5ZIGEN to the peak!

Rally Ready Motorsports wins again at Pikes Peak!
Second consecutive Pikes Peak Open Division Win for Carapetyan and Rally Ready

A user of 5ZIGEN ProRacer GN+ wheels, Rally Ready Hill Climb Team won one of the oldest hill climb time trail, Pikes Peak International Hill Climb Open Division with 11:52.837.
Driver: David Carapetyan / Navigator: Adam Kneipp
Car# 725, 2003 Mitsubishi Evolution

Following is the race report from Dave and his team.

"This place always gets somebody, you have to bring your A-game" says Dave Carapetyan at 5:00 a.m. from the top of Colorado's Pikes Peak during pre-race practice. It's his 5th year here and he's defending a title and a big win from last year while keeping things on the safe side of a very deadly limit. Dave and his crew are preparing to race up a 14,110 ft tall mountain on a 12.4 mile course of mixed pavement and gravel with few guardrails and sheer cliffs. It's the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, one of the oldest and most prestigious motor-sport events in the world, and it's his for the taking.

At 21, Dave Carapetyan is not just a veteran at the PPIHC, he is the owner of Rally Ready Motorsports, a safety equipment and race preparation shop in Austin, Texas. On July 20th, Dave piloted his one of a kind Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution to a bittersweet victory over rival Dave Kern by a margin of 20 seconds. As of May, the team had no support and weren't going to be able to put this program together. "It took 6 weeks from hell and a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get the car to the start line. It's incredible to stand here considering what we were working with. We knew we were set for the battle of the Dave's against a much faster car and a much more potent team. Our only chance was to push them as hard as we could and to push ourselves as hard as we could. After all, they had as much money in their suspension and transmission as we had in our whole car."

Conditions for Sunday's race were said to be some of the worst this decade, for Dave they were even more difficult as they lost power right off of the start line. The turbocharger boost pressure plummeted in half and the ignition system experienced intermittent failure for the entire race. To add insult to injury, it began to rain just as they left the start line making conditions that much more epic. In the end, the team is about a minute off of their target time but is impressed with the time considering the conditions.

Dave's navigator Adam Kneipp who stood in for the team's regular adds "We were a bunch of nobody's at the beginning of the week and by the end of the week we had BF Goodrich's tire engineers copying our tire design for their Ford factory-supported Fiesta team driven by World Rally Champion Marcus Grönholm." The team points out the time sheets that even with half power they put 20 seconds on factory Hyundai driver Rhys Millen in his 2WD Genesis Coupe and a mere 24 seconds off the pace of Grönholm's Ford.

Crew chief Wes Aylor says "Dave worked that car harder than anybody on the mountain, we're overjoyed with the result and are poised for a deadly assault next year. I can't say much but barring the ever present unknowns, we're certain we've got the car and driver to take down the division record, hopefully by as much as 30 seconds." He adds "Our setup engineers worked tirelessly this week chasing down the ideal setting and we think we got it by race day. Our data shows the car was handling fantastic and our splits were remarkably fast considering the engine trouble."

For 15 year old Tyreese Brown, who hadn't been out of Austin since he was 4 years old, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. "These guys treated me like family, I can't believe I got to be a part of this. I learned so much and got to be a part of something real."

Dave's cousin, 13 year old Nathan Amstutz was in his 3rd year of spectating the race but the first year of crewing for the team. As a kid, Dave struggled to tie his education to the real world which eventually led him to drop out of high school. "As soon as I started racing, I realized how it all tied together. We're giving kids a chance to learn some incredibly valuable things in a really cool setting. These kids leave here with a whole new lease on life and can really understand how cool all of the stuff they're learning in school can be."

Rally Ready Motorsports would like to thank their sponsors Nonna Gina's Italian Restaurant, Rocky Top Motel & Campground, Tuning Concepts, PostNet Austin, 5Zigen USA, GoPro Camera, Harris Hill Road and our friends and family who made this possible.

For more information on the team, visit http://www.rallyready.com/ or contact the team: info@rallyready.com

Visit Pikes Peak International Hill Climb official website for official results and histry of the event: http://www.ppihc.com/default.aspx?tabid=1