Contact:
DiRT Media
Email: info@demonrally.com

Feb 16th, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CTS Turbo Boosts The Demon Rally Team To Group 5

The Demon Rally Team is proud to announce their partnership with CTS Turbo as the team moves to the unlimited two wheel drive rally class in North America.

The Demon Rally Team has been very successful in Group 2 competition, taking several regional group 2 wins and top stage times; they are most proud of their stage record on the famous Brooklyn Tavern Stage at the Doo Wop Rally, as well as a National Group 2 win at the final round of the inaugural Max Attack Two Wheel Drive Rally Series in 2008. Making the step up to Group 5 brings about several exciting new challenges for the team as well as the opportunity to compete with even faster opponents in 2010.

After completing their new Group 2 VW Golf GTI, the Demon Rally Team won at the Wild West Rally in group two competition, finishing 4th overall on day two despite encountering several mechanical difficulties. Upon arriving home after the event, the team was amped about their success, but still wanted the ability to compete at the National Level. Both Rally America’s National Championship and NASA’s United States Rally Championship now recognize two wheel drive vehicles as one class; competing in a regionally limited class like group 2 was holding the Demon Rally Team back. When considering their options, the Demon Rally Team contacted their friends at CTS Turbo. CTS Turbo chose to join the Demon Rally Team as they moved up into the Group 5 Class.

The addition of CTS Turbo as a partner allows the team to compete in Group 5 competition by using their newest line of turbochargers from RP Turbo. RP Turbo was founded on the principle of providing OEM performance and quality without the inflated OEM price tag. Adhering to this simple principle has helped them to design and re-design components for turbocharging that are often more simplified, but function better, and are more reliable.

RP Turbos are some of the best turbocharging components in the industry and are made to their own exacting specifications. Demon Rally Team driver Tom Burress exclaimed, “I am amped about adding CTS Turbo to the team. We are nearly doubling the amount of horsepower the car produced with our new RP Turbo; as a driver, if that doesn’t pump you up I don’t know what would!”

The team is yet again rebuilding their VW Golf from top to bottom to accommodate their new RP Turbocharger supplied by CTS Turbo. Look for the Demon Rally Team to debut the Group 5 Evolution of their VW Golf at the Oregon Trail Rally in Portland, OR May 14-16, 2010.


Special thanks to all of the Demon Rally Team’s partners, including Fine Tuning, who continues to support the team for the 5th Year in a row as their title partner. The team’s impressive racing graphics are supplied and installed by Meister Gauge Faces, their programmable engine management is supplied by Spitfire EFI, and performance tuning is done by Ralley Tuned. Product Apparel takes care of the Demon Rally Team’s clothing needs.

CTS Turbo

http://www.ctsturbo.com

sales@ctsturbo.com

For more information contact:
DiRT Media
info@demonrally.com

© 2010 DemonRally.com

It has been a long road for the Demon Rally Team since they rolled their first rally car in Pomeroy, WA at the Olympus Rally in 2008. The team struggled with selecting a platform. Once a suitable car was found, it was completely torn down and rebuilt to a strict standard. These strict standard forced us to miss the entire Max Attack Schedule for 2009, narrowly missing a chance to compete a the Idaho Rally against some of the top 2wd teams in the nation.

Nonetheless, the team forged on, and Pomeroy was our target again. The Wild West Rally shared a lot with the Olympus Rally of 2008 and the team felt like it would be a suitable entry point for us to make our return to rallying in the Pacific Northwest. After completing the car we had a chance to put the car through its paces locally on a test course, no real concerning dramas popped up at the time, but unknowingly we were about to be very surprised.

We arrived at Pomeroy the day before the event, looking forward to setting up a single local service point and participating in the press stage that was arranged for us. We all concluded one last shake down wouldn’t be a terrible thing, considering we were racing a new car. We hit the shakedown stage and back into the service area, only to discover we had lost about a quart of oil on the short 1-mile long stage. We had experienced small losses of oil in the past, its something to be expected when you push a vehicle very hard for a long time, but a quart of oil in one mile was not acceptable, at that rate we would loose all of the oil in the engine before the end of some of the stages.

