Posted Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 2:30am
The next event in the championship is the 2012 Oregon Trail Rally. Scott Putnam, my codriver, and I are tied for first in the Super Production championship with last year’s SP champions Travis and Terry Hanson. We both have a win and a second in the first two events. Oregon Trail is the third of six events in the championship this year.
Personally I’m ready. With our budget there’s not much we can do in the way of testing. The car has done one regional event since the last round of the national championship. The car owner ran it. They had had a couple issues that have been straightened out. At the end of 100 Acre Wood we had the car working right for the first time this year. Hopefully that translates into a clean run at Oregon. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
We just need to get through the 4 stages on Friday. There’s a lot of standing around and talking with people. Hopefully a lot of fans show up and enjoy the day. I’ve DNFed a couple times in that event on the first day with engine and car on fire problems. I’ve learned to take it easy on the road course stuff. It’s a day that can definitely hurt you. You can’t make up much time on Friday but you can lose everything.
We believe if things go right for us this event we will be battling for an overall podium. I’m hoping we are able to take the fight to the well represented SP class and some fast open class cars. We are especially interested to see how (former Belgian champion) David Sterckx and Crazy Leo go, as like us they have had issues this year. That’s why I’m hoping the car will be running right all weekend. Whatever happens happens after that. One starting point is not what we’re going for. We’re looking to put a Super Production car on the podium. That’s what we’re going for.
We have some better bits on the car. We believe in the parts we’ve put on the car. I believe in my guys and they say it’s a go. I have a good feeling about this event. We just have to go out there and do what we can. This car is treating us well. We’ve battled with it. But now that we have all the bugs ironed out it’s time to attack.
