freightdog319

Defending 3-time RallyAmerica central Region Group 2 Champion Chris Greenhouse was struck by some bad luck at Black River Stages http://www.blackriverstages.com in Harrisville, New York last weekend. His 1995 Plymouth Neon broke an axle on the very first stage of the rally. This was the first time all season that he had suffered a mechanical retirement. This was the 5th event of the Atlantic Rally Cup series sanctioned by http://www.nasarallysport.com

"I felt like my driving was clean and tidy on the first stage, maybe even a bit too conservative, but we crested a rather small jump and the car immediately lost power upon landing. I knew that we had broken an axle and that our rally was over. Its very disappointing because I knew that we had more than enough speed to score a good overall finish, and I really wanted to go for the class win, too."

Chris reported that when he arrived back at service, the differential had some minor damage, and with Lake Superior Rally in 3 weeks, he couldn't risk doing any further damage by trying to return in "SuperRally".

"The diff[erential] had some damage inside, and we were unable to get the axle out. After about an hour of rather abusive mechanical work, we finally got the axle out and saw that the diff had been damaged to the point where continuing would only cause a total gearbox failure. We decided to retire from the event and call it a night."

"We stuck around Saturday and volunteered to work the event. I worked the start of Jayville In and Brian and Gary [Cupp] worked at the finish. I think Jayville might have been cancelled if we hadn't helped out since they were pretty short of workers, so our loss turned out be a gain for the rest of the rally competitors."

Chris and codriver Brian Johnson will be competing next month at the Lake Superior Performance Rally http://www.lsprorally.com sanctioned by http://www.Rally-America.com.