High Desert Trails Rally Opens the 2018 California Rally Series Rally Championship

Los Angeles – The California Rally Series (CRS) kicked off its 44^th season with the High Desert Trails Rally on May 4^th and 5^th. The rally switched to a two-day format for 2018, with a double-points (coefficient 2) event going into the night on Friday followed by a triple-points (coefficient 3) event on Saturday. The rally ran on the same roads as previous years, with stages ranging from ultra-fast blasts across a desert valley to twisty mountain roads that had teams dodging through Sequoia trees.

Last year’s Open class champion Flynn Baglin teamed up with co-driver Alix Hakala for the season opener. They were plagued by strut issues al weekend, but managed to hold on and finish the weekend at the top of the class. Baglin will start 2018 with the points lead in the driver’s championship, although Hakala is second behind Sean McElwain, who co-drove for a non-points eligible driver. Deke Williams also had a new voice calling notes, veteran co-driver Rhianon Gelsomino, but were the victims of bad luck when they had just managed to take the lead from Baglin/Hakala when their Subaru’s engine blew up on the second to last stage Friday night. A similar fate befell Santiago Caballero and co-driver Chris Fine when they found themselves leading the rally on Saturday only to have a busted tie rod end their day with only a few stages to go.

2017 Open Lite (the normally-aspirated four-wheel drive class) champions Kurt Northrup and co-driver Will Smith kept their streak alive and walked away with maximum points for the weekend in their Subaru Impreza. Second place went to Brent Blakely in his very first rally as a driver, with Robert Maselli sitting in the passenger seat. They had a clean run on Friday, but strut issues forced them to withdraw from Saturday’s rally.

In the large-displacement two-wheel drive CRS-5 class, top points went to Fred Hatch and co-driver Charles Grabow in their Ford Fiesta. Their speed improved all weekend, culminating in them throwing down the best two-wheel drive on the last stage of the rally. Second place class points went to Corbin Beu in his Mazda RX-7, who teamed up with co-driver Riley Trout for this event.

The small-displacement two-wheel drive CRS-2 class might have some of the least powerful cars in the championship, but you wouldn’t know it from the stage times. Eddie Fiorelli and co-driver Brock Heinz were at maximum attack in their VW Golf GTI, winning the class on both Friday and Saturday’s rallies, while besting many of the more powerful four-wheel drive cars along the way. Just seconds behind in a similarly prepped VW Golf GTI were last year’s CRS-2 champions Erik Christiansen and co-driver Amy Floyd.

The production based two-wheel drive Performance Stock class has been a CRS staple since 1994, and continues to have a respectable turnout in 2018. Rookie driver Travis Fienhage walked away with the top points on both Friday and Saturday in his first rally event ever. He was paired up with one of the most experienced CRS co-drivers around – John Dillon in a Dodge Neon. Taking second place was Jen Stonecipher in a VW Golf GTI, with her co-driver husband Terry Stonecipher (who happens to have won this class as a driver over twenty years ago!). Marie Boyd emerges from the weekend leading the co-driver championship after sitting with a driver not participating in the CRS drivers’ championship.

The California Rally Series is the premier performance rally championship in the southwestern United States. The Series incorporates events from various sanctioning bodies in order to create a meaningful regional championship for its members. The Series celebrates forty-four continuous years of performance rally, making it the longest running rally series in the United States. To learn more about the California Rally Series visit www.californiarallyseries.com and follow @crspress on twitter.