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Old 05-19-2008, 06:57 PM   #1
ricochet
Driving Sports TV Staff
 
Member#: 15542
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Kirkland, WA
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2004 WRX

Default 2008 Oregon Trail Final

Oregon Trail Rally 2008
By Jeff Zurschmeide, Subiesport Magazine

For event video: Driving Sports TV Rallysport Channel (Event recap video just added! Monday, 7:20p)

The Oregon Trail Rally has always been known as one of the toughest events in the Rally America championship calendar, but it’s never been tougher than this year. Fewer than half the cars entered in the national points rally this past weekend made it to the finish.

It would be easier to list the teams who 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 unseasonal 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 minutes and 36 seconds 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 6-foot accumulation of snow on the road. This was hard to believe, based on the 90+ 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 8 of the 14 stages that were contested. Foust/Beavis won 4 of the remaining 6, and Comrie-Picard/Goldfarb won two stages.

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 fourth place 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 4th on Stage 16 as well. The team was already time-barred due to earlier troubles, but gave a good showing.

In the Production GT class, the win was taken by Patrick Moro and Mike Rossey in their 2002 WRX (pictured above), followed by Nathan and Brandy Conley in their 2003 WRX wagon and local favorites Paul Eklund and Jeff Price driving the only 2008 STI currently competing in North American rally. Eklund is the owner of Primitive Racing Enterprises, a Portland-based rally school and rally supply store.

In the two wheel drive classes, Andrew Havas and Pete Pollard took the Group 5 victory in their 1989 Honda Civic, followed by the MAZDASPEED3 of Eric Burmeister and Bill Westrick and the 2003 Dodge SRT4 Neon of John Conley and Keith Rudolph. Group 2 honors went to Michel Hoche-Mong and Jimmy Brandt in their 1985 VW Golf, followed by the 1982 Alfa Romeo GTV6 of first-time rally driver Austen Angell and veteran co-driver Jeff Zurschmeide. Production was won by the sole surviving entry - a 2004 Suzuki Swift driven by Jim Stevens and co-driven by his daughter Marianne Stevens, both of Kingsville, Ontario.

The Rally America series now moves to the east coast for next month’s Susquehannock Trail Rally on June 6 and 7. The Pennsylvania woods will be the venue for a comeback attempt by Block/Gelsomino and the rest of the contenders. With just three weeks intervening, there’s a lot of repair to get done on many of the top Rally America cars - it will be interesting to note who makes the event and who is forced out for the season. Only one thing is certain - this season is now almost half gone and there’s no telling what will happen next.

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Last edited by ricochet; 06-11-2008 at 07:21 PM.
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Old 05-30-2008, 10:56 AM   #2
M76
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Member#: 180576
Join Date: May 2008
Default SRT USA Team Gear

All the Subaru Rally Team gear is available through http://store.dcshoes.com/Common/rallysection.aspx
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