The 2016 California Rally Series season is over, and it has been one heck of a first season. We started this season with a new car, a new team, and a rookie driver. We didn’t plan to enter every race, but we did have a goal to finish every race we entered.
Each race came with it’s own set of challenges. At High Desert Trails Rally we suffered a broken tie-rod end and a separated shock tower, at Frazier Mountain Rally we suffered a blowout and another broken tie-rod end, at Idaho Rally we suffered a crash on the first stage that almost ended our weekend, at Gorman Rally we suffered a roll on stage 4 and some electrical issues, and at Prescott Rally we suffered from another crash and overheating issues all weekend.
But despite all of that, the entire This Side Up team kept the car going down the stages.
As a result, we got the 2016 California Rally Series – Performance Stock Championship and the 2016 Rookie of the Year.
We also placed 5th in the NASA Rally Sport Pacific Rally Cup – 2WD and got invited to the National Championship at the Empire State Performance Rally. We are very proud of what we accomplished as a team and proud to be a part of the rally community as a whole.
We would like to sincerely thank everybody who has helped us make it through this year:
Driver: Brian Tullio
Co-drivers: Nicholas Roder and Andres Bautista
Crew: Amy Robin Manchel, David Philhower, James Dan Eger and Renee Overen Eger
Support: Clay South, Anthony Woods, Thomas Barrientos, and Larry Samano
Also, a special thank you to Kristopher Marciniak and Christine Marciniak for helping us through the process and suffering through all of our rookie questions!
And last but not least, a big thank you to all of the volunteers, organizers, fans, and other competitors that made it all possible.
We would also like to thank Dave’s Garage, Garagistic, and BimmerHeads for their contribution and support of our car. We could not have done it without you guys.