The second day of the 2010 Oregon Trail Rally was filled with attrition and unpredictability as teams took to the hot, dusty stages in the areas surrounding The Dalles and Dufur. NOS Energy Mitsubishi driver Andrew Comrie-Picard (ACP) and co-driver Jeremy Wimpey hold an overnight lead for the second day in a row, with over forty seconds over Privateer Mitsubishi driver Bill Bacon.
Comrie-Picard broke a tie rod on the second loop of stages and had to hold back until the Service in Dufur, but maintained respectable times throughout all of the day’s tests to finish with a healthy lead. Bacon had a close call on SS8 (Fir Mountain Long 2), but managed to recover and is now positioned for his third podium finish of the season.
Current Championship leaders Antoine L’Estage and co-driver Nathalie Richard broke a wheel in two and damaged an oil line to the right front brake caliper on the day’s opening stages, dropping them back to 17th place. After driving furiously and winning the final four stages of the day, L’Estage clawed his way back up the leaderboard to hold third overall overnight.
Oregon’s unforgiving gravel logging and farm roads made for a dramatic day of rallying in the Pacific Northwest as teams challenged a series of both tight, technical stages and wide-open stages. A total of twenty-four out of sixty-one teams have DNF’d so far, with the most notable retirements being that of the two factory-backed teams. Subaru Rally Team USA’s Dave Mirra rolled his car near the start of SS6 (Fir Mountain Long), damaging the car badly enough that he and co-driver Martin Headland could not continue the race.
Monster World Rally Team’s Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino also retired after rolling their Ford Fiesta on SS8 close to the same spot Mirra had his roll. Block won three of the six stages he completed and was leading the rally after SS6 before crashing out of the event. With the absence of SRT USA driver Travis Pastrana, who is in Australia this month touring with his live Nitro Circus show, both of the Works teams that contest the Rally America Series were completely put out of the rally. Both crews were OK and free from any injury.
In the Super Production class, crews were all on the pace today and now make up half of the teams on the leaderboard. Pat Moro and Ole Holter lead the class with a spread of 26.1 seconds over SP points leaders Travis and Terry Hanson. Jimmy Keeney and Jason Grahn round out the potential class podium and have a comfortable lead of over a minute and a half over the next fastest SP team. Moro’s teammate Tim Rooney has been developing speed on the Western events and was competitive in Oregon until retiring on SS8. Ramana Lagemann dropped from fourth overall to seventeenth after incurring a 17:30sec road penalty for speeding at an OBS Control.
In the Two Wheel Drive class, Dillon Van Way and Ben Slocum are leading with a cushion of 2:10.8 seconds over 2WD Championship points leader Chris Duplessis. Duplessis is adapting to a newly-built Scion xD, but still managed to secure two stage wins today. Dodge SRT-4 driver John Conley and co-driver Keith Rudolph hold third in class, but are too far behind Van Way and Duplessis to catch up them tomorrow without attrition coming into play.
In MaxAttack!, Cody Crane and co-driver Billy Irvin lead the field with 31.2 seconds over Van Way. Duplessis is in third and will push to make up time on Dillon tomorrow, but will not risk the car to catch him. A good fight for fourth is expected between Chris O’Driscoll and John Conley tomorrow, with only 2.6 seconds holding them apart. Gaylord Van Brocklin trails fifth place very closely.
Wolfgang Hoeck and Piers O’Hanlon won the Shunpiker Stages Regional Rally in their Open class 2002 Mitsubishi Evo over Brian Svedin and co-driver Teresa Buren. The Super Production team of Mark Mager and Jake Blattner finished on the regional podium again, taking third place today after winning yesterday’s Wagons Ho! regional.
The action resumes tomorrow in Dufur as the remaining teams tackle the final five special stages of the Oregon Trail Rally. Be sure to follow the action via LIVE UPDATES here: www.rally-america.com/events/2010/Oregon/news/liveupdates and on Twitter here: www.twitter.com/rally_america