This is John, the driver of the #348 Ford Fiesta ST. I just want to start out with saying if you don't have a Fiesta ST or are still wondering if it's the right car for you, go ahead and buy one because you won't regret it.
My brother and I took 2 new Fiesta ST's that are practically stock besides safety add ons and suspension and ran an entire 2 day rally with not a single issue. These car are well built and will support 2 full days of abuse. Sure we had some little minor issues here and there, but that's racing.
Running a 2 car team with brand new Fiesta's can get very expensive and is very hard to manage if there's not a huge funding to back us. That being said we were not able to tow the cars to the event but instead we drove them from Philadelphia, PA to Wellsboro, PA. The ride is about 4 and a half hours for us which we did in a caravan with our service and recce cars following behind. We got to Wellsboro at 4am and went to bed. We woke up an hour later to get ready to go to the fairgrounds at 6am to officially check in and register. We then proceeded to do recce in the Subaru while our mechanic was in charge of getting both ST's through tech. When we came back from recce we got the news that both cars failed due to minor things. Missing roll cage padding, belt bolts weren't mounted in the right angle, wrong fire extinguisher mounts and missing mud guards. Immediately we got to work and finished everything early in the morning. Tech was closed and we only had a small window between 9 - 12 in the morning to pass tech and be able to run. During that time we were looking for a shop to mount our tires that the shops in Philly, nor Wellsboro were succesful. They would go on but would not seed. We need 200psi to mount them. Those tires were mounted on the red ST and we ran day 1 as well as our new suspension for the very first time, however Rally-America said for day 2 we would not be able to run unless the tires were seeded. At the end of day 1, they were not seeded yet and we did not have another set of tires. I called my good friend Tim at Team Oneil and he let us borrow a set of his wheels so we swapped them over at night and we were ready for day 2.
Day 2 was a very long day and we checked in into the parc expose with 2 minutes before the deadline. We had to get gas and there was a lot of traffic around so we were almost penalized but we weren't. The day went smooth until stage 10. With about 1.5 to go to finish the stage, the car ahead of us had an off and rolled off the cliff so we immediately stopped to help. After the incident stage 13 was cancelled but we ran the rest.
Once we got back to the fairground we told our mechanic the car needs nothing and that we're ready to go up against the red ST. They lined us up and we went all out. We beat my brother on the last super special and the crowd went crazy. I believe we put an spectacular show for the fans and everyone who was there to witness it. There is video of this going around and I will post the link to it once I upload it to my youtube account.
Copied from Facebook:
"Now that I have settled in, it's time to point out the people who made this event a successful one. I'd like to personally thank every volunteer for making the event run smooth, without you guys, we wouldn't be competing. I want to thank the fans for coming out and showing support for not only us, but also the amazing sport of rally. I want to thank my parents Anthony and Lily as well as Raul and Margarita and many friends who attended for being there with us the entire weekend supporting my brother, Mark, Santiago and myself. Eric deserves a huge recognition, he was in charge of both cars during service and he managed to work hard between both cars with very minimal time to get us to the finish line. Because of him we were able to finish the rally and bring back these awesome awards.
Santiago (co-driver) and I finished in 1st place in the Sherwood Rally (Day 1) and 2nd place in the Finger Lakes Rally. These are not only for us, these victories are also for JSCSpeed, Cobb Tunning, Broken Motorsports, our fans Ivan Shurakov, Confectionaries by Casey, Tim McBride, Chris Wimbrough, Lucas Mozes, Freya Mozes, Emanuel Mozes, Dustin “Bean” Smith, Drew Kessler, Eternal Ink Tattoos NY, Alban-Montoya, Anita Alban, Carlos Che Soria, Stephanie McDonald, Luis Pintado, Jim Poston, Cathy Poston, Pat Crilly, Romero-Flores. After day 1 we had tire issues (dmacks wouldn't mount) and Team Oneil let us use his from one of their cars so we really appreciate that. Without them, we wouldn't of been able to start day 2 so thanks Tim! It was nice seeing all the familiar rally faces in Wellsboro and once again rally is a great community where everyone helps each other out unlike other kinds of racing. Many of you know about Tracey and Tabitha's off and we are glad they were able to walk away. We were the first car on scene and when Santiago and I saw the Toyota Yaris, we immediately didn't care about finishing the stage but instead agreed on assisting our competitor immediately. We popped open our first aid kit and did the best of we could to help out. Gary who also had an off was also there to help along with Matt, his co-driver. Overall a very good experience and we will see everyone next year. I could keep going on and on but I could probably write a book lol"
Check out JSCSpeed.com for all your go fast parts, BrokenMotorsports.com for full roll cage and getting your Fiesta race ready and CobbTuning.com for all your accessport tuning needs.
