Today kicks off round 2 of the Rally America Championship at the storied Rally in the 100 Acre Wood. Based in the foothills of the Ozarks around Salem, Missouri the roads here are very fast and wide consisting mostly of hard packed dirt. In previous years open class drivers have been so fast that they eclipsed the maximum allowed average speed for a stage. That won’t be happening this year as the conditions are going to be very slippery with the a couple of inches of snow that fell overnight and temperatures that won’t be climbing back above freezing until the event likely ends on Saturday evening.
Condition reports from recce describe some stages as being mostly ice, some are mostly gravel, and others change multiple times from ice, to snow, to gravel on the same stage. Conditions as challenging as Rally Monte Carlo, but on gravel! This has all the hallmarks of being a classic event many will remember!
Make sure you tune into Rally America Radio for live, or close-to-live coverage at rallyamericaradio.com . This weekend Rally America Radio’s Jim Beaver will also be testing out a live chat to go along with the radio broadcasts. Also be sure to follow @Rally_America, @100aw, @openpaddock, @oregonwings, and our photographer @xorpheous on Twitter.
Also OpenPaddock’s photographer extraordinaire Doug Patterson will be on-site watching the action through the lens of one of his many cameras. If you see him, be sure to stop and say hi!