We made some small changes to our breather setup, but nothing seemed to fix the problem, the idea of withdrawing from the event crossed the teams mind on several occasions before we realized, that this was rally, this was a new car, and we were going to have some challenges before us to make the car work.

We started the first day of the event, not knowing if our over night repairs of the car really would make a difference in the oil consumption. At the end of the first stage it was right back to service, when we arrived it was more of the same, about a quart of oil was missing…We struggled to find a problem and the only thing that we could come up with was that the engine was having difficulty breathing with our new setup, so a coordinated effort by Matt Manspeaker, John Lane, Jason, Charlie, and Brendan attempted to solve our dramas.

When we finished the second stage w had a chance to check on the oil consumption, fortunately, the breather drama had calmed down. We lost much less oil, my confidence in the car was starting to grow, and I felt like we could attempt to get into a good rhythm very soon.

During the second stage about a quarter of the way through the stage, Cody Crane, one of the top 2wd drivers in the PNW and who I considered our biggest threat for the weekend in 2wd, was off the roadway. My pace continued to improve as we approached the end of the stage, when I went to shift into second gear, the linkage wouldn’t move….we ended up finishing the stage in third gear, losing a pile of time in the last two miles of the stage. We got to the end of the stage and started working on the car, as we did it overheated because the fan wasn’t running on the car. We figured out a way to make the linkage work, kind of, and headed out to stage 3.

The linkage was dropping through the floor of the car and finding gears was difficult, in fact, Don had to grab a gear for me once on stage while I was following the road in front of me…My confidence was down due to my numerous concerns of oil consumption shit linkage concerns and overheating.

We came back into service hoping that we could get all of our dramas sorted out before we had to come back out and run three more stages in a row. Sure enough, the Demon Rally Service Team was able to quell the issues with the car

For the second three stages in a row we ran 30 seconds faster per stage in comparison with the first running of the stages, while we were still encountering issues with the shift linkage, we ended up slowly building a rhythm and became a bit more comfortable by the end of the first day.

On day two we started out strong and started off with the same pace we ended with on day two I was really starting to get comfortable with the car and hearing notes from Don too. Unfortunately half way through the second stage the front motor mount broke on the car, I knew immediately what had happened, but I didn’t slow until closer to the end of the stage. Upon finishing the stage we transited slowly to the start of the next stage. I opened the hood and saw the broken bolt on the motor mount, unfortunately I also looked down and saw the fan for the radiator was completely destroyed. It was apparent to me that we would have to withdraw, however we only had one stage to finish before service, and I figured that we could transit the stage, sure enough, we transited the stage, and we did it faster than a third of the field. Unfortunately we lost about 40 seconds on the stage to our closest 2wd competitor, Cody Crane.

When I arrived at service the crew got to work and repaired all of the damage that we accrued, replacing the front motor mount, as well as replacing the radiator fan. After leaving service we finally got into a good rhythym, setting top 2 overall stage times and taking top stage times for all two wheel drive competitors.

Overall this event was a huge statement for the Demon Rally Team and for grass roots rallying. Despite all of our teething issues, we were able to successful compete with a brand new race car and put it in the top of the field consistently through the event. The Demon Rally Team finished 6th overall on day one and 4th overall on day two; we took 1st place in Group 2 on both days as well as top two wheel drive finishers for the event overall.

Big thanks goes to all of our partners, without them none of our successes would be possible. Fine Tuning, Meister Autowerks, Ralley Tuned, Spitfire EFI, JVAB imports, Product Apparel, 034 EFI, and Techtonics Tuning.

We are looking forward to big changes for next season and the Doo Wop Rally in Aberdeen, WA March 6-7, 2010.

Thanks for checking in. As always, we’ll see you there, sideways!

After several changes to the back end system we now have a shopping-cart-enabled merchandise page. We have t-shirts and decals available for sale right now. Both items are really high quality and look great. Help support our efforts at the Wild West rally and future rallies by buying a t-shirt or a decal!

We’ll also be bringing some shirts and decals to Wild West, if you’d like to save on shipping costs.

Look for more items on the merchandise page, like spare rally parts, in the future.