SRT4 at the X-Games

[SRTengineers]

Dodge and the SRT4 will be the only American built car invited to participate in the X Games first ever Rallying Competition. Battle Tested, Rally Veterans Doug Shepherd and Pete Gladysz will challenge some of the best 4-wheel drive teams with their 355 Horsepower Rally Prepped Dodge SRT4.

The championship winning duo will carry the Mopar colors in the Rallying competition at X Games 12, scheduled for this week, August 3-6, in Los Angeles, Calif. The team will have the opportunity to show off the sport of Rallying and Mopar to a wider audience, as broadcast coverage of the Rally Car competition is set for Saturday, August 5, at 2 p.m. PT (5 p.m. ET) on ABC. Segments will also be covered on ESPN .

Daimler Chrysler engineers, Doug Shepherd (Truck Chassis Director) and Pete Gladysz (SRT Powertrain Manager), are no strangers to this extreme sport. The two drove their Mopar Dodge SRT4 Rally Car to SCCA ProRally championships in the Group 5 and 2-Wheel-Drive Class in 2003 and 2004. The 2004 season also saw this Team help Dodge capture its first US ProRally Manufacturers Championship in 28 years.

In this first year of the Rally America sponsored Rally competition at the X Games, Shepherd and Gladysz will do battle against young guns such as Travis Pastrana, a former X Games Moto X gold medal winner now competing in Rally Car, Tanner Foust, a star on the Formula D Drift circuit and former World Rally Champion Colin McRae.

"We hope to challenge some of the 4-wheel-drive teams," said Gladysz. "It will depend on the road conditions. If it stays dry and dusty, we’ve probably got a good shot at posting good stage scores. If it is wet and sloppy, the 4-wheel-drive cars have a tendency to put a lot more time on us. It’s going to be an interesting event, being a combination of 8 mountain stages and one stadium stage". The rally typical gravel stages will start at 8:00am on August 2 on the mountain ridges near Gorman, California. The stadium event will take place at the Home Depot Stadium in Carson, California at 2:00pm (PT) on August 5. Practice sessions at the stadium will occur on August 3 from 11am to 1:00pm and on August 4 from 2:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon. "We’ll see how well the Top 2-wheel-car in this country can compete against some of the dominating 4-wheel-driver cars."

Mopar’s efforts in X Games 12 are just another example of its participation in cutting edge, youth-oriented motor sports. This Mopar team invites Mopar, Dodge and SRT fans to come to the X games and will be available for performance technical discussions on Rallying and their SRT4 for two hours leading up to the practice session on August 3-4. Rally America is carrying schedules, team profile and pictures on their web site.

For more info on the X Games or Mopar, log on to www.rally-america.com, www.expn.com, www.mopar.com or www.moparspeed.com.

See the attachments for pictures and a spec sheet for the car.