The fifth Oregon Trail Rally started at Portland International Raceway under a surprisingly brutal sun for the season and locale. Media all over the 115-degree track fought off heat exhaustion as they chased racing legends and would-bes from stage to stage. The Oregon Trail Rally is noted by many as the most technical rally in North America. Portland itself sees roughly, 144 days of sunshine per year. Between wet roads, cliffs, and the way Oregon forest roads are crowned, one can understand why the rally has such an unforgiving reputation. There isn't a lot of room for error. And things get even more interesting when everyone expects rain and Oregon throws heat and dry roads. Numerous racers ended up bringing the wrong tires to the Oregon woods with them. Because the Oregon Trail Rally counted for three separate race series there was good attendance. Sadly, more than half the teams on the stages the weekend of May 16th through 18th failed to finish.
While the rally, we had an opportunity to talk a little bit about desert racing with 2007 X-Games Gold Medalist, Tanner Foust. He provided an interesting perspective on rally racing as a guy who's sat in a Baja Challenge car for the 1000 and has ideas on racing Pro2 class in CORR sometime soon. Tanner's advice for anyone with desert racing roots who'd like to hop in a rally car might be a tall order though. "The best piece of advice I can offer a desert racer is to get a co-driver who doesn't like to drink beer before he gets in the car!" laughed Tanner when polled for his counsel.
Travis Pastrana and Derek Ringer executed turn after flawless turn without pushing as hard as they could all weekend. A careful approach to Oregon's very technical stages kept them on the course and on the top of the podium by race end. | 
Carl Jardevall and co-driver Amity Trowbridge made a respectable showing on Stage 8 and held their nerves and car together well enough to pull a third place over all finish from the race. | 
Drivers seemed focused but relaxed at these first stages of the Oregon Trail Rally. Later, when the abuses of racing began to take a toll on machines and teams, stress was more evident. |
Paul Eklund shows a media cameraman a good time during the press stage of the Oregon Trail Rally. The 2008 STi performed well during the event. Several spectators mentioned that the '08 body style is starting to grow on them. | 
Matthew Johnson and co-driver Jeremy Wimpey pushed a little too hard in their new open class car and like so many this weekend, went off. Stage 6 spelt disaster for the team in Oregon, but we hope to see them return, wiser and faster at the next race. | 
Andrew Comrie-Picard relays a humorous story to fans and teammates in the pits following an early stage of the race. Andrew and his co-driver Marc Goldfarb fought well all weekend to finish in second position at the Hillsboro Fairgrounds on Sunday, May 18th. |
Following the Parc Expose at Portland International Raceway, teams fired up their engines and put on their game faces for stage one of the race. The stages at PIR while grueling for spectators in the intense heat but were also ideal for watching a lot of action in a motor sport where most events happen out in the woods where only race marshals have a view. | 
2007 X-Games Rally Champion, Tanner Foust patiently ferried media around the press stage at PIR on day one. Tanner and co-driver, Christine Beavis did well all weekend until Stage 15 when a hard roll ended their bid for victory. | 
Brian Dondlinger and Dave Parps of Wisconsin made a respectable showing in this yellow GTI. VW fans were pleased with a healthy turnout of GTIs at the Oregon Trail Rally. |
Fans line the wall at one of the few paved sections of the stages as cars were sent down to a hairpin right and then out onto the dirt roads around the raceway. | 
Tanner Foust executes a beautiful turn just a few miles before the fateful roll would end his day. | 
After winning two rallys back-to-back leading up to the Oregon Trail Rally, Stephan Verdier and Scott Crouch were no doubt bummed to DNF this event. Hopefully, we won't see the ghost of last years all or nothing record return to haunt this team in 2008. |
Andy Pinker pushes the STi on Stage 14. Pinker and Durant were keen to win this event both for the points and the bragging rights of being undisputed masters of Oregon's tough roads three years in a row. | 
This Sentra had a rough weekend, going off in two stages. The team opted to continue to gain seat time, despite being pulled out of a ditch twice. | 
Garth Ankeny and Russ Kraushaar both local to the area fought heat problems all weekend on their beautiful 69 Saab |
Andrew Comrie-Picard puts the Evo through its paces at Portland International Raceway on day one of the Oregon Trail Rally during a press stage. | 
Stage 6 of the rally took more than one team out of the race. Rally America recovery teams worked overtime during the weekend to clear the carnage of the unlucky or unwise. | 
Day three of the Oregon Trail Rally was about forty five minutes West of Portland in heavily treed stages. Pictured here, a lucky Subie escapes the nasty roads, unscathed. |