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June 4 Dryad Quest Rally.
Primitive Racing decided to run hard and run fast on the opening stages of the Dryad Quest Rally in Shelton,WA. The team knew they would need to take every advantage to get and/or stay ahead of tough competition like Carl Jardevall (EVO), Hintz's(WRX), Cavett (Impreza), Havas (EVO), and Wright (Paul's old Impreza), Thomas
(WRX), Patterson (EVO).
"The car was performing well with the new turbo and a little less boost, since we broke it at Rim," said driver Eklund, "and the tuning from PDX Tuning was giving us good solid power, despite the 34mm restrictor which is required."
But coming into the spectator area near the finish, Eklund misjudged a corner and began to turn down the wrong road. Recognizing his mistake, he tried to tighten the turn to get back onto the main road and slid wide, wedging the Primitive Racing Sti in a small ditch just off the road. Although damage was kept to a dent in the driver's door and a crumpled fender rubbing the tire, the
team was soundly stuck.
Co-Driver Jeff Price leapt from the car and tried to help push the car back, motioning for spectators to come help (but marshalls did their job holding them back), but the car would only move about a foot and get high centered on the berm. Jeff moved to the side of the car to push again and in one explosive drop of the clutch the 4 wheels began to claw their way back out of the ditch. This left Price without anything to push against, and on the steep hillside he slipped and fell against the straining car, his feet
coming ever so close to the spininng front tire. Spectators gasped, but he popped up moments later and ran to get into the rally car. Competitors Hintz and Hintz flew by at this moment, showering the car with rocks and dust, declaring that the team had lost over a minute getting un stuck. They followed the thick dust the last 1/2 mile to the stage end, 1.5 minutes behind their compatriots...
After the harrowing start, the Primitive Team began clawing back time, eventually ovetaking the Hintz's and moving up to the 5th Overall position for the day. The roads were quite slippy, with round river stone base instead of the usual crushed gravel. So finishing fifth overall was a good outcome, but the team knew they could do better. Carl Jardevall again proved that he is a top
driver in the USA and smoked the field be almost 3 minutes. Andrew Havas took his rented EVO to a solid second place with Gary Cavett and Carey Wright finishing 3rd and 4th in their GC bodied Impreza's.
Sunday, June 5th, Shitepoke Rally (Western States Rally Championship event):
The rally would be simple. A beautiful 8.5 mile stage run twice in quick succession with a service in between followed by the almost famous "Nahwatzel Complex" stage run twice as well. A short day? Not really, the Nahwatzel stage is 24 miles long and contains every element of a rally stage, from flat and open to tight and twisty including a little uphill and a little downhill. Being
run twice, this stage alone is longer than some other entire rallies.
After the first two stages, Primitive looked to be in second place overall, behind the untouchable Jardevall, and just ahead of Havas and Wright, with Hintz and Cavett only seconds back. Patterson had retired early with diff problems on the first day and Thomas went out with a broken control arm on stage 2...
On the first pass through the long stage, Primitive made no mistakes and felt good about their 25.44 run (just shy of a 60mph average). But seeing Wright's 25.41 and then Hintz's 25.25 took the wind out their sails. Wright was now ahead by one second and Hintz's were now ahead by 15 seconds! The battle was on. One last 24 mile stage. Eklund and Price tightened the belts and tried
to rip an unbeatable time, dropping their score to a 25.03 (full 40 second drop in stage time) but Hintz's pulled a terrific 24.59 beating them by 4 more seconds!!! All bow to the mighty Hintz brothers who took second behind Jardevall! Wright smoked in with a 25.05, but that dropped them to one second BEHIND Primitive in the overall standings (to fourth). Havas suffered differential
problems similar to Patterson and slowed on the final stages dropping to 5th. So Primitive managed a decent 3rd overall and some important Western States Championship points.
What about some others? Mike Goodwin in his PGT Mazda 323GTX, slid wide and smacked a tree with the rear on days one, shearing of the bumper and shattering the hatch. He continued only to roll heavily and wedge between some stumps a few stages later. Car busted, everyone OK. Bad day for Goodwin. Fling Pu's Wellemeyer and Wellemeyer center punched a tree, resculpting the bumper, hood and radiator on their RX7 and were out. After winning Group 5 on Day 1, Foster and Rounds lost the water pump on their aging RX3 and went out on Day 2. April Smith kept her mighty GEO Metro running all weekend with 4 squirrels on the bumper pumping out a full 40hp. Big smiles. Villy "big talk before the rally" Husko rolled his Toyota and was out (see pic). Chip Miller hit the Honda Civic hard, but got back into the rally on Day 2. Cody Crane lost the front bumper on his CRX, but finished well. Gabe von Ahfeld went off hard in his Legacy on Day 2 hurting the car and reportly his co-driver's elbow (swollen). Matt Tabor lost a rear trailing arm and Bruce Tabor perforated the motor with several rods on his Nissan Sentra. Barrett Dash tried to blow up his motor running for miles with no coolant and the motor finally did wheeze to a stop. Pat Harris carried the Fling Pu flag until the final stage, but courage overcame traction and she slid wide in her Datsun 510 and creased the entire right side on a stump breaking the rear suspension.
