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April 20, 2008
Robby Gordon powers to a second place finish in Stage 1.
Robby Gordon finished second today in the first stage of the Central Europe Rally. I am in the ASO Press Center in Baia Mare right now. We made our way to “Hero” square this morning to see the cars stage and make their driver and car presentations.
There was a small liaison today to the start of the race. I was traveling in the rental van that Kyle was driving. The ASO gave us a press packet, which included special maps to different points of access to the racecourse. We followed the directions and threw in the GPS coordinates to our GPS system. We were lost around this small rancher/farmer town for about an hour. All of us were very frustrated; the Media Hummer H1 was also behind us. We finally found the racecourse after numerous attempts. We headed out to the middle of the course; Robby and BJ had been through that section 10 minutes prior. The Policeman that I talked to said: “He was the best one”. We heard word that Robby and BJ finished, so we headed towards the finish line.
Robby finished 2nd in his Hummer H3. His final time was 40 minutes 37 seconds. He is 41 seconds behind the stage winner Carlos Sainz. This is Carlos’ backyard so Robby knew he had his work cut out for him. I’ll upload a video below so you can see Robby’s comments on the stage. BJ Baldwin finished 23rd, 9 minutes 41 seconds behind the winner. A spare drive shaft that is fastened in the engine bay fell of, knocked in to the engine pulley and popped a belt. He lost about 8 minutes changing the belt.
Robby Currently stands in 2nd place, he started 12th this morning. BJ is 23rd right behind Gordon. BJ proved himself to be very fast among the top drivers in the world. We will see tomorrow how he performs.
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