My brother and I took 2 new Fiesta ST's that are practically stock besides safety add ons and suspension and ran an entire 2 day rally with not a single issue. These car are well built and will support 2 full days of abuse. Sure we had some little minor issues here and there, but that's racing.
Running a 2 car team with brand new Fiesta's can get very expensive and is very hard to manage if there's not a huge funding to back us. That being said we were not able to tow the cars to the event but instead we drove them from Philadelphia, PA to Wellsboro, PA. The ride is about 4 and a half hours for us which we did in a caravan with our service and recce cars following behind. We got to Wellsboro at 4am and went to bed. We woke up an hour later to get ready to go to the fairgrounds at 6am to officially check in and register. We then proceeded to do recce in the Subaru while our mechanic was in charge of getting both ST's through tech. When we came back from recce we got the news that both cars failed due to minor things. Missing roll cage padding, belt bolts weren't mounted in the right angle, wrong fire extinguisher mounts and missing mud guards. Immediately we got to work and finished everything early in the morning. Tech was closed and we only had a small window between 9 - 12 in the morning to pass tech and be able to run. During that time we were looking for a shop to mount our tires that the shops in Philly, nor Wellsboro were succesful. They would go on but would not seed. We need 200psi to mount them. Those tires were mounted on the red ST and we ran day 1 as well as our new suspension for the very first time, however Rally-America said for day 2 we would not be able to run unless the tires were seeded. At the end of day 1, they were not seeded yet and we did not have another set of tires. I called my good friend Tim at Team Oneil and he let us borrow a set of his wheels so we swapped them over at night and we were ready for day 2.
Day 2 was a very long day and we checked in into the parc expose with 2 minutes before the deadline. We had to get gas and there was a lot of traffic around so we were almost penalized but we weren't. The day went smooth until stage 10. With about 1.5 to go to finish the stage, the car ahead of us had an off and rolled off the cliff so we immediately stopped to help. After the incident stage 13 was cancelled but we ran the rest.
Once we got back to the fairground we told our mechanic the car needs nothing and that we're ready to go up against the red ST. They lined us up and we went all out. We beat my brother on the last super special and the crowd went crazy. I believe we put an spectacular show for the fans and everyone who was there to witness it. There is video of this going around and I will post the link to it once I upload it to my youtube account.
Copied from Facebook:
"Now that I have settled in, it's time to point out the people who made this event a successful one. I'd like to personally thank every volunteer for making the event run smooth, without you guys, we wouldn't be competing. I want to thank the fans for coming out and showing support for not only us, but also the amazing sport of rally. I want to thank my parents Anthony and Lily as well as Raul and Margarita and many friends who attended for being there with us the entire weekend supporting my brother, Mark, Santiago and myself. Eric deserves a huge recognition, he was in charge of both cars during service and he managed to work hard between both cars with very minimal time to get us to the finish line. Because of him we were able to finish the rally and bring back these awesome awards.
Santiago (co-driver) and I finished in 1st place in the Sherwood Rally (Day 1) and 2nd place in the Finger Lakes Rally. These are not only for us, these victories are also for JSCSpeed, Cobb Tunning, Broken Motorsports, our fans Ivan Shurakov, Confectionaries by Casey, Tim McBride, Chris Wimbrough, Lucas Mozes, Freya Mozes, Emanuel Mozes, Dustin “Bean” Smith, Drew Kessler, Eternal Ink Tattoos NY, Alban-Montoya, Anita Alban, Carlos Che Soria, Stephanie McDonald, Luis Pintado, Jim Poston, Cathy Poston, Pat Crilly, Romero-Flores. After day 1 we had tire issues (dmacks wouldn't mount) and Team Oneil let us use his from one of their cars so we really appreciate that. Without them, we wouldn't of been able to start day 2 so thanks Tim! It was nice seeing all the familiar rally faces in Wellsboro and once again rally is a great community where everyone helps each other out unlike other kinds of racing. Many of you know about Tracey and Tabitha's off and we are glad they were able to walk away. We were the first car on scene and when Santiago and I saw the Toyota Yaris, we immediately didn't care about finishing the stage but instead agreed on assisting our competitor immediately. We popped open our first aid kit and did the best of we could to help out. Gary who also had an off was also there to help along with Matt, his co-driver. Overall a very good experience and we will see everyone next year. I could keep going on and on but I could probably write a book lol"
Check out JSCSpeed.com for all your go fast parts, BrokenMotorsports.com for full roll cage and getting your Fiesta race ready and CobbTuning.com for all your accessport tuning needs.
