Thousand Oaks, CA – May 8th, 2003: Just when one thought the “American Acropolis” would be another bumpy and dusty affair, mother nature added an additional variable and dumped a late California winter storm into the mix. The Rim of the World SCCA ProRally saw unusually large rainfalls over exactly the two days the rally was held. It created atrocious conditions for competitors, organizers, vendors and spectators alike. Instead of sunny and hot (“it never rains in Southern California?”) the rally got mud and sludge, horizontal rains and wet-cold winds.

The MozartRacing team tried to cope with the event conditions as best as it could and it brought their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII home in a respectable 4th place finish in FIA Grp.N and 13th place overall. This was MozartRacing’s first SCCA ProRally finish after several attempts in 2002, not counting their Grp.N victory at Pikes Peak last year.

Julie Lin, MozartRacing’s co-driver describes her feelings of the 2003 Rim of the World rally: “It were the most miserable conditions I had dealt with so far. The heavy fog coupled with regular downpours made visibility extremely poor. However, this year’s stage notes were much better than before, which compensated for the challenging racing conditions we were in. In addition, I was truly impressed and touched by the undeterred rally spectators. They enthusiastically cheered us on despite the rain, wind and bone-chilling environment.”

“This finish is a significant achievement for the MozartRacing team allowing us to improve our seeding status. We finished as the best Seed 5 team in the rally.” says Wolfgang Hoeck, MozartRacing’s team driver. “It feels even better when I remind myself that this is only our second year rallying, and we are in the midst of the top drivers. The conditions were the most demanding I had ever experienced, for all parties involved. I never worked as hard as I did on Saturday’s DelSur stages to just keep the car on the road. We were making some good inroads on Ralph (Kosmides), but the gap was just too big from the previous day, and Saturday had only 3 stages for us to run. I commend the organizers for making a rally in those conditions possible. This was a case of ‘Slippy definitely’, not just ‘Slippy maybe’.”

MozartRacing’s Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII again proved to be reliable machinery despite occasional encounters with embedded sharp rocks that bend the cars suspension. “The teams service crew, provided by Rhys Millen Racing Inc., did a marvelous job in keeping the car running all the way to the finish. We were sweating a bit in the last stage when the Evo drove more sideways than straight after damaging the suspension early in the Leona Ridge stage, but the crew got us across the finish line.” said Wolfgang.

The SCCA ProRally season will be covered by hour-long event summaries shown on the SPEED channel, the Rim will be covered on May 22nd at 7:30 PM PST. The MozartRacing team’s progress can be followed by visiting their website – www.MozartRacing.com . The MozartRacing Store is an on-line shopping area for rally-related items, such as team apparel, rally model car kits or performance parts for your Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. The MozartRacing Team looks forward to your support throughout the season – our next stop will be the Pikes Peak Int’l Hillclimb on June 28th.

For event interviews, sponsorship and other promotional activities, please call Team Principal Wolfgang Hoeck at 626-617-0778 or whoeck@speakeasy.org.

Further information can be found at the following websites:

The MozartRacing Team: http://www.MozartRacing.com

The MozartRacing Store™: https://www.MozartRacingStore.com/MRStore.html