Southwest RallyCup Series Banquet Post News

[rallyorg]

Written- Southwest RallyGroup
Location: Anaheim, Ca.

Southwest RallyCup Series 2009 Banquet

The Southwest RallyCup Series had their banquet on January 16th, 2010 at the SpeedZone facility in City of Industry, Ca. We presented the 1st-4th place awardees their trophies in their prospective classes.

Overall Winners of the SWRC Darlin Cup:
Bill Holmes driver won the overall SWRC 2009 Checkpoint Racing Darlin Cup. Bill Holmes who does off-road and rallying; was very happy for winning and looks forward to the 2010 season with his peers competing at the first event of the series season - Desert Storm Rally in Blythe, California. Sean Gallagher winning the SWRC Overall Co-Driver award.

Rookie Driver of the Year Award:
Chris Palmero who is a stunt car driver/coorindator for motion pictures so when you see the Green Hornet. Check out the stunts in that movie.

Rookie Co-Driver of the Year Award:
Marra Estep and Steve Palmieri

Volunteer of the Year Awardees:
Barry Colston - communications. Chris Spacone-communications, Bret Norgaard-controls.

Team O'Neil Award:
Jeff Hendrick who went to all of the series events this year and had over 4 chances in the drawing for the award. Each time you enter an event you got a chance for the drawing. Jeff won this very highly regarded award which is over a $4000.00 gift certificate to a 4 day school. Jeff is so excited. He has already contacted Team O'Neil Rally School and already set up for his class. He will give us a synopsis of his trip and we will put that up on the series website later this year. Congratulations to Jeff Hendrick.

Bilstein of America Annoucements:
Bilstein of America was present at the banquet and was represented by Camille Hermann from the marketing department and Bret Norgaard a Bilstein engineer and a long time involvement in this sport and SCCA rallycross program.

Presented to the audience that Bilstein will be the title sponsor for Southwest RallyCup Series again for three years to support the series and its competitors. Along with that announcements we the involvement of the brand new class for 2WD only competitors. It will be called "BILSTEIN CUP CLASS." The 2wd competitors will get the chance to compete within their own class for a full season and at the end of the season the overall winner will receive the top honor of the "Bilstein Racing for Excellence" award. Compared to the very prestigious award " Madonna" award..this is a very big deal to be given to the regional competitors.

First of all you must of course must have a 2wd car or truck. Along with that, you must have Bilstein shock absorbers on your vehicle; it will be tech inspected. You can sign up for the class at the first event as stated the Desert Storm Rally and any other series events. At the end of the year depending upon your points standings; there will be contingency prize funds at the end of the year for 1st-5th place winners with the overall driver winning the "Bilstein Racing for Excellence" award.

Subaru of SW Region:
Subaru of SW Region is proud to support again the Southwest RallyCup Series and its series events. Subaru as a whole regional or national has always been very supportive to this sport and continue to do so. Their car sales show a big portion of it is due to their support to rally and its regional/national series. Since this sport uses legal real cars on real roads and the spectators can see even thou it is slightly modified for racing thay can still see how the cars handle. So the Southwest RallyCup Series is always proud of having Subaru as a associate sponsor and glad to see their sales are doing well and we hope that we have contributed to their success.

Phil Pausmer
This year we honored Uncle Phil Pausmer who has retired from the regional sales office of Subaru in the Los Angeles area. He was the inspiration for the support of regional area rally events for over 15 years. Paula Gibeault did a synopsis of his 15 years of support to CRS and Southwest RallyCup Series and several events in the area. He received a very nice plaque for our appreciation and support as well as a gift certificate of over $200.00's for a cruise voucher from Vacations To Go. He deserves that cruise with his wife who has supported him all these years and now it is time for him to relax and enjoy his retirement years with his family.

Also a big thanks to our other series sponsors:
Silverstone Tyres with their gift certificates for the auction
Racetech with their gift certificates and several products auction
K2 Awards for their lovely awardsa nd very supportive of the series/events.
Speedzone always very accommodating and patient with last minute changes.
Marketing Matters who does maintains and updates the series website.
Bill Rogers-[/B]Motorsport Memories[/B]-always getting photos for the website/events.
Race Technik - Doug Chernis a rally competitor who supports the series.
Bret from Rallygrafix.com for car series stickers, banners;anything else we need.
Mitch Williams from Checkpoint Racing...for the ever always Darlin Cup.

But of course our series winners and appreciated volunteers are the reason why we have the banquet and this year is still no exception.

Open Class
Place - Driver/Co-Driver
1st - Keith Jackson/ Marra Estep
2nd - Mitch Williams/Alix Hakala
3rd - Doug Chernis/Craig MacNair
4th - Steve Bis/Brian Moody
5th - Ryan Millen/Colin Godby

Group 2
1st - Chris Palmero/Jack Penley
2nd - Roger Matthews/Darren Fagan
3rd - Jeremy Brown/Scott Leonard
4th - Chuck Wilson/Jeremy Fry
5th - Jon Rea/Aaron Laeng

Group 5
1st - Chris Moore/Bo Randolph
2nd - Bill Holmes/Sean Gallagher
3rd - Jim Morris/Steve Gallagher
4th - Jack Szanto/Louie Minette

Production
1st - jeff Hendricks/Kristopher Hendricks
2nd - John Black/Katianna Pihakari
3rd - Jim Robison/Michael Robison

Production GT
Marco Zapata/Lea Crateau
Christopher Weleff/Francisco Arellano
Bill Hudson/Brian Paul

Open Light Class
Kevin Welker/Nolan Sambrano
Tyler Patik/Chris Raymond
Andrew Morton/Aaron Searle
Aaron McConnell/Rebecca Greek

Congratulations to all of the winners and as always ALL the people who are invloved in this sport are winners and there is no losers.

So time to put the foot to the pedal and start rallying for 2010!

Southwest RallyCup Series is a non-profit organization to help and support all series events/organizers that are sanction by Rally America and the competitors who always are in need for that extra support through via contingency funds and product and just plain fun and excitement you get through rallying.

Desert Storm Rally - Blythe, Ca -March 13/14, 2010
Plan B Rally - Indio, Ca - May 8th, 2010
Pikes Peak International Hillclimb - Colorado Spgs, Co - June 27th, 2010
Seed 9 Rally - Jean, Nevada - November 6th, 2010
Roxton Rally deParis - date to be determine.

Contact:
Denise McMahon
Series Director
Southwest RallyCup Series
www.southwestrallyseries.com
marymountdenise @ aol.com

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[wideopendesert.com]

I checked your website but was unable to find any rules. Can you point me in the right direction?

[rallyorg]

The rules?

The events that are mentioned are sanction under Rally America Inc. So go to www.rallyamerica.com and go to the tab downloads and the rulebook and competitor bulletins are there for you to download and read...

Desert Storm rules...which are the supplemental regulations rules that are particurlar about the event will be up within a week.

The Storm Attack which is a contigency funds of over $4,000's to be given out will be for 2/3rd funds to 2wd and 1/3 funds to 4wd...you can find out that on the homepage of Desert Storm.

Southwest RallyCup Series....we go totally by the Rally America rules...we are supported by Rally America due to we function around the sanction body rules and we support Rally America events in the southwest region and one event in the central region.

So I hope that helps you and if you have anymore questions do not hesitate to contact me at
marymountdenise @ aol.com

Denise McMahon
Series Director
Southwest RallyCup Series

[wideopendesert.com]

Awesome. Thanks!