June 13-16, 2002
Shelton, Washington
DRYAD QUEST & SHITEPOKE CLUBRALLIES
Primitive Racing Takes First in Shitepoke

The Dryad Quest and Shitepoke ClubRallies were held in Shelton, WA. The weather was perfect, the roads terrific, and competition hot. Almost 50 teams were entered in the gravel event. Carl Jardevall was again the man to beat in his Lancer EVO4. Also running hard was Leon Stiles in the Audi 90 Quattro sporting 22 lbs boost and great rally heritage. Paul Eklund lead the Subaru contingent along with Gary Cavett, Lee Shadbolt, Richard Buckner, Andy Sharples and Mika Lepisto. Nate Tennis (Saab 99) and Scott Fuller (VW GTi evo) would duke it out for Group 2 honors while Jay Streets and John Lane, both in Volvos, would battle for Group 5. Mark Tabor in a Nissan went up against Jamie Thomas in a Subaru for the Production Class. PGT was a fight between Brian Scott in a Mazda 323GTX and Bob Trinder in a Subaru Impreza.

Day one's Dryad Quest featured the longest stage in SCCA Performance Rallying, a 28-mile extravaganza which set the tone early for the rest of the rally. Primitive's Eklund suffered a left-rear flat at just past the two-third's mark (which meant over 8 miles left to the finish!) and was forced to change tires, costing the team almost 4 minutes. Jardevall set top time at 28:38 which was over a minute faster than Stiles' 29:59.

By day's end, Jardevall would charge to a serious victory, followed by Stiles in the Audi, and Cavett, Shadbolt and Buckner all in Impreza Turbos. Eklund finished 8th overall after leaving the road on a medium left, late in the rally, and sideswiping a large stump. The impact left a crinkle down the entire right side of the car, sheered off the mirror, and bent an aluminum lower control arm. The team was able to back off the logs and motor to the finish.

Day two saw cooler weather and hotter competition. Jardevall again jumped to a significant early lead followed by Eklund and Stiles hot-on-his-heels. Cavett suffered early transmission failure. By the end of stage 3, Jardevall had a 1:51sec lead over Primitive's Eklund and Stiles trailed Eklund by 15 seconds.

Stage 4 was a repeat of the 28-mile stage. Stiles blew the motor in the Audi at the 13-mile mark and Jardevall suffered catastrophic electrical system failure at about mile 17. Eklund finished the stage with the top time of a 29:34 after easing back just a tad. Whew.

The final stage was an exercise in caution as Primitive drove safely to the finish and won with a 1:35sec margin over Scott Fuller in the ex-Allister McCrae VW. Jay Streets was 3rd, John Lane 4th, and Carey Wright 5th overall. Shadbolt finished 6th overall (p.s., his incredibly quick STi-powered Impreza is for sale now that he has a WRX)

The Northwest Region hosted a pizza party Saturday night and a burger feed on Sunday as part of the awards ceremony. Despite a few incidents like Todd Lengacher doing the stump endo with his Audi, and the fast pace car sliding into a little ditch on a tricky, downhill, off-camber left, most of the DNF's were caused by mechanical failures. Almost every team had a spin or two (or a quick trip through the daisies), but the roads were great, the course marked superbly, and the event ran on time.

MAY 3-5,  2002
Palmdale, CA
PRIMITIVE RACING TAKES ON THE RIM OF THE WORLD RALLY!
Primitive 6th Overall -- 1st in both ClubRally events

I flew down to Palmdale, CA this weekend for a major rally event. 79 cars were in the entry field including drivers from England, Ireland, Mexico and all across the USA. We were invited to run the press stage Friday morning
(where we give reporters a ride in the race car to do stories for Road&Track and other magazines and newspapers), because the Taylor Made Labels Subaru Impreza WRXwas so spiffy looking, and we are a long-time supporter of the rally. I got to meet World Rally Driver Petter Solberg during the press runs and he helped me with the suspension setup on my new rallycar (I was having understeering problems under braking). He is a terrific young man, extremely personable and talented.

Unfortunately, after two runs on that Press Stage before the start of the rally, we broke our center differential gears. Major bummer, it was a near new, sealed transmission. We did not have a suitable spare. Spent 3 hours on the side of the mountain waiting for my service crew to arrive with the trailer. While waiting, I used my tools to begin removing the parts... Didn't think I would even get to start the race after having the car towed down 1000 miles... But as Petter and his team drove by on his way back into town, he said he would ask his crack Prodrive crew to lend me a hand if they could. Wow, that would be great, because I knew my spare tranny was very marginal.


 Something went right, as I got back into town just 2.5 hours from the start of the rally. I got a call that a substitute transmission had been located. I had to rent the $12,000 transmission from the Prodrive team, and gulped when I signed the "you break it, you buy it clause," but they said that there would be only a rebuild fee if I brought it back in good condition. Cool. We finished the repairs only a few minutes before the actual start of the race.

