Pastrana/Edstrom set to compete on 100 Acre Wood

Salem, MO - The stage is set for another good battle at the Rally of the 100 Acre Wood, this weekend. Travis and I are here in Salem already, prepared to complete the one-pass recce tomorrow, and to start the race on Friday. We're pretty confident about our chances here, but Block, Foust, Pinker, O'Sullivan, Choinere, Iorio, ACP, and Lagemann ought to be fighting for podium positions as well. Predicting the top three will be a big job, but as always, I think the key is to drive a sensible race, make sure not to make any big errors, protect the car, and conserve tires. If we manage to do that, we should be in the fight on Saturday night.

100AW is the first Rally America event this year to feature one-pass recce (recconaissance), which allows the drivers one pass over the roads to correct and refine the organizer's notes provided by Rally America. The Maine Forest Rally 2006 was the first rally to offer one-pass recce, and it really worked well, and offered a very competitive event. I think it's a real step forward for the sport, and I hope that we'll see at least 50% of organizers offer one-pass recce in 2008. I'd like to thank the 100AW organizers for stepping up and trying it this year.

After 100AW, I'm headed home to NYC for a week, and then Travis and I and the team are off to compete at WRC Mexico. If you haven't checked out the competition in PWRC this year, you should - the field is stacked with talent - Mark Higgins, Nasser Al-Attiyah, Toshi Arai, Juho Hanninen, Kristian Sohlberg, Anton Alen, Patrik Flodin, Fumio Nutahara and on and on. It's the best year for PWRC in ages and it's exciting to dip our toes in the water and see how we stack up. I think Mexico might be a rude awakening, but then, as Mr. Pastrana says, "Once we find out where we are, then we improve from there."

But first, 100AW and a US field that has at least 8 contenders vying for podium spots. Let's hope everybody keeps their noses clean and that it's a big fight to the finish!