Team owner and driver, Piers O'Hanlon, first recalls being fascinated by rallying around the age of 13-14, watching world championship footage on TV circa 1984, when the Audi Quattro was at the peak of its success. Obviously without the funds or a driving licence to pursue rallying at this age, Piers continued to watch rallying on TV at any possible opportunity.
The next encounter with rallying came in 1992 when the Paris-Dakar rally finished in Cape Town, South Africa for the 1992 Paris-Le Cap event. This afforded Piers, a British national who grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, his first opportunity to see real rally style cars up close and personal.
Piers then moved to England for 5 years (1993-1997) to pursue a career, and then on to San Diego, California at the end of 1997; and rallying faded from the limelight for a while. However, once financially stable, thoughts turned to the possibility of entering into some form of motorports.
Having purchased a 1993 VW Corrado SLC, and quickly becoming bored of autocrosses after a few events, Piers was looking to get into some faster and more challenging driving. This led to participation in several high performance driving education (HPDE) track events put on by the Racer Factory group.
The Racer Factory events were a lot of fun and challenging, and was the first real opportunity for Piers to really start to explore the limits of the car in a controlled environment. But then things took a really interesting turn of events when Piers met Ron Wood, one of the instructors at the Racer Factory events, and a long-time rallyist with extensive rally race prep and fabrication experience. This, along with Speed Channel's coverage of the World Rally Championship, rekindled Piers's long dormant interest in rally, and after much discussion and at first planning to build a Group 2 VW Golf GTI, Piers changed his mind and persuaded Ron to part with his excellently prepared and very capable rally car, a 1984 Open Class Audi Quattro Turbo.
So, finally with much anticipation and some preparation (having spectated the 2002 CRS Gorman Rally and having attended the September 2002 California Rally Series School), Piers (along with rookie co-driver Chris Powell) entered his first event, the 2002 Prescott Forest Rally, which is part of the California Rally Series. It turned out to be a rather inauspicious start, as Piers barrel-rolled the car three times at about 60 mph on stage 3 of his first event !! Fortunately, in large part due to the exceedingly well built car, Piers and co-driver Chris escaped without any injuries, the only casualties being some hurt pride and a verly large dent in Piers's wallet.
However, not one to be discouraged easily, Piers had the car rebuilt, and returned at the beginning of the 2003 season to run the Rim of the World Rally, along with a new rookie co-driver, Neil Smith (pic on left). Finishing the Rim of the World Rally in the atrocious conditions, the team proceeded to run the rest of the events in the 2003 California Rally Series, including a return to settle an old debt at the Prescott Forest Rally.
Following a more conservative approach during the 2003 season, Piers along with co-driver Neil Smith, drove a steady pace and the team finished almost every event the team entered during the 2003 California Rally Series. This intelligent approach resulted in the team scoring valuable points at nearly every event, and therefore resulted in the team clinching the 2003 California Rally Series Open Class Driver's championship in their rookie year. As an added bonus, O'Hanlon and Smith were also presented with the California Rally Series Rookie of the Year Driver and Co-Driver awards, and also finished 3rd in the Open Class Driver and Co-driver standings in the Western States Rally Championship (WSRC), which encompasses events in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.
Due to the heavy financial commitment of self financing a season of rallying, Team SoCal Rally is not competing in the Audi for the 2004 rally season, but is regrouping financially during 2004 and is currently seeking sponsors for the 2005 season.
However, both Neil and Piers are still actively competing in the rally scene during the 2004 season. Neil is co-driving for several drivers in ProRally national events; and Piers is co-driving for Jon Rood in a Group 2 Ford Festiva in California Rally Series ClubRally events.
Professional preparation and tuning services are provided by service crew chief, Ron Wood. Ron, a VW wizard, with extensive rally race and rally preparation and fabricarion experience, runs his own full service shop, VW Specialties in Huntington Beach, CA.
Ron started rallying in '87 with a first generation Scirocco in the Open 2WD class, and along with co-driver Kelly Walsh, finished in the top five in the Open 2WD class from '88 to '92, eventually winning the California Rally Series Open 2WD championship in 1993.
After totalling the Scirocco in 1994, Ron started construction of the excellently prepared Audi Quattro Turbo rally car now campaigned by Team SoCal Rally. Finishing in the top five of the CRS series Open 4wd from '95 to '99, Ron and co-driver Kelly won the SCCA SoPac 4WD Open Championship in '97.
Ron and co-driver Kelly no longer actively compete in rallies themselves, but Ron remains actively involved in the rally scene : performing rally preparation and fabrication services; and as an SCCA certified rally technical inspector, he works as a technical inspector at several California Rally Series rallies.
