Double Your Pleasure!!

Mt. Hood Rally - October 18th, 2008  Mt. Hood, OR

1st Place PGT, 1st Place Overall

The final event of the Primitive Race season has concluded and a successful defense of last years’ Mt Hood Rally title was made…. Primitive was awarded the overall win as well as the class win in PGT. We have now won the event overall in both Open [2007] and PGT [2008] classes. It was not easy and several surprises were in the wings trying to unseat the team. Regardless, with plans for a more National Event oriented ’09 season in the Primitive Racing prepped 2008 Subaru STi, we are pleased to have debuted the new Subaru model by completing all 5 rallies entered this year; including 4 podium finishes [3^rd National PGT – Oregon Trail; 2^nd National OA/1^st PGT – Idaho Rally; 1^st Regional PGT – Wild West; 1^st Regional OA/PGT – Mt Hood].

To begin with, we were ecstatic to learn that the issues we had at Wild West were the result of a broken ABS sensor wire – we snapped it off because we had increased wheel travel and did not notice that by utilizing the factory routing we left ourselves without proper travel on the new gravel suspension. That rectified, and by being able to swap brake systems under the Mt Hood sanction rules, we entered last weekends’ event on full gravel suspension with full gravel tires. A bit apprehensive on the first few stages and being first on the road [ever try to drive a road at speed after a bunch of RallyMoto motorcycles have created ‘lines’ on the route? More on that later…] we found ourselves being challenged by more than just the normal AWD contenders – a few dark horse 2-wheel drive competitors were showing how it can be done!

At the midday reseed [a reordering of the start list at a mid point of the event based on stage times to that point], we found that Cody Crane with a front wheel drive Honda CRX as well as a RWD Subaru Impreza were moved in front of us. The CRX was 1 second ahead at that point and the Impreza was 5 seconds in front of them! Most of the spectators and crews were impressed by the showing of the two wheel drive competitors; most of the AWD competitors were a bit shaken. Sometimes the roads go that way though and conditions lend themselves to aggressive two-wheel drivers.

The benefit of all this was that we now had two cars in front of us to sweep the roads and knock back the marbly gravel; what we did not count on was the dust they would generate. As the day progressed and the wind subsided – the dust rose. And hung. Ever try driving full throttle on gravel roads in a wall of dust? Sometimes caution is the better part of valor and many of the following cars found ourselves slowing or stopping on stage to crawl through the veil of the rising brown clouds.

As day turned to night and with dust still hanging on the penultimate stage, we found ourselves 26 seconds back from the Crane CRX but 2 seconds ahead of the RWD converted Impreza. The nearest PGT class competitor was 18 seconds off our pace and had victory in his gunsights. The dust was bad enough the organizers moved to two-minute windows between the cars for the 13 mile final test.

The clock counted down and Paul launched the STi into the darkness; he was trying hard and I could feel it as he threw the car into the corners. Nighttime has an interesting effect on a stage and it feels as if you are absolutely flying – sensations are very different from the right side of the car while trying to keep up and deliver the calls in time with no real perspective of where you are because of the darkness. “Left 6 tightens to 3 downhill!” – we both knew the call should have reflected a bit of a pause in the corner before it abruptly pinched into the <90 degree turn – Paul held the throttle a bit longer than the previous pass trying to keep more speed – it was a bit too much and we slid right; first it was two wheels off; then the edge pulled the rest over – we were side hilling below the road into a clear cut; headlights pointing skyward. Paul instinctively held the throttle wide open to let the Subaru AWD and STi power pull us back to road; I simply added my reassurances by calmly [but BOLDY] stating “P O W E R” to him.

We got lucky in a couple of areas – we did not find any of the stumps that littered the hillside – we also did not slide that far from the road; engine screaming [as much as it can while pulling air through a 32 mm restrictor] and rally tires biting and churning, the car launched back onto the road and the lights regained the gravel track. “70  right 3 downhill  150” I continued……and so it went for the remaining eleven miles. Paul continued to push hard and the new STi responded to everything he requested. After the stage, it did not feel fast – and with the slight loss of the road early on, we felt we had given up our chances. Curiously, the spectators and workers said we were fast – the four glowing rotors were their gauge – and as it turns out the stage time agreed.

We had lost only 10 seconds to the Tabor PGT Subaru but gained over everyone else – enough to see the day end with Primitive atop the podium. Sometimes it goes like that – slow is fast or smooth is fast or sometimes you are just fast enough. The beauty about it all is until that large lady is singing – you just never know.

As a point of reference, on that last stage – Fir Mountain was just over 13 miles [13.23 miles] – our time was 15 minutes and 46 seconds; just over a 50 mph average on a twisting, gravel logging road in the dark, with dust. The fastest time for the stage by any competitor was during the afternoon run – an impressive 15:08 – that equates to a 52.5 mph average. Another stage - 17 South was 6.20 miles; Primitive set top time on that stage with a 5:42 at a 65 mph average speed; the night run was a 6:14. Quite the hobby this gravel Performance Rally.

RallyMoto you say? Expanding the rally experience, the NASA organization has begun a new Paris-Dakar style dual-sport motorbike series. These guys race the rallies we race – but on motorcycles. It is very exciting and quite the spectacle. There were 31 motos at Mt Hood and each rider had a huge smile and a great time. As for being the first car on the road behind them? Well, let us just say that we recommend cars NOT try and follow a RallyMoto race line though a corner – bikes and cars do not follow the same lines! This became more evident as we progressed through the stages – each hard corner had a least one if not 6 tracks of solid two-wheel drifts as the moto-riders – without codrivers to help them – tried to negotiate the stages as fast as possible. In the end the fastest bike was about 4 minutes slower than the faster car [not including road penalties]; I would not do it though [well, I might, if I had a dual-sport bike]. Talking to the moto guys – they would not do it in a car?! Go figure…..

