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Duplessis Finishes Sixth In WRA Portion Of Acropolis Rally Of Greece

ATHENS, Greece, May 30 – Chris Duplessis finished a solid sixth in his class last weekend at the Acropolis Rally of Greece, one of the oldest and most challenging rallies in the world.

Duplessis, of Bethlehem, N.H., was the only American competing in the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) event out of 55 entries.

The 25-year-old driver placed sixth in the WRC Academy division, a special international class at selected WRC events that is a feeder system to groom the next generation of world rally champions.

Ford and Pirelli Tires sponsor the WRC Academy, and all the drivers use Pirelli-shod Ford Fiesta R2s.

Duplessis is also sponsored by the DirtFish Rally School of Snoqualmie, Wash. He tested at the school for two weeks to prepare for the event in Greece.

“It’s awesome,” he said of the school, which offers classes for pros, amateurs, individual enthusiasts and corporate groups. “I didn’t have my Fiesta there, but I drove other cars there and it helped me get ready for Greece.

“The Acropolis Rally was only the third WRC rally I’ve been in, and it was definitely the most challenging rally I’ve ever driven,” he said. “As I get better and compete with the world’s top drivers, it definitely gets harder,” he said.

Duplessis’ goal was simply to finish, but he achieved that and more. He set the third-fastest time among the Academy drivers for the event, and he was also honored with the “Spirit of the FIA WRC Academy” award in the post-event ceremonies.

“Things went really well,” he said on Tuesday after arriving back in the United States on Monday. “We didn’t have any issues. The car was perfect all weekend. The Ford Fiesta is a great little car, and the Pirelli tires worked awesome.

“After just finishing, setting the third-fastest stage time for the Academy drivers was probably our biggest accomplishment,” added Duplessis, whose co-driver is Karl Atkinson of Cork, Ireland. “It gave me confidence that driving at that pace is obtainable. My notes are getting better and we’re improving all the time. We put some really good times down. Our best time came on the third of four stages on Saturday. We were just getting our feet used to things and it was over, but we’re going to try to do that again at the next WRC Academy event in Finland too.”

The event’s stages were held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

“It was fairly hot, but it rained a little on Thursday morning, which kept the dust down a bit,” Duplessis said. “It’s just that the roads were so rough. After the World Rally cars go through really big ruts developed in the roads, and they were tough for the little Ford Fiesta to get through. People were coming in with broken axles and broken oil pans and someone rolled over, but we didn’t have any issues. We ripped a mud flap off; that was it!”

Duplessis said he drove conservatively at the start of the event.

“We wanted to keep the car in one piece; we didn’t want to go out and break something right away,” he emphasized. “We definitely wanted to finish; that was our goal. I wanted a fair and square, clean run. I think we were last or next-to-last at the end of Thursday, but then I think we’d moved up to ninth after Friday and we were sixth at the end on Saturday.”

Duplessis said he worked hard to improve his pace notes for this event.

“My notes were much better in Greece than they were in Portugal for my first Academy event this year,” he said. “I did a lot of practicing after Portugal. I got a lot more confidence in writing them and then driving them fast. I learned I can drive flat-out with my notes, and I felt really good about that. There are still some things I can do to improve on that, but my notes were much better than they were in Portugal.”

American rally fans know Duplessis has a winning personality in addition to being a winning rally driver, and that reputation is now being recognized internationally.

“I won the ‘Spirit of the Rally’ award, which came about because during one of our test stages there were two elementary schools in a small town we went through, and I stopped and talked to a bunch of school kids,” he said. “They were chanting ‘Rally! Rally!’ After I stopped, they became my own little cheering section,” he added. “One of them even drew a picture of a car that was all orange, just like mine.”

The next WRC Academy event is August 2-4 in Finland, but before that Duplessis will debut a brand-new Ford Fiesta R2 at the Susquehannock Trail Rally America event this weekend in Wellsboro, Pa. He won his class at the first two events this year but he did not enter the third one because his new car was not yet completed. Duplessis won that sanctioning body’s two-wheel-drive national championship in both 2008 and 2010.

After Finland, the WRC Academy schedule shows events in Germany Aug. 24-26; France Oct. 4-7 and Spain Nov. 8-11.

For more information see DirtFish.com and wrc.com . Both DirtFish and Duplessis also have Facebook pages and Twitter and YouTube accounts.

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