PRIMITIVE RACING Performance, Marathon and Brisk TSD Rallying

A report on the 2007 Oregon Trail Rally by Jeff Price, co-driver

The second most repeated quote about rally is: "In order to finish first - one must first finish". After approximately 110 competitive stage miles Primitive Racing stood on top of the Regional podium - with hardly any issues to speak of - and all while the event held a near 40% attrition rate - only 46 of 75 competitors finished. The team finished 11th overall just behind arch rival and Primitive Rally School Instructor, Jamie Thomas.  Other top regional contenders like the Hintz Brothers, Ralph Kosmides, and Cavett/Alan suffered mechanical woes or crashed and failed to make the finish. Andrew Pinker from Australia finished 1st Overall and garnered a spot in the XGames Rally.

"It was a very very tricky event. The roads are crowned, made of clay, and have a thin coating of loose gravel. Add in some rain, and trees on both sides and you've got a very slippery surface, a narrow margin for error, and major consequences for a mistake." - a California Rallyist's description.

 

 "We were glad to run a clean event this weekend. Ultimately, that was the goal after the past few Oregon Trail events." said Paul Eklund of the team "We definitely needed to get the stink off," chimed in co-driver Jeff Price noting the litany of problems the team had faced in prior 5 years (gearbox (twice), out-of-gas on transit, hitting barrier at PIR, etc). And contrary to early spectator reports - none of the Primitive cars hit any rocks [there is a big difference in "coming close" and "actually hitting"]. Hell, we even managed to miss all the gates at PIR this time! By the way, thanks should go to the organizers for not putting up any gates. Just the same we missed most of the hay bales that took their places. MOST of them.

 

Weather was not friendly after a beautiful start Friday evening at Portland International Raceway - but that is common for the Oregon spring event. Snow [mid-day Saturday] was reported falling on the stages; hail; torrential rain; sunshine; fog. It was all there - and we all drove through it. We actually did not think that the roads were all that bad - the gravel bases held well and the high crowns kept most of the water off. Some rutting occurred with the significant run-off and standing water with mud was waiting for those who ventured from the roads but overall, not bad at all.

 

Biggest "yikes" was the R3 into L3 [a '3' is about a 90 degree corner] sequence where we saw only a set of skidding tracks leading to the L3 - and exiting straight-away over the edge. About the time we exited the leading R3 corner both the driver, Dave Anton and co-driver, Dominik Jozwiak popped up onto the roadway - sans car. We believe they were about five positions in front of us - we were the first to see them return to the road and display their OK sign [obviously some of that time is securing the car and retrieving warning triangles etc - but they were DEEP (like 200 feet down). The inside story here is they rented the car from Canadian Pat Richard; Pat had actually pre-sold the car to a different pair and was due to deliver it after this event.]. Kenny 'Cowboy' Bartram suffered the same consequences when he left the road [photo attached; Bartram] - all okay as well. Needless to say the E-Crew/Sweep Boys were a busy bunch of volunteers this weekend! [see the JDietz pic; typical sweep guy ready to pull - yes, that is a bumper skin on top of his rig. Besides sweeping competitors they also pick up remnant leftovers.littering is BAD!].

 

Thrown in for good measure is a shot from Friday PIR - the tracks tell the story! The car [Burmeister/Shindle - Mazda 3] came over a crest on the back graveled dike road a bit wide onto the slippy turf - they made it through the tree and through one post. Some zipties and application of hammer and they were back in it [as a point of reference, the Primitive Subaru runs about 85-90 MPH just before the crest]. Final picture is Friday night stages at PIR.  It was good to live up the the expectations set in the news stories run prior to the rally (see link below)

 

All in all, short of (2) spins and an almost mis-direction in a confusing corner [it was a pair of right turns, the last was at an uphill 'T' intersection. Because of the crest no road was visible and the treeline appeared to say "TURN LEFT" - Paul tried for the left but we got it cleared up with a "RIGHT. RIGHT. RIIIIIIGHT!!!"] we were very clean. Notes flowed well and the SUBARU worked fine. We'll have some time now before Olympus to complete some minor maintenance items without worrying about major repairs - a relief!  Thanks to all our sponsors and supporters that made this victory possible:  Subaru NorthWest Region, Exedy Racing Clutches, PDX Tuning, PIAA Lighting, Royal Moore Subaru, H&R Springs and our terrific crew that held it all together for the weekend!

 

See you at the Olympus Rally in Washington [May 19/20].   www.olympusrally.com  

 

J e f f   P r i c e
PRIMITIVE Racing
Co-Driver #233                         www.get-primitive.com  (more details and TEAM INFO)

 

PS We like the way the Widmer Hefeweizen colors work with the car...and yes, we actually won something.(10) real cases of something!! Now if anybody knows somebody at Widmer, we'd lke to talk to them!   Great links below:

 

PHOTOS [official RA shots]

 

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS [pretty good shots]

 

VIDEO [from local film student - this is raw footage, but short and sweet]

 

EVENT PHOTOS [slideshow from 'official' photographer]

 

MORE PHOTOS [mish-mashed throughout various topic headers.if you want to spend the time]

 

RESULTS [click on "results" and then select REGIONAL from drop down box on right or see printable results on the bottom]

 

NEWS CLIP [click here for a news spot featuring Paul Eklund and the Primitive Rally Car]