HALF MOON BAY, California -- The Nordic Motors in Motion rally team of Carl Jardevall and Amity Trowbridge captured their best ever SCCA ProRally finish by taking second place overall at the Oregon Trail ProRally. They were the Open class winners as well. Jardevall and Trowbridge even led the event for awhile in their 1997 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV, but were overtaken late in the rally by the hard charging Patrick Richard in a Group N category Subaru, who eventually won. Richard's margin of victory over Jardevall was only 25 seconds after two days of rallying.

Richard, whose sister Nathalie co-drove for him, led after three short stages held at Portland International Raceway on Friday evening. Seamus Burke and Charles Bradley grabbed the early lead on Saturday in their more powerful 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 8, but Jardevall set fastest times on stages 5 and 6, which elevated the Sideways Swede into the overall lead by two seconds over Burke.

"On Saturday there were a few cars ahead of us on the road" said Jardevall. "They swept the rocks away which gave us better traction. We were only a few seconds behind Burke, then he spun which cost about 20 seconds and we took over the lead after stage six. He was faster than we were on later stages, and by the end of the day we were 35 seconds behind him."

Richard, who was in third place going into the Sunday stages, came on strong with the new day, passing Jardevall for second place. Burke continued to hold the overall lead until a blown head gasket put his Mitsubishi out of commission after stage 13.

"We did not have a real good morning on Sunday," said Jardevall. "We were one of the first cars on the road so we were sweeping the (gravel) marbles off the surface and not getting as much traction. And I kept hearing noises in the car which I thought might be serious, so I was not pushing at 100 percent. As it turns out, the car ran just fine. All the crew had to do was check it over at each service and change tires."

Oregon Trail is the second event in the SCCA ProRally Championship presented by Hot Wheels. It is based out of Hillsboro, and runs on closed mountain roads between Portland and the Pacific coast.

This is the first year that Mattel's Hot Wheels has backed the SCCA ProRally series, which is in its 32nd season. Look for special edition Hot Wheels rally car replicas to be introduced in the next few months.

The Nordic Motors in Motion rally team is running a very limited schedule of events on the West Coast this season. Jardevall and Trowbridge won both of the Doo-Wop ClubRallys last month in Washington state. Jardevall will not be competing at the Rim of the World ProRally in May, but Amity will be co-driving for Bill Malik in a Volvo 240.

More details on the Nordic Motors in Motion rally effort can be found on the team's web site: rally.nordicmotors.com.