The new transmission was called a "dog-box" which means that it has no synchros for smooth shifts. It also means that is had no odometer/speedometer drive that we could utilize, and therefore we had no way to measure speed or distance (problematical for a rally team). That also meant that our engine control unit did not have a speed sensor, this later played a role how the car ran during the rally.

We started the race and did well on the first few stages. Our check engine light kept coming on, and the car would sputter and pop when we were driving it between each race stage (they take place in the Angeles National Forest above Palmdale). We had to disconnect the battery a few moments before the start of each stage to reset the ECU and give us a few minutes of good running before the "check engine" would appear again while racing. The race began at dusk and we were now running at night. The new transmission was working well. We had KC HID driving lights and PIAA corner lights for maximum illumination on our WRX

On stage 4 (there will be 16 race stages), our power steering system sprung a leak because the constant jumping and bouncing separated the fitting at the power steering rack. We lost power steering, but still finished 9th overall for that segment. On the next stage, I missed a tricky left turn (partially because of no power steering) and slid off the road, hitting an embankment. The right front fender was bent and the tire flat. We finished the stage, but slowly and dropped over a minute in time. We fixed the steering at the next short pit stop. It was now about 10pm.

The last 2 stages of the night were up a steep hill on an asphalt road (which we did well) and back down the short stage were we had gone off on the previous run. This time we made it with no problems and took nearly a minute off our time. The day ended at midnight, and we found out that we had won the Club Rally and were in 6th place in the Overall standings. Not bad for thinking we would never even start given the transmission woes and "check engine" worries only a few hours earlier.

The next day, we tightened up any loose parts, fixed up the fender, and put on new tires for the day of racing. We started out a bit slowly, but gained big ground by pushing hard on stages 9 and 10. I had rolled my Opel rally car on both of these stages in 1985, but now I had a feel for the road. The DMS suspension was working perfectly. This time we stayed on the road, but I sheered off the entire exhaust system after a big jump. We thought it had merely come loose, but our pit crew informed us that it was MISSING at the next pit stop. We now belched orange fire under the car every time we shifted gears!

When the exhaust system went, it took out the oxygen sensor. Now our ECU (engine control unit) was really unhappy. No speed sensor, no oxygen sensor. The "check engine" was lit constantly and every few miles we stopped and reset the ECU. Luckily, it had not caused noticeable problems while on a racing stage--yet. The next stage was a long one called Libra Mountain, and for the first time, the engine began to cut out while on stage. Luckily it was near the end and slowed us little. The next stage was called Maxwell and was incredibly rocky and full of "water bars" (places where a berm of dirt is bulldozed across the road by the Forest Service to allow rainwater runoff to flow into ravines without causing road erosion). The car was airborne more than it was on the ground. We hit a rock with our rear wheel and knocked a chunk of aluminum out of the rim. It held air until the pit stop. We later found out that we were 7th fastest on that stage. Night was again falling and we had three stages left. We would re-run Libra Mountain and the awful Maxwell and have a final sprint to the finish called Grass Mountain.

We were 6th fastest on Libra II, but this time got a rear flat on Maxwell II and dropped a little time. We changed the tire by the side of the road after the stage in the dark. On the last stage, we were given the green light to push hard by our supporters at Subaru Western Region. The hillsides glowed orange with each gear shift on the tight stage. We had a terrific stage going, but made a driving error at speed and again flattened the right front tire. Ooops. We still finished the twisty stage with a good time, but not enough to catch the 5th place car. But it was enough to get the Club Rally win and kept us in 6th place overall for the 2-day event.

After the rally, we returned the dog-box transmission to Prodrive for rebuild. We will get new 1:1 rear transfer gears to repair our own transmission along with new synchros. We had broken 3 rims and used up 12 rally tires during the race. We will need a better designed 3" exhaust system before the next rally (June 15) with a new rear oxygen sensor, 2 front fenders, and a front bumper skin (the left front fender was damaged when the inner fender lining tore out after a hard jump). The power steering problem will be solved by stronger motor mounts and a redesigned connection to the steering rack (looking for a quick steering rack as well). We also found out that the car is about 350 lbs overweight, and will seek to lighten it up a bit.

But in the end we finished first in both Club Rallies (Friday and Saturday) and we took home the 6th place trophy for overall finish in the National Pro Rally. Our service crew, lead by Karen Price and Richard Buckner along with Chris Coffey, Kristen Tabor and Bill Maley proved invaluable as they made the many repairs in and under the car throughout the weekend in the dusty service areas.

I would like to acknowledge the terrific support I receive from Taylor Made Labels, Silverstone Tyres, Subaru Western Region, the crew from www.get-primitive.com , T-Scandia Motors, PIAA Professional Lighting, Turbo XS, Royal Moore Subaru, Vishnu Performance, and www.subaru.net. Special thanks to Prodrive for all the support and good cheer!

Paul Eklund
Car #32

Look for this race to appear on the Speed Channel (channel 607 satellite) in about 3-4 weeks. We were filmed from the helicopter and will probably have at least a few seconds of coverage jumping over a waterbar or two...

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