pics are from the Friday night Specatator Stage and Saturday morning. The Subaru line up was sweet. Petter Solberg came to town for the Rally and gave a lucky winner a ride in a WRX. It had to be crazy! Petter didn't actually stay on course. A couple spins and some wild driving was on display. Cool.

Charity Rallysprint for SAVES and Healthy Start. The ride started out chaotic. Nobody knew what to do. There was a sign in roster so we all ended up getting in the cars according to the roster. Once the crew running the show got it going it went smoothly. I was placed in a VW Jetta for my ride. The driver, can't remember his name, said the car was pushing a lot and not sliding very well. I figured I was in for a cruise rather than a "ride" in a fast car. Luckily the VW ran out of gas before we even got going. This allowed me to be moved into a car driven by Leon Styles. His 1990 Audi Quattro Open Class car was by far the fastest car that was participating in the Charity Rallysprint. After getting strapped in I was given the baddest ride ever. I had just ridden in a helicopter the week before, this ride was a million times better! The driver was a cool cat so he let it rip for the camera. We were jamming. The car was sideways for most of the corners. The last turn was a launch like I have never felt. He punched it to the line and the acceleration was great. 4WD with a turbo makes for a very nice feeling. I was pulled into the seat pretty hard. Nice. Check out the pics.

Here is Saturday morning. There were some sweet sideways moves on the pavement that transistioned onto the dirt.