Sunday - March 11, 2007
Travis Pastrana Shines In World Rally Championship Debut

Subaru Rally Team USA driver Travis Pastrana has finished his debut World Rally Championship event in an amazing 5th Overall in the Production World Rally Championship (P-WRC), a support series within the World Rally Championship. The 23 year old reigning Rally America Champion battled the World's best drivers with poise and control behind the wheel of his BFGoodrich tires shod Subaru Impreza WRX STI.

The 2007 Corona Rally Mexico was based around the city of Leon in the central high-country of Mexico. The World's most elite rally drivers contested 227 competitive stage miles, most of which are over 7000ft in altitude. The Mexican roads varied from fast and smooth to rough and technical. Pastrana's Group N Subaru ran just behind the top tier Manufactuer teams, who run World Rally Cars and finished 15th Overall in the general standings.

Over the last three years Pastrana has made the transition from motocross star to rally driver. Last year, in only his 2nd season of rallying he became the youngest ever American rally champion at only 23 years old when he won the 2007 Rally America National Championship title. This weekend's Corona Rally Mexico marked the start of the next challenge for Pastrana; to successfully compete in the World Rally Championship. Subaru of America will enter Pastrana and his co-driver Christian Edstrom on two more WRC events in 2007 (Argentina, Great Britain) and then contest the full P-WRC in 2008 and 2009.

"What an amazing event, I had the time of my life, and to finish 5th in the P-WRC is just amazing," exclaimed Pastrana at the finish. "This is our first WRC event and there are so many new things to learn here that are different than our events in the USA. So we just wanted to finish and learn. But this event is very rough on the cars and so I've got to thank Subaru and my team for providing me a car that withstood such a harsh beating!"

Pastrana's Subaru Rally Team USA teammate Ken Block and co-driver Alex Gelsomino also entered the Corona Rally Mexico driving a Group N Subaru Impreza WRX STI. Block had a rally to forget; rolling his car on the first stage, but the car was repaired and Block re-joined the rally on Day 2. Block went on to finish the rally 28th Overall.


Saturday - March 10, 2007 :: RACE SUMMARY DAY 2
Travis Pastrana has moved up to 5th Overall in the PWRC standings at the Corona Rally Mexico after Day 2 of competition!  Pastrana gained the positions by staying out of serious trouble on the stages, as several more of his PWRC competitors suffered damage that slowed them.

Day 2 of the rally began with getting the cars out of Parc Ferme and having a short 10 minute service.  Parc Ferme is just a holding area where no work can be done on the car, all WRC events use a Parc Ferme system after the end of each day.   The SRTUSA technicians love it, because it means no matter what they wont be up all night working on the rally cars.

Pastrana and Block headed out for a set of three long stages in the morning that would cause them both some drama.  Pastrana hit a large rock that damaged his front right tire, then damaged his left rear suspension later on the same stage.  “Things were going well until we hit a huge rock, it damaged the front right wheel and knocked it out of alignment, we had to steer to the left on the straights,” explained Pastrana.

Block and Gelsomino unfortunately found themselves with a flat tire midway through a long stage and had to stop and change it, on-stage, losing over 4 minutes in the process.

But both SRTUSA Subaru Impreza WRX STI rally cars made it back to the mid-day service and were completely repaired.

Pastrana went on to finish the remaining three special stages without any major incident, and moved up to 5th Overall in the PWRC as one competitor crashed out and another lost large amounts of time with mechanical difficulties.  Pastrana again shined at the Super Special, finishing 3rd fastest amongst PWRC drivers on the final run.


Friday - March 9, 2007 :: RACE SUMMARY DAY 1
Subaru Rally Team USA driver Travis Pastrana has completed day 1 of the Corona Rally Mexico with flying colors, finishing 7th among PWRC drivers and under ten seconds adrift of 5th place. Pastrana is just over three minutes behind PWRC
leader and multiple British Rally Champion Mark Higgins and set consistent top 7 stage times all day. Pastrana was at home on the short Super Special stadium stage at the end of the day, finishing an amazing 3rd fastest among the PWRC drivers!

Pastrana and his co-driver Christian Edstrom are attending Mexico, as well as two other WRC rounds this year, simply to gain some much needed international experience ahead of entering the full Production World Rally Championship in 2007 and 2008. "Well we started off pretty rough, spinning at the end of the first stage and losing twenty seconds!" explained Pastrana. "But we settled into a good rhythm and just felt out the stages, going at a pace we felt was safe, we need to
finish this rally and get experience. These guys are really fast, they have tons of experience with notes and they know
how to get the most out of these Group N cars, so for me to even just hang with these guys is amazing!"

