"Grommit"

Car #554

Press Release:

****  For Immediate Release:


Date:     January 27, 2002

Subject:  Buzzracing team goes to Sno*Drift and places in the top 3
          for both events

Location: Grand Rapids, MI.

WebSite:  http://www.webstratum.com/buzzracing/


"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...", well that was the hope for
the BuzzRacing Team as they headed to Atlanta Michigan for the 2002
SO*DRIFT snow rally.  Driver Mark Buskirk and Co-Driver Paul Fernandez 
had their VW GTI loaded and armed with Hakka Q snow tires but temps were
in the mid 40's and the snow and ice were melting fast.

The Team arrived on Thursday night to go through registration and tech
inspection which went well.  Friday morning Mark and Paul helped work
the practice stage and ran the practice stage 2 times to get a feel for
the slippery roads.  The teams mantra.... "slow is fast, slow is fast".

The race began on Friday at 3:00pm with 59 cars starting.  After 4
changes in the start order, Mark and Paul entered 46th on the road.  The
first stage was 3.35 miles long and a good way to get acquainted with the 
roads which were ice covered and bare.  This presented a huge problem in
determining tire grip in and out of the corners.  Bare road surface allowed
the team to accelerate, but the ice covered corners made breaking and car
handling difficult.  Because all the competitors were using ice tires with
soft sidewalls and tread, care had to be used not to puncture the tire;
thus adding minutes while changing a tire in stage.

Stage 2 and 5 were the roughest stages of the entire event.  The stages
started out as smooth fast winding roads and then quickly turned to 2
track roads with only ruts to follow.  The ruts were deep enough to
make the GTI ride along the skid plate many times through the narrow and
rough roads.

Friday night ended with Mark and Paul taking 2nd place in Group 2 and 9th
overall in the Club Rally.  The team was off to a good start for the
season and the overall points race.  On the final stage, Mark and Paul
tried to help pull a Subaru out of the ditch and lost about 60 seconds of
time.  The differenece between 1st and 2nd was only 1 second.  Mark was
quoted, "That's rallying, sometimes helping someone out now will help
us down the road".

After surviving the rough stages of Friday night, Saturday brought much
smoother and faster roads for the Team.  The warmer temperatures caused
the surface ice to melt leaving tons of mud and slippery clay surfaces
to drive on.  Although much of the road surface was mud, the Hakka
ice tires were still used as the corners and shaded areas of the roads
were ice packed.

With many cars losing their soft sidewall tires on the gravel, Mark and
Paul kept the car as straight as possible to avoid rolling a tire off
the bead in a stage.  It proved useful as they finished with same set of
tires they started with.

The team took 3rd place and 9th overall on Saturday.  Enough points to
put them in the overall points lead for Group 2 in 2002.  Mark and Paul
would like to thank the many service crew people for helping out and 
providing useful driving tips.  Colin McCleery, car builder and service
crew cheif; Jeff Boris, getting all that mud out of the tires; Matt
Wesveld, adding oil and fixing those pesky VW door handles; Ray Summers,
helping to clean the mud off and clean tires.  Thanks guys for all your 
work.

The next race will be Headwaters in northern MN is May.


*  *  *  *

http://www.webstratum.com/buzzracing/

Mark Buskirk    mbuskirk@webstratum.com

Paul Fernandez  udflyer2@hotmail.com