Thursday, January 16, 2014

Chili Bowl Night Two and World Rally in Monaco

On the second night of Chili Bowl qualifying, Caleb Armstrong held off Sammy Swindell to win Wednesday night's A-Main as both qualify for Saturday night's championship feature. The third automatic qualifying position went to Chris Windom who held off a hard charging Rico Abreu.

Abreu had to transfer from one of the B-Main and started seventeenth in the A-Main. He went from seventeenth to fourth, falling just one position shy of the final qualifying position. Brad Loyet, Shane Golobic and Brad Kuhn took the next three positions with the second B-Main winner Jerry Coons, Jr. coming home in eighth. All these drivers will have to qualify on Saturday.

Other drivers with work to do on Saturday night will be Shane Cockrum, Parker-Price Miller, Jace VanderWeerd, J. J. Yeley, Colten Cottle, Chris Andrews, Alex Sewell and Johnny Herrera. Yeley had a good night winning his heat and finishing second in his qualifier but finished eighteenth in the A-Main.

Drivers set to take to the track on Thursday are Kevin Swindell, Damion Gardner, Dakota Armstrong, Tracy Hines, Christopher Bell, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Kyle O'Gara and AJ Fike,

World Rally Season Opener in Monaco
Rallye Monte-Carlo began well for World Rally rookie Robert Kubica. The former Formula One driver won his first two stages and held the overall lead before a difficult third stage drop him to fourth in the overall standings. Kubica led by 36.8 seconds over defending WRC champion Sébastien Ogier but finished 1 minute and 24.3 seconds back of stage three winner and M-Sport teammate Bryan Bouffier after not having a set of snow tires for the stage.

With his stage three victory, Bouffier leads after three stages by 13.6 second over Citroën factory driver Kris Meeke. Dani Sordo is third, 41.5 seconds back driving for Hyundai in their returning round to the WRC. With Kubica a second back of Sordo in fourth. Kubica's other M-Sport Ford teammate, rookie Welshman Elfyn Evans is sixth, 46.7 seconds back.

Sébastien Ogier is 1 minute and 19.4 seconds back in ninth position. Mikko Hirvonen is thirteenth, 2 minutes and 32.4 seconds back with Ogier's Volkswagen teammate Jari-Matti Latvala 3 minutes and 4.2 seconds back of Bouffier in eighteenth position. While Sordo is having a good day, the other Hyundai's have not seen as much luck. Thierry Neuville retired from the event after going off the road on the opening stage.

There are three stages remaining on day one with five on day two and four on the final day.