April 8, 2001 Tigard, OR
The Hairpin Racing Team,
consisting of driver Lee Shadbolt and co-driver Bob Sherman, finished 19th
in the Oregon Trail ProRally despite unusual weather conditions and an
extremely strong field of competitors.
Bob Sherman, fully
recovered from shoulder surgery, had his hands full from the start of the
event. Cold weather saw hail and sleet
on Friday with no improvement in sight for the weekend. The official route book, consisting of
artistic looking “alpine” instructions and exacting mileage indicators, showed
the gravel stages to be long and twisty with frequent elevation changes. Melting snow at higher elevations promised
standing mud or water. The event
officials expressed concern about passage of certain stages.
The start of the rally was
at the famous Tillamook Blimp Hangar, one of the largest wooden buildings in
the world. Stage one was set for a 1.45
mile course near the Hangar on a combination of mud, gravel, grass, and
tarmac. Driver Lee Shadbolt had some
difficulty finding the course, but managed to post a respectable time. The teams then transited to forest stages
outside of Tillamook and along the Nehalem River. It is here that trouble started when a top rally team found
themselves upside down and close to the river.
The rally car required immediate removal and the rest of the competitors
were diverted to the next stage.
Neither member of that team was injured in the incident.
Stage four got interesting
for the Hairpin Racing Team when their Impreza spun on a very narrow section of
road. Over 40 seconds were lost as
Shadbolt backed the car out of a ditch and then spun it around to face the
correct direction on the stage. Things
became even more challenging by stage eight as it became dark and blinding snow
began to fall. This condition was
isolated to just one region and by stage nine the skies were actually clear.
Day two of the rally began
at higher elevations where snow had accumulated during the night. The downhill section of stage ten was
extremely slippery with many rally cars sliding dangerously close to the edge
of the road. Sharp drop offs were
marked as “exposure”. The Hairpin Team
had to intentionally steer into a stump to avoid experiencing one of the
exposures on a particularly tricky part of the stage. The damage was isolated to sheet metal and the team finished the
stage with newfound caution. This stage
was run twice and was equally challenging on the second time through despite
melting snow.
The final stage was back at
the Blimp Hangar where the Hairpin Racing Team managed a comparable time to
their first run on the 1.45 mile stage.
In the end, they finished 19th overall and 12th in
the competitive OPEN class. Overall
winners of the event were Mark Lovell and Steve Turvey in a Prodrive prepared
Subaru Impreza WRX followed by Richard Tuthill and John Bennie in a Mitsubishi
Lancer EVO IV. Seamus Burke, despite heavy
damage from a roll over, finished third in another Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IV.
The next round of the SCCA
ProRally Championship is the Rim of the World ProRally in Palmdale,
California. This event, scheduled for
May 4-5, is perhaps the most grueling event of the series and certainly the
most challenging.
For more information on
Hairpin Racing, please contact Tamara Shadbolt at (503) 624-6366.
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