Oregon Trail Rally 2009 Recap
Posted on 21. May, 2009 by Jeff Zurschmeide in Motorsports
The Oregon Trail Rally is known as one of the toughest on the Rally America calendar, and as the fourth round of the national championship series, it’s the moment when the race for the title is at its most intense. Early in the season, it’s anyone’s game; Late in the year, the race is likely to be a foregone conclusion. But right now is the moment when the also-rans fall away and the real contenders emerge.
Oregon Trail is tough for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the traditional punishing roads of Oregon’s coast range with their extreme crown to drain the coast’s prodigious rainfall. The organizers lost access to those roads this year, and moved the rally to the equally challenging slopes of Mount Hood. The roads in the Cascades aren’t as crowned as the coast range, but they are substantially rougher, with embedded boulders that can launch a rally car.
Another reason that top rally teams approach Oregon with respect and not a little trepidation is that Oregon Trail is one of the few rallies that provides no “Recce” – the term for reconnaissance runs down the stages. In recce, the teams drive each stage at 5-10 MPH so that they can adjust the pace notes provided by the organizers and make their own observations. Oregon provides “video recce”, but it’s just not the same. For practical purposes, this rally is run blind; the first time the competitors see the road, they’re running for all the marbles.
Together, these factors account for the historically high DNF rate at Oregon Trail. On some stages it’s not uncommon for the last competitors to pass 5, 6, or even 7 cars parked upside down in the deep ditches or out of sight down a hillside. Mechanical failures are also commonplace.
Heading into the event, Canadian Mitsubishi pilot Andrew “ACP” Comrie-Picard and his co-driver Robbie Durant held the season points lead in their NOS Energy Drink Mitsubishi Evo due to a weak start by Subaru Rally Team USA. The top cars of SRTUSA had yet to both finish a rally this year. Last year’s champion Travis Pastrana took the win with co-driver Christian Edstrom at the Sno*Drift season opener, and Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino took their usual win at 100 Acre Wood, but stumbled again at Olympus, giving Pastrana/Edstrom the win in Washington.
Comrie-Picard and Durant showed the value of consistency, making the podium in each of the first three events, followed closely by perennial contender Tanner Foust and co-driver Chrissie Beavis. Also in the hunt this year is the Polish team of Andi Mancin and and co-driver Maciej Wislawski in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X.
William Bacon and Peter Watt entered the first two events of the year in a 2006 Mitsubishi Evo IX. This team finished a strong fifth at Sno*Drift, and they picked up fourth overall at 100 Acre Wood. Yet they were no-shows at the west coast events, effectively eliminating them from championship contention. Hopefully they’ll come back for the full program in 2010.
Oregon Trail got underway with a series of Super-Special stages at Portland International Raceway on Friday evening. This spectator special event is located in the heart of Portland, and drew over 2,000 fans. At the end of these short stages, Tanner Foust and Chrissie Beavis held the lead. Trailing Foust/Beavis by four seconds was Pastrana/Edstrom, while Comrie-Picard/Durant are another six seconds back, in third place. Block/Gelsomino were another second behind ACP, while Mancin/Wislawski rounded out the top five.
But as rallyists often note, you can’t win the Oregon Trail Rally at PIR, but you can sure as hell lose it there. Both ACP and Pastrana have ended their rallies at PIR in years past, and this time ACP nearly took himself out on the press stage with a front-end crash before the rally ever began. But a heroic effort had the car ready in time and he ran strong throughout the weekend.
“Having to do a major mechanical rebuild when you’re 2,500 miles from home
can be a challenge, but our friends in the Mitsubishi community came through
for us here,” said Comrie-Picard. “A big thanks to everybody, especially
Aaron from English Racing in Camas, Washington, and Gene from Magic Auto in
Elma, Washington, for helping us out.”
Not so lucky was the team of Matt Johnson and Jeremy Wimpey. Their Subaru blew a turbo on Friday and was out for the duration.
On Saturday the event moved up the Columbia River Gorge to tiny Odell, Oregon for the serious wilderness portion of the rally. Seven stages on Saturday abused the cars but generated comparatively few crashes. One notable casualty, however, was the hapless duo of Block/Gelsomino. Their car lost a rear tire, which came apart in spectacular style and destroyed a rear suspension control arm, ending the team’s rally and chalking up the third DNF in the first four events.
“It’s getting a little frustrating,” said Block. “I have the speed, I feel, to win every single one of these… I thought I had some bad luck last year and it’s getting worse this year.”
Indeed, Block is one of the great rally drivers of our generation, but the level of competition in Rally America right now is extremely high. To run at the front, teams have to stay on the bloody ragged edge of control, and Block/Gelsomino have simply found the far side of that edge more often this year. Block is wrong about one thing: it’s not bad luck; it’s just rally racing.
Yet even after retiring from the national competition, Block and Gelsomino came out and ran the stages on Sunday for fun and set some of the fastest times of the weekend. The team took fast time on all Sunday stages, but in a gesture of sportsmanship did not turn in their final time card so as not to influence the regional results.
Overall, Block/Gelsomino won 6 stages and finished third or lower on 6 more. Pastrana/Edstrom won 5 stages and finished second on 6 stages, third once, and fourth four times. That was good enough to take the win at Oregon Trail.
Second place overall went to Foust/Beavis with 3 stage wins, 5 seconds, 4 thirds, and 4 stages in fourth or fifth place. Third place and their first U.S. podium went to Mancin and Wislawski with two stage wins, two seconds, two thirds, and 8 stages in fourth or fifth place.
Andrew Comrie-Picard and Robbie Durant finished just off the podium in fourth place – their first time off the podium this year. The team scored two stage wins, 3 seconds, 6 thirds, and 5 stages at fourth or below. A flat tire on Sunday cost the team a minute on stage, which dropped them from a likely second place finish.
SRTUSA team Dave Mirra and Derek Ringer scored their first Super Production win of the year, but had the result overturned due to a rules violation discovered in post-race technical inspection, giving the win to Jimmy and Melissa Keeney in their 2007 Subaru Impreza WRX STI.
The 2WD class was won by young phenoms Dillon Van Way and Benjamin Slocum in their 2002 Ford Focus.
After the rally, the buzz was that Tanner Foust will be leaving the Mitsubishi fold to race in a Ford factory-backed effort using the new Fiesta. This remains unannounced at press time, but would not be surprising given Foust’s potential to win the championship.
In addition to the season championship, all the above teams are competing for a shot at the X Games this summer. With six drivers already invited, there are four spots open to top-scoring competitors after the first five rounds of the series. Pastrana, Block, Comrie-Picard, Foust, Mirra and Johnson are expected to return to the Los Angeles event. Mancin and SP team Piotr Wiktorcszyk and Grzegorz Dorman are among the top contenders for the remaining positions.
Rally America will also extend X Games invitations to two additional so-called “at-large” drivers, who have not yet been named. Van Way and Slocum would be good choices, and we’ll put in a good word for Bacon and Watt, who could still be the surprise of the summer.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
James
12. Nov, 2009
Is Travis Pastrana and Ken Block doing better, or are did they get lucky during the oregon trail rally. I haven’t kept up recently, but have heard they haven’t been doing to well.