photo by Nate Michals

Greenhouse gets even hotter, but bitten by mechanical trouble at New England Forest Rally

Chris Greenhouse showed some very impressive speed at New England Forest Rally in Bethel, Maine, USA over the weekend, but was unable to maintain his 2WD National podium position after mechanical trouble sidelined him and his EBC Brakes Dodge Neon SRT4. This event also marked the return of Minneapolis-based codriver Chris Gordon who had been absent from codriving since 2011.

The rally began with a short SuperSpecial Stage, but then immediately headed out into the forest to the treacherous and famous Concord Pond stage. On their first ever attempt of this difficult stage, the team set a brilliant top 10 overall stage time! After a brief service, they continued to keep pace with 2 more fast times on Stages 3 and 4 and entered Parc Ferme sitting in 3rd place in the RallyAmerica 2WD National class.

Day 2 took a turn for the worse, however as the team suffered a broken intermediate shaft on Stage 5.

"The shaft broke right at the very start of Stage 5, and we had to limp through the stage and lost a lot of time. We continued on as best we could, but the car was very difficult to control with only one-wheel-drive, and it finally got away from me in a long right-hander and we spun into a ditch. We didn't suffer any further damage in the off, but we were stuck off the road and were retired from the event. I tried as best I could to keep it on the road, but I just got in a little too fast and couldn't hold on to the misbehaving SRT4. I know a lot of our fans and also the Elk Rapids, Michigan-based SubaRoots team were very excited to see us doing so well at the end of day 1, but things just didn't go our way up in Maine. But we have made a clear statement to the rest of the 2WD National drivers that we are for real and we will be a contender for top positions in 2WD."

The Weasel RallySport team will be looking forward to a break in the schedule until September when they will return to action at Olympus Rally in Ocean Shores, Washington, USA.

Chris Greenhouse and the Weasel RallySport team would like to thank EBC Brakes, Maddog STS, Angry Sheep Motorsports, JayRacing.com, Motodecals.com, Oreilly Auto Parts and Silco Fire Protection for their support and would like to also give special thanks and best wishes to the SubaRoots Rally Team from Elk Rapids, Michigan, USA.

 

Stage 4, Icicle Brook. This is an insanely fast stage, turbo cars really like it

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCNfxZ8Mapg[/youtube]

 

Thanks for posting.

 

Stage 3, Icicle Brook North, New England Forest Rally

Chris Greenhouse and Chris Gordon, Dodge Neon SRT4


We end up in choking dust behind another competitor who suffered not one, but 2 punctures on the stage

 

after racing on 1WD with our broken int shaft for 8+ miles we finally put it off the road on Stage 6