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94 July 2008
FPO
Oregon trail rally cranks up the heat
the FIRst DaY of the Oregon trail Rally, driv-
ers and co-drivers alike were all smiles, happy to
be back in a “proper rally.” The days leading up to
the rally were cold and wet, a hallmark of Oregon
weather, but day-one set the tone for a hot, dry rally
that would see a full half the field leave the road, including
most of the top ten.
It would be easier to list the teams that didn’t
crash and burn, but here’s the casualty list for the
weekend. The seemingly unstoppable team of Ken
block and alessandro Gelsomino were sidelined
early with the car stuck on a hillside. The 2006 and
2007 Oregon trail winners andrew Pinker and Robbie
Durant saw their car catch fire in the unseasonably
hot weather, taking them out of contention.
Pinker’s teammates tanner Foust and Chrissie beavis
also fell by the wayside, along with two-time PGt
Champs Matthew Johnson and Jeremy Wimpey.
sensational young driver Kyle sarasin and co-driver
Mikael Johansson also ended up with a severely
bent car and a DnF to show for their trip to the West
Coast.
In the PGt ranks, stephan Verdier and scott
Crouch, norm Leblanc and Keith Morison, Piotr
Wiktorczyk and benjamin slocum, travis and terry
hanson, and the local Oregon team of Mark tabor
and Kevin Poirier (2004 Production class champions)
were all out by the end of the weekend.
In the end, victory at the Oregon trail Rally was
all about survival - being there at the end. 2006 and
2007 Rally america champion travis Pastrana stayed
on the road and delivered an excellent performance
in his third outing with new co-driver Derek Ringer.
Pastrana finished the event 3:36 ahead of Canadian
Mitsubishi evo pilots andrew Comrie-Picard and
Marc Goldfarb. Five minutes farther back came
West Coast regulars and 2004 Oregon trail winners
Carl Jardevall and amity trowbridge in their Mitsubishi
evo.
This year’s Oregon trail Rally featured 16 stages,
but two runnings of one stage road were cut due to a
six-foot accumulation of snow on the road. This was
hard to believe, based on the 90-plus degree temperatures
through most of the weekend, but there
was still snow to be seen on several of the stage
roads. In the hunt for the win, Pastrana/Ringer won
eight of the 14 stages that were contested. Foust/
beavis won four of the remaining six, and Comrie-
Picard/Goldfarb won the other two.
The weekend was a tremendous disappointment
for block/Gelsomino. The duo expressed their
displeasure with the lack of a pre-event reconnaissance
at this event. The previous three events all allowed
teams to pre-run the course at slow speed to
make additional pace notes. after winning both the
Rally in the 100 acre Wood and the Olympus Rally in
dominating fashion, the team has dropped to third
place in the season points standings.
highlighting the importance of consistency,
Comrie-Picard/Goldfarb have moved into the
points lead with two second-place and two fourthplace
finishes. Pastrana/Ringer are in second place
with two seconds and a first.
With many of the top teams dropping out due
to crashes or mechanical failures, new faces began
appearing at the top of the standings. Chief among
these is the sort-of/almost subaru Rally team Usa
“third car” driven by Dave Mirra and co-driven by
alexander Kihurani. The team was third on stage 14
and turned up fourth on stage 16 as well. The team
was already time-barred due to earlier troubles, but
still gave a good showing.