THANK YOU!! to everyone for the great season and for following along. Especially to the guys who have helped us throughout the year by working on the car or servicing or whatever other tasks were down along the line:

Nate Foley [without him the 5 finishes would not have happened]

Kevin Laase [without him backing Nate up at the service parc.....]

Big Ben Trujillo

Ian Mitchell

Greg Huld

Mark Mattson

Richard Buckner [formerly a Subaru parts manager – our safety cage guru and now owner/operator of an established concrete pumping outfit; get in touch with me and I’ll get you a pumper for your projects].

All the organizers/volunteers/sweep/e-crew that spend their time, money, and effort on rally. As well the competitors we race against!

Steve/Kelly at Wild Irish Motorsport

John, Susy and Tom with Subaru - Northwest Region

SURGELINE Tuning of Portland

EXEDY Performance Clutches

Paul continues to work at securing some additional sponsorship to be able to participate in more National Events – perhaps even the series – in 2009. He also continues to sell Subaru performance parts [and now Suzuki SX-4] and teach Rally driving through Primitive Racing. If you have a Subaru and a question or a need for protection or lighting for it – call; we may be able to help!

Short YouTube VIDEO – we are first in the series; PGT competitor Tabor is next [and apparently slower at this corner]; Crane/CRX is 3^rd [most likely faster….listen to that engine whine].

More Wayne Flynn/PDXSports PHOTOS

Looking forward to next season! Keep the rubber side down!

“Double caution, right 3 over big dip, rough”. Wham….uugghhh.

“Single caution, deep dip then left 3”. Screee. Wham…..ouch. Paul's intercom barked back at me – “Didn’t like that one; CEL is on!”

“About 8 miles to go.”

No other lights came on immediately. As we raced through the finish control after pushing through the remainder of the stage, the ABS lights came on and the dash was a confusing array of bright blinking lights. The ECU had failed to safe mode and had taken away our power. Paul turned off the key and coasted to the stop control; after restarting, the codes were cleared and all appeared good again. At least until the next stage; and the stage after that.

That is not to say, of course, that our impromptu strength and durability testing of the cut road tires we were running was of any help….you might recall due to rules we have to run 17” wheels – for which there are no gravel tires. We were out of COOPER Weather-Masters that had served us so well early in the season and felt the street tires would be a good choice on the small gravel and smooth roads. The grip on the custom cut tread was almost there but the construction was too light - the first rock test was not the problem necessarily, it was finishing the tire off on the second rock two corners later that allowed the air to immediate leave escape. “Almost 4 miles to go…..” was the answer to the inevitable question as we continued to push for the stage finish. Whack….whack….whack all the way to the stop control. That cost us about 55 seconds on stage 6 alone and moved us down the leader board. Somewhere there are pictures of yet another nicely squared off wheel with just a few bands of steel tire bead wrapping it......at least the fender is still on the car this time!

Oh, did I mention the left side half-shaft CV boot that left us yet? Yes, somewhere in that mix of issues we came to an ATC making horrendous dragging noises – darned underbody protection was wearing away – and while I was under the back of the car carving away the HDPE protection with the handy Leatherman tool, I hear Paul from the other side of the car. “Um…we’ve got a problem!!” There he stood, staring at a grease stained wheel, hub and fender liner. I grabbed the duct tape – always handy especially in rally! – only to find the boot was not torn, it simply had taken a hit and slipped the metal retaining band. Under we went and a few greasy minutes later the boot was back on and secured via the "back up plan"......zip ties in place, in on just our minute, we ran the next two stages. We were pleased at the next service to see the ties had held…..ah, zip ties, another rally necessity!

Perhaps lulled by our complacency, even the new Primitive Subaru is not immune to the challenges that rally presents. Day 1 ended with us losing enough time on the puncture to finish 2nd in PGT class - we fought back to within 5 seconds of the lead car - and took 5^th overall. Day 2 went better and saw us only dealing with the continued power loss issue and Christmas tree dash [that after stealing some ABS sensors off a 2009 Subaru WRX that had driven unexpectedly by [check them out - they're in the dealerships!!]; good plan but the codes still would not clear for the ECU to return our Surgeline power] – team Primitive was out driven by 4 open class cars [who were really putting in great drives after warming to the roads around Pomeroy]. We finished 1^st in PGT and 5^th overall.

All in all, though the weekend turned out to be a trying event, there were several highlights: our venerable crew man, Nate the Great, was there every time we limped back to service and gladly fixed us up; with help from Dave/Wild Irish Motorsport they had a new axle in place, then removed [we brought the wrong one], then a new CV boot and retainer in place in 20 minutes - not to mention completing the other miscellaneous crap we asked of them; the STi continued to perform even while we messed with it unmercilously; Paul’s new, true, gravel suspension seems to have handled everything without a single hiccup; and to top it off, we spent time in a great community with many great people.

Thanks as always to Subaru NW Region for their continued rally support; also our newest partner in SURGELINE Tuning of Portland [link above]; EXEDY Performance Clutches who continue to see we get the awesome Subaru power to the gravel! Also THANK YOU to the people of Garfield County and Pomeroy WA - we have heard they have agreed to host the Wild West Rally for the next 5 years!

One more event to go for the season – Mt. Hood Rally – in two weeks [October 18]. Come and spectate, help Nate crew, or even sign on to volunteer; added bonus this year is RallyMoto! Yep, people crazier than we are will be negotiating the tracks on Dakar style motorcycles!!