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Last week we introduced you to the MaxAttack! Team NorthWest, a three-car rally team joining forces to contest the third and final round of the 2010 MaxAttack! 2WD Championship this October in Houghton, Michigan.

This week, we will be posting three exclusive interviews with the drivers, each of the three segments covering a different topic. Today, we interview drivers Cody Crane, Dave Henderson, and Brian Gottlieb about their team, their rally experience, their assault on LSPR, and of course...their toughest competition.

WRS: What is your role on the MaxAttack! Team NW?

Cody Crane (CC): I am the driver of the VooDoo Rally Honda CRX
Dave Henderson (DH): Driver of car #711 Mazda3.
Brian Gottlieb (BG): Up until very recently, I was the driver of the Red Rocket Rally FX-16 Corolla. I'm a driver without a car, but we're working on that.

WRS: Who is your Co-Driver?

CC: My co-driver is Billy Irvin.
DH: Terrance [McDowell] was the only one of my friends that was even close to interested, but than that, he has the BEST reason he likes being a co-driver “I like roller coasters!!” He and I have raced motocross and off-road motorcycle races for years, so the team is a strong one…
BG: Pat Darrow has only been co-driving for about a year, but rally is in his blood. He has been attending and volunteering at rallies since, like, the day he was born, so its pretty much second nature to him. He always knows what is going on, and where we need to be, and always stays calm, and lets me know when I'm slacking off behind the wheel.

WRS: Have you ever rallied outside of the Pacific NorthWest?

CC: Yes, I have gone to the Prescott rally in Arizona and raced on my birthday. That was cool.
DH: No.
BG: Last year I went to Rally Colorado, my first out-of-region rally. We went without a service crew, and had a hell of a time. I broke an axle early on the first day, and that pretty much took us out of the race.

WRS: What was your first rally experience?

CC: I had a rally video when I was two years old. I saw it live for the first time at the 2000 Oregon Trail Rally. First rally I entered was the Doo Wop Rally in 2005.
DH: Rental GTI from Allwheelsdriven at the 2009 Mt. Hood Rally in Hood River, my hometown. I didn’t fit in the seat, kinda thought we knew what we were doing, but ended up 2nd in class, 14th overall, and had a GREAT time...
BG: My first rally was the Olympus Rally in 2007. I had found a partially built rally car on Craigslist and spent ten days before the rally with Josh Rustigan (my first co-driver) finishing the prep on the car, just in time to pack up to go.

WRS: Have you ever been to the Lake Superior Performance Rally? If not, what do you know about LSPR?

CC: No. I have heard some of it can be pretty rough. Hopefully, I will have a better suspension set up by then and I won’t need to slow down for it too much. I have a problem slowing down once they say go!
DH: Being new to rally, we have never been or never heard much about it, but that doesn’t change a thing. We show up, prepped and ready, and go out to win.
BG: This will be my first time at LSPR, and it will be the furthest I have traveled for a rally. I haven't heard much about it, except that its rough, and I should start working out.

WRS: How long have you been participating in MaxAttack! and what got you started?

CC: I have done the last three west coast MaxAttack! events. I started entering MA for the chance to race against the best drivers in the country.
DH: Oregon Trail 2010 was our first max attack event. We had a strong run in the super special stages on Friday [at Portland International Raceway] and were sitting in 3rd behind Van Way and Cody Crane, but had a massive engine failure that did not allow us to run the next two days.
BG: I've been participating in MaxAttack! since 2008. I like promoting the idea that AWD is a crutch.

WRS: Where do you think you stack up compared to the other MaxAttack! teams?

CC: I don’t know somewhere in the top 5.
DH: With my experience being pretty limited, I like to think I have some skills but need a lot more time in the seat to run with the top guys, but we’ll see.
BG: I know I'm not the fastest guy out there, at least not yet. But we're getting faster all the time, and it’s really fun having such a large field of competitors to measure our progress against.

WRS: Tell us how Oregon Trail (MaxAttack! Round 1) went for you.

CC: It had its up and downs. On the first stage on Saturday we broke a motor mount and limped the car through the next stage (Fir Mountain), which was one of the stages I was looking forward to. We were able to make up for lost time throughout the day and ended up in first, but after the flying finish of the last stage Saturday the transmission broke and Dillon Van Way towed us back to service. Somehow we found local Leo Smith at the after party and he had a parts transmission. So Leo, Eric Burmeister, my dad Mark, and my girlfriend Kass, and I took the transmission out and rebuilt it on the tailgate of a truck in a parking lot. We stayed up all night and morning to get the car running again. I raced the next day without any sleep. It was a very eventful rally.
DH: We had a great run on the Friday night stages, ended in 3rd for max attack, 2nd in G2, but about 1⁄4 mile before the finish our engine went to pieces, so we coasted across the line, and we were OUT for the weekend, bummer.
BG: Oregon Trail was one of my best rallies yet. I felt like I was pushing the car, really driving it instead of just reacting. Pat and I were figuring each other out and really working together as a team. We had a rough start, but made some changes throughout the weekend, tried some new things, and made a strong push to the end to secure 5th place in Max Attack.

WRS: Which MaxAttack! driver do you see as your strongest competition?

CC: Lauchiln O’Sullivan, Mark Utecht, and Tom Burress to name a few. They have fast cars and are good drivers.
DH: Anyone with a turbo on the car as we are only running about 160-170 hp. Both of the other cars on the NW MAX ATTACK team: Cody is super fast in a light car, and Brian is a great driver as well. Other than that, from our Olympus Rally and Oregon Trail experience, I would say Van Way and Duplessis are the top guys as well. I am sure more come from out of the woodwork out East that I have not yet come up against, so again, we’ll have to see who these guys are!
BG: I'd like to say Cody [Crane], but that's not fair to him; he's on a whole different level. I hope to be that fast some day. At Oregon Trail, we had a great battle for 4th with several other cars right up until the last stage, ultimately taking 5th place behind Gaylord Van Brocklin. So I guess him [Van Brocklin], if he's there.

WRS: What other MaxAttack! competitor do you look up to?

CC: Lauchiln O’Sullivan. He is crazy fast in that [Dodge] SRT4.
DH: I think Cody Crane and Chris Duplessis are amazing drivers, they are not in the fastest cars with high horsepower, so I know they are just FAST as hell drivers, that carry the momentum of their cars through the whole stage.
BG: Chris Duplessis. He always has a smile on his face and has a great attitude. And he pedals the sh*t out of that VW!

WRS: What do you like most about rallying right now?

CC: Being able to drive as fast as I can and not get in trouble.
DH: For me, it is the amount I am learning, but I have always have been drawn to speed events, from ski racing as a kid through college to motocross and off-road motorcycle events. Rally just fits in with this addiction.
BG: Rallying right now is really exciting. The sport is gaining popularity and it’s been lot of fun racing on roads practically lined with spectators. But mostly I like the camaraderie among competitors.

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Check back here on Wednesday for the second of three segments with the MaxAttack! Team NW drivers as they tell us about their rally cars in detail and a lot more. Brian also reveals what his newly acquired rally car is and tells us about how the Corolla FX-16 burned in Idaho!

If you missed the MaxAttack! Team NW’s intro video last Friday, check it out here: http://www.worldrallysport.com/node/6650

Image Copyrights: World Rally Sport, Credit: Francisco La Torre
Image: Cody Crane and Billy Irvin at the Oregon Trail Rally, opening round of the 2010 MaxAttack! Series

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