Pastrana completed nearly 90 miles of dusty high altitude stages on Friday that are notorious for their car breaking ability. Several rally cars sustained damage on the opening stages, one of which was Pastrana's Subaru Rally Team USA teammate Ken Block who rolled his car and was unable to continue the day's stages. The roll was a soft one however and under WRC "Super Rally" rules Block and his co-driver Alex Gelsomino will restart on Saturday morning with time
penalties imposed. Subaru Rally Team USA techs repaired the car quickly in the afternoon and the car is 100% ready for the weekend.

Day two begins in earnest Saturday morning with over 90 miles of stages on the cards.


Thursday - March 8, 2007
Today began with the shakedown stage, which the cars performed just a few runs at each.

Travis was a bit taken aback by how fast the top PWRC drivers were on the shakedown, besting his time by several
seconds per kilometer.  After shakedown Travis stated: "I've got a lot to learn obviously! But that is why I'm here!"

The rest of the afternoon was a busy one for Travis as he was hunted down for media interviews constantly.  He did an interview for the WRC global TV program, WRC rally radio, a Norwegian channel and numerous magazine sit-down interviews.  Pastrana also had the honor of being invited to the FIA press conference.

After a short break it was then time to head to Guanajuato, about 50km southeast of Leon.  Guanajuato is a beautiful historic city with narrow cobblestone streets and an almost European feel.  The rally cars were driven by SRTUSA technicians to a nearby holding area.  Then Travis, Christian, Ken and Alex got in their rally cars and convoyed into the
city with all the other WRC entrants by police escort.  The streets were lined with tens of thousands of fans and the
entire city was is party mode with music and dancing combining with the roar of rally cars.

On the start ramp Travis was handed the microphone and blurted out a quick, "Viva La Mexico!", the crowd went wild. 
After the ceremonial start Travis returned to his hotel he did his quick blog entry for www.wrc.com then headed to bed.


Wednesday - March 7, 2007
Today was another long one for the SRTUSA drivers, as they awoke at 5am to begin the final day of recce.  No problems
to report on the recce and both Pastrana and Block both stated that they had a much better time making notes  "Yesterday was tough but we got the hang of it and i think the notes from today are pretty good actually," said Travis.

The SRTUSA technicians spent the day performing final prep work on the two Group N class Subaru Impreza WRX STI rally cars.  Tomorrow morning ( Thursday ) the cars will run the shakedown stage, so everything needs to be 100% sorted and ready for competition.

Tonight SRTUSA was invited to the unveiling of the 2007 Subaru Impreza World Rally Car, which was a press reception
held within the Subaru World Rally Team service area.  Both Pastrana and Block were mobbed by the international media
as they mingled with Subaru WRC team drivers Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson.


Tuesday - March 6, 2007
SRTUSA is doing recce on the course over these two days. This means that teams are actually allowed on the course
ahead of time to make their own notes about the road, conditions, suggested speeds etc. Meanwhile back in Leon, the
rest of the team has been working on setting up the service center in the huge convention center plaza. Look for pictures from the service area Wednesday!


Monday - March 5, 2007
The team participated in an official PWRC (Production World Rally Championship) practice session.  The PWRC is a support championship within the WRC where instead of using World Rally Cars the drivers use Group N specification cars, which
are close to "production" spec.

This year's PWRC has a very strong lineup of International rally drivers and national champions from all over the world. Pastrana is officially entered in the PWRC but will only be doing 3 of 8 possible rounds, however, he will run the full PWRC
in 2008.  Ken Block is not entered in the PWRC and instead is entered in the Group N class. 

The Monday test went very well for both cars, with no problems to report.  Both Travis and Ken had to adjust to less power from their cars, as these Group N cars run a 32mm restrictor as opposed to the Open Class cars they drive in the USA which have a larger 34mm restrictor.  Also the stages in Mexico are at altitude, nearly 7,000ft, which drastically reduces power. "We just need to adjust our driving styles, with less power you have to really try to keep your momentum up and drive very clean, less sliding," commented Travis. "It was really cool meeting all the PWRC drivers, its totally an honor to
be competing against these guys!"

"Each run we tried a different driving style to see the effect on our times, it's a learning process as I'm used to much more power in my car, but its still great fun," explained Block. The drivers will go to sleep early tonight as recce begins tomorrow morning, with a 6am departure from the team hotel.


Sunday - March 4, 2007
Subaru Rally Team USA arrived in Leon, Mexico on Sunday afternoon.  The two service trucks transited straight from the last Rally America National Championship event in Missouri.  No problems to report other than spending over 12 hours at the border crossing!