100 Acre Wood: Series day one report

Travis Pastrana Leads After First Day of 100 Acre Wood Rally

Salem, MO (February 26, 2010) -- After the first day of the 100 Acre Wood Rally, Subaru Rally Team USA's Travis Pastrana sits in the overall lead, 22 seconds ahead of Rockstar Energy Rally Team's Antoine L'Estage. Canada's L'Estage lost ten seconds to Pastrana after suffering a flat on SS1 and will be pushing to catch him on tomorrow's stages.

Ken Block is campaigning a new 2011 Ford Fiesta with the Monster World Rally Team and currently follows in third place, 46 seconds behind L'Estage.

Block has been outright dominant at this event in the past, having won the 100 Acre Wood Rally four times in a row. He is seeking a "one for the thumb" win here to even the score with Pastrana for the Rally America Championship lead. Many consider the roads of Missouri to favor Block's "flat out" driving style with long straights and sweeping turns.

Close behind in fourth place, Bill Bacon from New England is within striking distance 38 seconds behind Block.

In Super Production, the father-son team of Travis and Terry Hanson, command a sizeable class lead and could potentially win back-to-back Super Production overall wins. George Georgakopoulos dropped to fourth in class after holding second position going into the day's final stages. Wazoo Racing's Tim Penasack is now in second with Tim Rooney three seconds behind him.

Much like Travis Hanson, 2-Wheel Drive Class master, Chris Duplessis, continues to dominate his class in a 20 year-old 1990 Volkswagen Golf. Duplessis is seeking his second 2-Wheel Drive overall win for the season.

Husband and wife team, Henry and Cynthia Krolikowski, provisionally won the Trespassers Wil Regional Rally while also leading the Regional Rally Championship. The top three teams from each Rally America regional series are invited to the 100 Acre Wood Rally to determine a top regional winner after a weekend of competition.

Despite the surprisingly dry and sunny weather not usually seen at 100 Acre, many notable teams have suffered attrition in the first few stages of the day.

NOS Energy Rally Team, Andrew Comrie-Picard, was slated to drive first on the start order before his engine seized during the shakedown stage. This DNF is a drastic blow to Comrie-Picard's Championship hopes.

Super Production favorite, Piotr Wiktorczyk, put out a serious engine fire early on SS1 that required another team to drop off their fire extinguisher. The car was not severely damaged from the fire and the crew was OK.

Competition will resume at 10:30am CT on Saturday morning out of Salem. Check www.rally-america.com for live updates, results, photos, and more.

Rally car racing is considered the extreme sport of automobile racing and is often described simply as "real cars, real roads, real fast." This all-season motorsport sees drivers and their co-drivers take modified road cars to the limit as they achieve blistering speeds over courses that cover more than 100 miles of gravel, dirt or snow-covered roads.

This year there will be six forest events from Maine to Washington, before X Games 16, plus three new European style rallycross events after X Games -- all based in Southern New Jersey.

Top teams in the series are also invited to compete in the Summer X Games, the leading action sports event broadcast live on ABC and ESPN.

-source: rally america