Event - Lake Superior Rally- Round 8 of the Rally America Championship
Location - Houghton, Michigan (upper peninsula)

The whole rally season came down to this, a chilly weekend in the scenic, college town of Houghton, Michigan in colorful late October. To pull off the season PGT class Championship, the CarolinaRS crew of Johnson/Nakamoto needed a class WIN and for their nearest rival and popular stunt car driver, Tanner Foust, to finish 3rd place or lower.

As the rally started Johnson put the pedal down and flew through the first few stages building a lead a couple seconds at a time to establish a small cushion. As the night came, a poor tire choice cost the crew all of their lead on one stage and suddenly they found themselves in second place by 8 seconds and with another competitor, Eric Langbein, hunting close behind. At midnight, after fierce battling and 40 miles of slippery rally stages, our crew ended Friday night 7 seconds down to Foust with 40 more miles awaiting them on Saturday to make up that time and hopefully take the lead.

Saturday morning, feeling refreshed and ready to roll, Johnson/Nakamoto demonstrated clearly that they were back for the battle by setting a top time on Stage 7 and 8 and re-taking the lead by 7 seconds. As the team charged through stage 9 planning on taking another stage win everything suddenly changed. As Johnson committed, full speed, to a sharp right hand corner that changed from gravel to pavement things didn't go as planned.

Johnson- "I didn't feel like I was taking a big chance but I certainly did commit to the corner expecting the pavement at the end to offer more grip than the gravel." "When we hit the pavement super sideways the pavement had none of the expected grip and we hit the bank and rolled the car. I don't know how we didn't hit any trees but we went up and over the bank rolling and landed on the co-drivers side before falling back down on the wheels."

Nakamoto- "By the time I asked Matthew if he was OK he had already restarted the car and we were launching out of the woods, over the bank and racing down the stage again. I still had my stage notes in hand and tried to start reading again between laughing. We ended up loosing only 8 seconds to Tanner on that one!"

With the car looking a bit banged up and having a bent suspension control arm it didn't want to drive straight and pulled hard to the left. However, this did not stop the charge from our pair. With two stages remaining before service they had to drive the car in the shape it was in and Johnson commented to the TV crew that the only thing to do was go flat out over the next stages and make up the time. Echoing his words, the stage times showed he was not kidding and had beaten Foust by 4.4 seconds over the next two stages, retaking the lead once again in PGT.
A strong comeback from Foust over the next couple stages put the lead slightly back in his favor going into the last stage which was known to be a treacherous one.

Nakamoto- "Up until the last moment we were going for victory. Going into the last stage we needed to make up 8 seconds to win. I knew it was going to be hard but I also knew Matthew was ready to go for it. We gave it all we had on that super slippery stage and ended up hitting a bank and bending the rear suspension half way through. It wasn't the ideal situation to make up that much time on such a hard stage but that's rallying, you don't always get to choose your conditions."

With that, the Carolina RS team takes 2nd place Nationally in PGT and took 2nd place in the Lake Superior Rally as well. They are extremely proud of the season they've had and also extremely thankful for all of the sponsors and friends who have helped make it happen. See them below.

For those of you who missed it and don't get the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) go and pre-order your copy of the Rally America 2005 Season DVD, you will not be disappointed! (you will also not be called for payment until December when it's ready to ship so go preorder NOW!)

Carolina RallySport would like to thank the following- please consider our sponsors below when you need to make a related purchase!

Elite Performance - ElitePro offers a large catalog of aftermarket performance parts for your car. Check them out the next time you're ready to upgrade or replace parts on your car.

FlamecrusherUSA - Flamecrusher is a race wear apparel manufacturer based in South Boston Virginia. They build comfortable, custom fitted, custom designed flame retardant driving suits for all types of racers.

North Coast Subaru Rally Team - Offers many lines of rally parts from their website http://www.NCRally.com

Hankook Tire Corporation - http://www.hankooktireusa.com

The team would like to send a special thanks out to Bob Wall who has helped make this excellent season possible for Matthew and Wendy.

The Rally America site has been updated, please visit the new site and look here for CarolinaRS driver Matthew Johnson listed in the "Top Teams" section.

Additional information for Lake Superior Rally.

NEXT EVENT- The next event has not been set yet, however it's likely to be the 2006 SnoDrift Rally in January in Lewiston, Michigan