Antoine L'Estage has been handed timing penalties that have dropped him to second overall on the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR).

L'Estage and co-driver Nathalie Richard finished Friday's Leg with a margin of 31.1 seconds to their advantage. The crew overcame significant overheating issues on the opening loop of stages and carried their lead into the overnight halt after STPR organizers canceled the remainder of Friday's stages (SS4/SS5) due to severe thunderstorms in the Wellsboro area. more...

Australia's Will Orders is on the hunt for a 2WD class win at the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR).

Orders and co-driver Toni Feaver piloted their 1989 Nissan Silvia to end of Friday's Leg with a one minute advantage over America's favorite son Chris Duplessis.

Following late night discrepancies with official scoring, Orders was handed a one minute penalty for checking in to Service early. Now only 0.1 seconds separate the two drivers heading into Saturday's stages. more...

Ramana Lagemann leads a tight Super Production class battle into the second day of the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR) with less than 17 seconds separating the top three SP crews.

Lagemann and co-driver Chrissie Beavis are back in their Dent Sport Garage-run 2011 Suabru Impreza WRX STI after a 10 month absence from rallying with no apparent signs of rust. The former Subaru factory driver is seeking to repeat his result from last year's STPR with a class victory and a place on the overall podium. more...

Antoine L'Estage has taken an early lead of the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR) after completing the first loop of stages on the event's opening day despite overheating problems.

L'Estage and co-driver Nathalie Richard opened up a 31.3 second gap over CrazyLeo Urlichich and Carl Williamson who are currently running second overall on their STPR debut. more...

The 36th edition of the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR) begins today as the American championship heads East and enters the final stretch of its season.

Based in and around Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, STPR provides some of the most challenging stage roads in the series with surface consisting of hard-packed clay, gravel, and stone. Competitors will run a distance of 117.09 competitive miles spread over a total of 16 special stages this weekend.

STPR is renown for its rugged terrain and technically demanding forest roads so a high rate of attrition is likely. more...

American driver Chris Duplessis has scored his first WRC Academy points after achieving a clean finish on last weekend's Acropolis Rally of Greece.

The 2010 U.S. 2WD champion and co-driver Karl Atkinson placed sixth in the Fiesta R2-spec support category and were among the seven of eleven starters to successfully reach the finish of the demanding Greek event.

Duplessis finished 9 minutes 21.4 seconds behind class winner Elfyn Evans after running a total of 13 grueling stages. He placed the third fasted stage time on the category's penultimate stage, the 18.4km Kefalari 1 test (SS12). more...

Defending Canadian champion Antoine L'Estage has taken a commanding victory on the Rocky Mountain Rally based in Calgary, Alberta.

L'Estage and co-driver Nathalie Richard developed a lead of over 2 minutes on the second day of the event before comfortably reaching the finish on Saturday evening with a 1 minute 39 second advantage over rivals Pat Richard and co-driver Alan Ockwell. more...

Let’s follow up on this idea that it must matter who wins and loses the contest. It’s a key ingredient to selling a sports promotion to an audience.

We’ve thought long and hard about the American rally championship and the connective tissue that knits six very different events into what’s considered a national championship. Those events: Sno*Drift, 100 Acre Wood, Oregon Trail, STPR, New England Forest, and Olympus are very unique regional promotions with varying degrees of success and roads that stand out and apart from each other. more...

In any sports promotion you must convince the audience that it matters who wins and loses the contest. The success of that effort adds or subtracts from the contest’s promotional value.

We equate this to the difference between the Globetrotters and the NBA. Both are playing roughly the same game. But in the case of the National Basketball Association it matters who wins and loses every minute in a game. That’s especially reflected now in the midst of the NBA post-season playoffs.

Now, let’s apply the above to our expanded view of audience. more...

Anyone in racing knows the idiom: “Speed is money. How fast do you want to go?” Refocusing that reality today, though, would turn it into: “Audience is money. How big do you want to be?”

Audience is the new money but audience has many, many different colors, shapes and forms. Sometimes audience doesn’t even have a reflection when it looks at itself in the mirror. Audience is more than people sitting in the grandstands. more...