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Three course cars and “several” competitors<br />
took the “other right”, facing banner<br />
guard and road marshals. Fastest fi rst run<br />
was Block’s STi, 6:14.7 for 53.03 mph.<br />
Second run saw the battle of Foust versus<br />
Block versus Pinker. Tanner by 9 seconds<br />
over Ken, who was 2 better than Andrew.<br />
The “best of the rest” ran 41 seconds off<br />
the leader. Much of “Coyote Corner”,<br />
SS14/16, has been used before, in the opposite<br />
direction. A steep climb from the<br />
Start, then level along a ridgeline, downhill<br />
into tight corners. Several long-hairpinleft.<br />
Quick Kinks, then Hard Right, Kinks,<br />
Primitive Prevails at <strong>Oregon</strong> Trail Rally by Paul Eklund<br />
The second most repeated quote about rally<br />
is: “In order to fi nish fi rst - one must fi rst<br />
fi nish”. After approximately 110 competitive<br />
stage miles Primitive Racing stood on<br />
top of the <strong>Region</strong>al podium - with hardly<br />
any issues to speak of - and all<br />
while the event held a near<br />
40% attrition rate - only 46 of<br />
75 competitors fi nished. The<br />
team fi nished 11th overall just<br />
behind archrival and Primitive<br />
Rally School Instructor, Jamie<br />
Thomas. Other top regional<br />
contenders like the Hintz<br />
Brothers, Ralph Kosmides, and<br />
Cavett/Alan suffered mechanical<br />
woes or crashed and failed<br />
to make the fi nish. Andrew<br />
Pinker from Australia fi nished<br />
1st Overall and garnered a spot<br />
in the XGames Rally.<br />
“It was a very very tricky event.<br />
The roads are crowned, made<br />
of clay, and have a thin coating<br />
of loose gravel. Add in some<br />
rain, and trees on both sides<br />
and you’ve got a very slippery<br />
surface, a narrow margin for<br />
error, and major consequences<br />
for a mistake.” - a California<br />
Rallyist’s description.<br />
“We were glad to run a clean event this<br />
weekend. Ultimately, that was the goal after<br />
the past few <strong>Oregon</strong> Trail events.” said<br />
Paul Eklund of the team “We defi nitely<br />
needed to get the stink off,” chimed in codriver<br />
Jeff Price noting the litany of problems<br />
the team had faced in prior 5 years<br />
(gearbox (twice), out-of-gas on transit,<br />
hitting barrier at PIR, etc). And contrary to<br />
early spectator reports - none of the Primitive<br />
cars hit any rocks [there is a big difference<br />
in “coming close” and “actually<br />
hitting”]. Hell, we even managed to miss<br />
all the gates at PIR this time!<br />
By the way, thanks should go to the organizers<br />
for not putting up any gates. Just the<br />
same we missed most of the hay bales that<br />
took their places. MOST of them.<br />
Weather was not friendly after a beautiful<br />
start Friday evening at Portland International<br />
Raceway - but that is common<br />
for the <strong>Oregon</strong> spring event. Snow [midday<br />
Saturday] was reported falling on the<br />
stages; hail; torrential rain; sunshine; fog.<br />
It was all there - and we all drove through<br />
it. We actually did not think that the roads<br />
were all that bad - the gravel bases held<br />
well and the high crowns kept most of the<br />
water off. Some rutting occurred with the<br />
signifi cant run-off and standing water with<br />
mud was waiting for those who ventured<br />
from the roads but overall, not bad at all.<br />
Biggest “yikes” was the R3 into L3 [a ‘3’ is<br />
about a 90 degree corner] sequence where<br />
slight right downhill into Flying Finish.<br />
The top four cars were within 27 seconds;<br />
the next was another 26 back. Forty-three<br />
fi nishers, out of the 74 running starters on<br />
Friday. Andrew Pinker and Patrick Walsh<br />
took First Open and First Overall with<br />
2:00:32.8.<br />
we saw only a set of skidding tracks leading<br />
to the L3 - and exiting straight-away<br />
over the edge. About the time we exited<br />
the leading R3 corner both the driver, Dave<br />
Anton and co-driver, Dominik Jozwiak<br />
popped up onto the roadway - sans car.<br />
We believe they were about fi ve positions<br />
in front of us - we were the fi rst to<br />
see them return to the road and display<br />
their OK sign [obviously some of that<br />
time is securing the car and retrieving<br />
warning triangles etc - but they were<br />
DEEP (like 200 feet down). The inside<br />
story here is they rented the car from<br />
Canadian Pat Richard; Pat had actually<br />
pre-sold the car to a different pair and<br />
was due to deliver it after this event.].<br />
Kenny ‘Cowboy’ Bartram suffered the<br />
same consequences when he left the<br />
road [photo attached; Bartram] - all<br />
okay as well. Needless to say the E-<br />
Crew/Sweep Boys were a busy bunch<br />
of volunteers this weekend!<br />
Friday at PIR the Burmeister/Shindle<br />
- Mazda came over a crest on the back<br />
graveled dike road a bit wide onto the<br />
slippy turf and they made it through<br />
the tree and through one post. Some<br />
zipties and application of hammer and<br />
they were back in it. As a point of<br />
reference, the Primitive Subaru runs about<br />
85-90 MPH just before the crest.<br />
All in all, short of two spins and an almost<br />
mis-direction in a confusing corner we<br />
were very clean. Notes fl owed well and the<br />
SUBARU worked fi ne. We’ll have some<br />
time now before Olympus to complete<br />
some minor maintenance items without<br />
worrying about major repairs - a relief!<br />
Thanks to all our sponsors and supporters<br />
that made this victory possible: Subaru<br />
Northwest <strong>Region</strong>, Exedy Racing Clutches,<br />
PDX Tuning, PIAA Lighting, Royal<br />
Moore Subaru, H&R Springs and our terrifi<br />
c crew that held it all together for the<br />
weekend!<br />
23
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