2009 Wild West

The town of Pomeroy and the citizens of Garfield County, Washington once again welcomed rally teams to the Wild West rally, the third running of that event in the area. The two-day event featured lots of sun, lots of dust, and over 100 stage miles of exciting rally competition.

Carl Jardevall made the trek north from the Bay Area in California to win both days in his Nordic Motors Evo, with Jason Grahn handling co-driving duties. Bend, OR speedster Carl Decker, with co-driver Adam Craig, kept the Jardevall/Grahn team honest, finishing second both days. On Day two, Decker and Craig were only 14 seconds behind Jardevall! Third both days was another Bend-based driver, Brian Svedin, also in a Subaru withTeresa Buren reading the routebook. Production GT was an interesting affair on Saturday, as the top three teams in the class all crashed on the same corner, so the Mark Tabor/Ben Bradley team inherited the win, and fifth overall. On Sunday, Mike Goodwin and Tina Warner took the win in a WRX, using a radiator supplied by a rival team to repair damage from their previous day's off.

The two-wheel-drive classes also were very interesting. In Group 5, siblings Bryan and Rudy Watson took the wins both days in a VW Rabbit, while Matts Weaver and Orem got used to a new RX-7 (the ex-Heredos/Brown car). Group 2 was won by Tom and Don Burress both days, returning from a lengthy hiatus from the sport, in a new VW Golf. The Honda CRX of Cody Crane and Billy Irvin left the road and were time barred on Saturday, then on Sunday had to slow down for the rough last stage and came up 12 seconds short of the VW. The Production class had different winners both days. On Saturday it was the Acura RSX of Kristen and Jan Tabor who had a solid run and came out on top. On Sunday, the Dan Rockrohr/Allie Jacobs team turned up the heat and beat the ladies by 20 seconds.

In RallyMoto, Peter Nielsen won both days on a Honda XR650R.

With just one event remaining in the 2009 Pacific NorthWest Rally Championship, some of the classes are still up for grabs. See you all in the Hood River area on October 24 for the Mt. Hood Rally!

Photo: Jim Culp, http://www.prorallypix.com