Pictures of most of these ROLLS and CRASHES are now on-line under the PICTURES and VIDEOS Forum for ProrallyPix, GoFastPhoto, and PDXSports (Culp/Scurti/Flynn)
Full results soon at:
www.nwr-scca.org/rally/dryad/index.html or in PACIFIC NW Forum
Primitive Racing decided to run hard and run fast on the opening stages of the Dryad Quest Rally in Shelton,WA. The team knew they would need to take every advantage to get and/or stay ahead of tough competition like Carl Jardevall (EVO), Hintz's(WRX), Cavett (Impreza), Havas (EVO), and Wright (Paul's old Impreza), Thomas
(WRX), Patterson (EVO).
"The car was performing well with the new turbo and a little less boost, since we broke it at Rim," said driver Eklund, "and the tuning from PDX Tuning was giving us good solid power, despite the 34mm restrictor which is required."
But coming into the spectator area near the finish, Eklund misjudged a corner and began to turn down the wrong road. Recognizing his mistake, he tried to tighten the turn to get back onto the main road and slid wide, wedging the Primitive Racing Sti in a small ditch just off the road. Although damage was kept to a dent in the driver's door and a crumpled fender rubbing the tire, the
team was soundly stuck.
Co-Driver Jeff Price leapt from the car and tried to help push the car back, motioning for spectators to come help (but marshalls did their job holding them back), but the car would only move about a foot and get high centered on the berm. Jeff moved to the side of the car to push again and in one explosive drop of the clutch the 4 wheels began to claw their way back out of the ditch. This left Price without anything to push against, and on the steep hillside he slipped and fell against the straining car, his feet
coming ever so close to the spininng front tire. Spectators gasped, but he popped up moments later and ran to get into the rally car. Competitors Hintz and Hintz flew by at this moment, showering the car with rocks and dust, declaring that the team had lost over a minute getting un stuck. They followed the thick dust the last 1/2 mile to the stage end, 1.5 minutes behind their compatriots...
After the harrowing start, the Primitive Team began clawing back time, eventually ovetaking the Hintz's and moving up to the 5th Overall position for the day. The roads were quite slippy, with round river stone base instead of the usual crushed gravel. So finishing fifth overall was a good outcome, but the team knew they could do better. Carl Jardevall again proved that he is a top
driver in the USA and smoked the field be almost 3 minutes. Andrew Havas took his rented EVO to a solid second place with Gary Cavett and Carey Wright finishing 3rd and 4th in their GC bodied Impreza's.
Sunday, June 5th, Shitepoke Rally (Western States Rally Championship event):
The rally would be simple. A beautiful 8.5 mile stage run twice in quick succession with a service in between followed by the almost famous "Nahwatzel Complex" stage run twice as well. A short day? Not really, the Nahwatzel stage is 24 miles long and contains every element of a rally stage, from flat and open to tight and twisty including a little uphill and a little downhill. Being
run twice, this stage alone is longer than some other entire rallies.
After the first two stages, Primitive looked to be in second place overall, behind the untouchable Jardevall, and just ahead of Havas and Wright, with Hintz and Cavett only seconds back. Patterson had retired early with diff problems on the first day and Thomas went out with a broken control arm on stage 2...
On the first pass through the long stage, Primitive made no mistakes and felt good about their 25.44 run (just shy of a 60mph average). But seeing Wright's 25.41 and then Hintz's 25.25 took the wind out their sails. Wright was now ahead by one second and Hintz's were now ahead by 15 seconds! The battle was on. One last 24 mile stage. Eklund and Price tightened the belts and tried
to rip an unbeatable time, dropping their score to a 25.03 (full 40 second drop in stage time) but Hintz's pulled a terrific 24.59 beating them by 4 more seconds!!! All bow to the mighty Hintz brothers who took second behind Jardevall! Wright smoked in with a 25.05, but that dropped them to one second BEHIND Primitive in the overall standings (to fourth). Havas suffered differential
problems similar to Patterson and slowed on the final stages dropping to 5th. So Primitive managed a decent 3rd overall and some important Western States Championship points.
What about some others? Mike Goodwin in his PGT Mazda 323GTX, slid wide and smacked a tree with the rear on days one, shearing of the bumper and shattering the hatch. He continued only to roll heavily and wedge between some stumps a few stages later. Car busted, everyone OK. Bad day for Goodwin. Fling Pu's Wellemeyer and Wellemeyer center punched a tree, resculpting the bumper, hood and radiator on their RX7 and were out. After winning Group 5 on Day 1, Foster and Rounds lost the water pump on their aging RX3 and went out on Day 2. April Smith kept her mighty GEO Metro running all weekend with 4 squirrels on the bumper pumping out a full 40hp. Big smiles. Villy "big talk before the rally" Husko rolled his Toyota and was out (see pic). Chip Miller hit the Honda Civic hard, but got back into the rally on Day 2. Cody Crane lost the front bumper on his CRX, but finished well. Gabe von Ahfeld went off hard in his Legacy on Day 2 hurting the car and reportly his co-driver's elbow (swollen). Matt Tabor lost a rear trailing arm and Bruce Tabor perforated the motor with several rods on his Nissan Sentra. Barrett Dash tried to blow up his motor running for miles with no coolant and the motor finally did wheeze to a stop. Pat Harris carried the Fling Pu flag until the final stage, but courage overcame traction and she slid wide in her Datsun 510 and creased the entire right side on a stump breaking the rear suspension.
Pictures of most of these ROLLS and CRASHES are now on-line under the PICTURES and VIDEOS Forum for ProrallyPix, GoFastPhoto, and PDXSports (Culp/Scurti/Flynn)
Full results soon at:
www.nwr-scca.org/rally/dryad/index.html or in PACIFIC NW Forum