Tigard, OREGON -- The Cherokee Trails Rally came to swift conclusion for the Primitive Racing team. The team was preoccupied with a bad cylinder in their new engine the night before the rally and were uncertain whether the motor would hold up under 3 days of hard racing. The #4 cylinder was very low on compression indicating a possible broken ring or ring landing. "The engine smoked a bit under hard acceleration and we calculated that we would add about a quart of oil at every service," said interim crew chief R.Dale Kraushaar.

But the plan was never executed as team owner and driver Paul Eklund set up wide for a corner and ended up overshooting the turn. "The car began to understeer and we simply shot off the road surface and down a steep enbankment," said Eklund matter-of-factly. "It was simply driver error in allowing for the slippery conditions and cold tires," admitted Eklund, "I can see from the video that the other cars were staying in tight and ditch hooking, which worked much better than my approach for that slippery turn. Our triangles and slow down signals saved several other teams from a similar fate."

"Slow sweep was able to quickly pull us back onto the road, but we elected not to continue due to the engine's uncertain condition," said co-driver Scott Huhn after driving the screaming yellow Subaru Impreza USX back to service. "I guess this new engine made just a little bit too much power and broke something. We are performing our own development of the EJ22 closed-deck motor, and this is just a small setback that is expected when pushing stock components to their limits. I continue to be amazed at how much power a stock block can produce."

The team is now tearing down the motor to learn exactly what is causing the low compression and plans to have the 280hp motor back up and purring by the start of the Oregon Trail rally on April 7th. "We just got the car back from the long tow home, but the great people at Royal Moore Subaru in Hillsboro, Oregon (the closest Subaru dealer to the race) are helping us to get the car ready for the race," says Eklund. "This event is virtually in our backyard, so we hope to put in a good showing. We have consistently been one of the top finishing privateer teams, and we know we can finish in the top 5 if we can get the USX a little more reliable."

Primitive Racing is sponsored by Drummond MotorSports, www.subaru.net, T-Scandia Motors, Royal Moore Subaru and Silverstone Rallye Tyres.

Visit www.get-primitive.com for historical information on the Primitive Racing team.

Please visit http://www.writerguy.com/primitive/cv/resume.htm for race
history or
http://www.writerguy.com/primitive/cv/pix1.htm for historical pictures

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