Jorge Dascollas, Rick
Coutts, Brent Ross, Myron Wyntonik and Brian McConkey first got
together as a group to run the Big Horn Rally near the Jasper
National Park in Alberta. Finishing first in the novice class
and 5th overall convinced them to run the Carson City International
Rally, a grueling two day event in the Nevada desert. In what
turned out to be "a rally to remember" with entrants
such as world rally champion Hannu Mikkola and a total of 69
entries, the team had an outstanding performance finishing 1st
in class and 24th overall even though their Nissan 510 was modestly
built, they had not enough spares for such an event and they
started as car # 69 which meant the roads were practically destroyed
by the time they had their run at it. In Jorge's words "the
only good thing was that if we rolled we were still number 69".
By 1986 this group of
friends built an Open Class Mazda RX7 and started competing with
the name Vertigo Racing. The car was meticulously built. Rick
with geat experience building rotary engines assembled a new
motor that not only delivered 200 HP but did it reliably. Brian
and Myron who's expertise was electrical circuitry built a system
for the Mazda that was close to military specs.
Jorge took care of developing
the chassis reinforcement and suspension. By the late '80s and
early '90s this car, driven by Jorge Dascollas and navigator
Colin Hubbard, gave the team numerous wins and championships
at Club, Regional and National levels even though it was only
a Non-turbo 2wd and the 4wd cars were making their mark in the
rally series. In 1990 Steve Walkington replaced Colin as a navigator
and Montreal residents; Santiago Oleas and Hytham Mokhtar joined
the team for the eastern arm of Vertigo Racing.
By 1994 the team gave
in to the 4WD wave and started competing with a Mitsubishi Eclipse
in the Production GT class (similar to today's Grp N4) with a
new car and a new 4 year contract with Michelin Canada, the team
won the Rally West championship also in 1994 and from there on
concentrated solely on the Canadian national Rally series finishing
2nd in class in 1995, winning the 1996 Canadian National Championship
for Prod. GT and second in 1997.
During that year Jorge
also competed in the Rally West series with Group 2 Golf GTI
winning that class in the region. This would prove that Jorge
could be competitive in any type of car; 4WD, RWD or FWD. Since
the spring of 2000, Jorge Dascollas has been developing the only
Rally School in Canada, based in Calgary, as a yearly event the
school is always fully subscribed.
In the early 1990s Rick
Coutts started the Road Race arm of Vertigo Racing winning the
1997 Canadian GT-3 Road Racing Championship. Rick still holds
the GT-3 lap record at Race City Motorsports Park and is now
developing a state of the art GT-2 car to compete in Canada and
select USA events. Rick also is presently the chief instructor
for the WCMA Road Racing school and Chief Instructor for BMW
Driver's school.
In March of 2004 Jorge
and Steve re-united again with a new Producction 3 rally car,
a 2002 Toyota Celica GTS.
In November 2005, Chris
Dascollas joined his father Jorge in the co-driver's seat for
his first rally, Chris did a comendable job with the recce notes
considering it was his first time. After their class win at this
year's Rocky Mountain Rally, Jorge and Chris are tied for first
place in the 2006 Canadian Rally Championship for Production
3 cars
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Rear Wheel drive
'91, '92 &
94 Rally-West Champions
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Front Wheel Drive
'97 Rally West
Group 2 Champions
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All Wheel Drive
'96 Canadian National
Production-GT champions
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Road Racing - GT3
1998 Canadian
GT3 Road Racing Champions
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Jorge Dascollas
Team manager
Driver (Rally)
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Rick Coutts
Team engineer
& manager
Driver (Road Racing)
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Chris Dascollas
Co-pilot / Navigator
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Steve Kozecki
Car Technical
and Bike Racing
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Hytham Mokhtar
Team Assistant
Management
Navigator and
Engineering
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Santiago Oleas
Team Technician
/ Navigator & Kart Racing driver
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Steve Walkington
Navigator / Driver
/ Electronic Systems Engineer
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