On March 16th 2014, a field of 83 drivers slid their cars around Glen Helen Raceway’s dirt course for the 2014 Porterfield Glen Helen RallyCross #1, the first event of the year.
The massive turnout brought an incredible variety of vehicles out to the race including Mazda Miatas, BMWs, VWs, a Dodge Neon, and others, with 50% of the grid consisting solely of Subarus.
Danny Downey (1992 Dodge Stealth #711) started the season with a Stock 2WD class win, leading by 13 seconds over John Black (2012 Ford #34) ), with Matt Price (2013 Ford Focus #39) close behind. With with Downey’s previous rival Bill Martin — the 2013 Championship winner for Stock 2WD — having moved to Stock AWD class this year in a new car, Downey doesn’t yet have a close rival in this year’s championship.
Stock AWD class saw a very close finish between rivals James Veatch (1997 Subaru Impreza #155) and Mathew Mendoza (2004 Subaru WRX #420) with only 0.416 seconds separating the two but Veatch coming out ahead — that’s a mere 0.1% difference in total times! Bill Martin finished 6 seconds behind the win, but expect to see him remain a contender for the rest of the season.
Prepared 2WD saw a grid of 3 drivers, with Sarkis Mazmanian (1993 Honda Civic #777) and Vahan Yessayan (1988 Toyota Corolla FX #160) in a close battle for the lead. Mazmanian finished 0.541 seconds ahead of Yessayan — another surprisingly close race that mimicked what happened in Stock AWD. It’s looking to be a good year!
Brent Smith took the Prepared AWD class lead in his 2009 Subaru STI (#433) with the fastest total time of the day and 7.3 seconds over Daryl Fike’s 2005 Subaru STI #16.
Modified 2WD saw the largest grid of cars with a total of 20 entries. Eric Martin took the lead in his 1982 VW Rabbit (#4) with a 5.41 second lead over Michael Cadwell’s 1994 BMW 325is (#854). David Moss (2010 Ford Focus #22) finished in 3rd, 4.93 seconds behind Cadwell’s BMW.
The flagship Modified AWD class saw 18 total entries and some close finishes. Cameron Meng (2006 Subaru WRX #511) took the class lead, followed by Mark Ackenback’s 2004 Subaru STI (#733) and Thomas Bloess’ 2008 Subaru WRX (#31).
And now.. on to the pictures!
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(c) Copyright 2014, Steven T. Snyder, All Rights Reserved.