Friends of The Garage, Chris Martin and Phil Narini completed a stellar season at the 2009 round of the Rally of the Tall Pines. Their win at Pines brought it all together as they won the 2009 Ontario Performance Rally Championship (OPRC) Overall Driver, Open Class Driver and Novice Driver.
“It feels great to win the OPRC championships!” says Martin. “Winning our first rally in April at Shannonville and now finishing the season with another OPRC win, and the Ontario Championship, it has been a great year, with the points coming down to a battle at the final rally. The competition has been great, and we look forward to another battle next year.”
Their car of choice was a 1993 Subaru Impreza, fueled by E85 bio-ethanol fuel rather than the race gas chosen by most other teams. Theirs is the first car in the Ontario Rally Championships and the Canadian Rally Championships to use this fuel.
“We were really looking forward to showing people what we could do using ethanol,” says Martin, “My win demonstrates you can be environmentally friendly and still win. I hope that other drivers will see this as the perfect opportunity to use less racing fuel and help the environment at the same time.”
If the car looks familiar, it could be that we showed pictures of it last year at the Subaru show we organized.
Great job guys!
Photo courtesy of Mike Tan Photography