BLOOMINGTON, Minnesota -- CPD Racing accomplished their best SCCA ProRally finish to date at the Oregon Trail Rally, 11th overall. Team driver Doug Havir and co-driver Scott Putnam were ecstatic to have finished that high in the results in only their third ProRally start. Their rally car, a 2001 Subaru WRX prepared by Prodrive, performed flawlessly throughout the event.

"It’s great to not have to worry about the car," said driver Havir. "It makes it easier to concentrate on my driving and getting the most out of the car on each turn. I was pleased with the way we ran all weekend, but didn’t realize that our stage times were good enough to put us that far up in the standings."

A new twist to rallying in the U.S. is the addition of Stage Notes, a more thorough method of describing the rally roads than has been used in the past. Most teams said there was a learning curve, but overall were enthusiastic about having more information to define the rally route.

"The Stage Notes were a little tough at first," said Putnam, "but once we got used to them we did pretty well. It’s sort of like learning a new language. With some practice we expect it will become second nature."

There were only 27 finishers out of the 40 cars that started the Oregon Trail ProRally. Havir and Putnam were shown in 14th place in the Provisional Results, but a check of individual stage scores found a couple of errors. Once those were corrected the team was credited with 11th overall and 8th in the Open class.

The overall win at Oregon Trail went to the team of David Higgins and Chris Patterson in a Subaru WRX entered by AV Sport of Phoenix, Arizona. It was Higgins’s second victory of the season and puts him in the SCCA ProRally Championship points lead.

The next event on the SCCA ProRally Championship is Rim of the World, held May 3-4 out of Palmdale, California. CPD Racing will introduce their new bright yellow Subaru WRX at Rim. The CPD Racing Subaru is sponsored by Bloomington Subaru and www.Subaru.net.