For Immediate Release
August 2nd, 2000
The Rocky Road Racing rally team piloted their Steve Moyer Subaru, KAM Specialties, AMS Oil sponsored 1996 Subaru Impreza to a 28th place finish overall out of 108 starters at the SCCA Maine Forest Rally. The event featured eight of the most grueling stages on the SCCA Pro Rally series, including the longest rally stage in North America, and the famous last stage run through the Mead Paper mill lot and downtown Rumford.
The event included entrants from the U.S., Canada, and Finland; as well as cars made in countries all over the world, including one made in Russia. The rally is known as being very rough, and is particularly hard on tires, wheels and suspensions. The usually tough condition were made worse by one of the largest fields in U.S. rally history running on the privately owned Mead Paper logging roads. Bent and broken rims were more common this year than in recent memory, and the Rocky Road Racing team was not exempt. The team bent three rims on rocks that were more the size of grapefruits and watermelons than the size of grapes and oranges.
The fact that the team was lucky to escape with only bent rims is largely due to the flawless performance of the DMS 50mm rally suspension, the only major modification to the otherwise stock car, and the durability that Subaru builds into every one of their cars. “People sometimes underestimate just how rough this event can be,” said driver Don Kennedy, “but I knew that our Impreza was more than up to the task, that’s one of the reasons we decided to build a Subaru rather than another make of car.”
After seeing the Production GT points leader Patrick Richard’s Subaru Impreza transmission blow on the press stage before the event, crew chief Matt Kennedy was glad the Rocky Road Racing team fixed their transmission problem prior to the event. “At STPR the car started grinding going into second gear, and when Keith (Kennedy) and I ran the car at the Pagoda Hillclimb a few weeks later the problem got worse. So we pulled the transmission apart, replaced a few syncros, and changed the type of gear oil we were using.”
“I never knew that taking Dramamine can actually make some people more sick than not taking it,” was one of the new things Keith Kennedy learned on his first trip to Maine as a Pro Rally codriver. “I took it before each of the last two events and got sick each time. I didn’t take it this weekend and I had no problems.” Which is a good thing, because between the rough roads and the torrential rain that turned some of the roads into rivers the team had their hands full keeping the car in one piece and on the road.
Rocky Road Racing would like to than our sponsors Steve Moyer Subaru (http:/www.stevemoyersubaru.com), KAM Specialties, and AMS Oil for their support.
Coverage of the Maine Forest Rally will air on Speedvision, Monday, August 14th at 8PM. You can find out more information on Rocky Road Racing by contacting Matt Kennedy at the below addresses; and you can find out more about Pro Rally in general at http://www.scca.org/amateur/performance_rally/index.html.
Matt Kennedy, Crew Chief
Rocky Road Racing
mjk99@together.net
