Doo Wop Rally Memories 2009

Doo Wop 2009 Coverage from the Dusty Times

Jardevall Captures Fourth Doo Wop Crown
Story and photos by Jim Culp

Carl Jardevall and Dave Schrenk

Oakville, WA - Carl Jardevall and co-driver Dave Schrenk drove through rain, snow, sleet, hail and even a little sunshine to win the 21st Doo Wop Rally Series Championship. Driving a Mitsubishi Evo 8, the Nordic Motors team finished three minutes and 29 seconds ahead of the new Subaru Impreza of Mark Mager and Miller Dumaoal.

Organized by rally legend Ray Damitio, the NASA Rally Sport event started in the port city of Aberdeen and raced through everything Mother Nature could dish out in the hills of Southwest Washington. Conditions varied from stage to stage and sometimes from mile to mile.

A native of Sweden, Jardevall currently resides in Half Moon Bay, California, but he’s been rallying in the Northwest since 1989. Jardevall was also the Doo Wop Series Champ in 2000, 2004 and 2007.  His co-driver Schrenk is a long time Saab racer from Seattle. 

Mager and Dumaoal were the fastest of the local teams, finishing 1:13 ahead of Dave and Rick Hintz in their Subaru WRX. The Subaru STI of Paul Eklund and Jeff Price finished fourth, while yet another Impreza driven by Mike Goodwin and Tina Warner finished fifth overall and first in the Production GT class. 

The battle for the two-wheel-drive championship prize was a classic. Adam Crane and Britta Nielsen were the fastest two-wheel drive finisher in a Group 2 Toyota Corolla, but their path to victory was a little unusual. Racing through the woods on Saturday, Crane and Nielsen spotted their toughest competition stuck in a ditch. Instead of celebrating, they stopped and offered a tow to Nate Tennis and Amity Trowbridge. “We sure weren’t expecting it,” said Trowbridge, “they really kept us in the rally.”

On Sunday, Tennis and Trowbridge stormed into the class lead, but the motor in their Saab 99 started to expire. On the last stage of the day, the Saab was overheating and limping along on two cylinders. Crane and Nielsen took the lead in the last mile of the rally, taking the two-wheel drive honors by 11 seconds after two days or racing.

RallyMoto
The 2009 edition of the Doo Wop Rallies included motorcycles for the first time. The RallyMoto competitors enjoyed a tight competitive battle with Iain Glynn coming out on top. BMW rider Glynn came from last place on day one to finish 17 seconds ahead of David Dunn on a KTM and Jerry Brown on a BMW, who finished tied for second place.
Another BMW rider, Mark Albertson finished fourth, while Mitch Comstock was fifth on a KTM. The whole RallyMoto field was covered by just two and a half minutes. Even with the challenging weather, the first Doo Wop RallyMoto was gauged a success by all involved.

 
Iain Glynn


David Dunn

 
Jerry Brown

Doo Wop 1
The rally opened with a short run down the Blue Slough Road. This is a lovely little paved road that looks straight on the map, but follows a crooked path; left, right, rising and falling. The road is shoehorned between the Chehalis River on the north and a hillside on the south.

Jardevall and Schrenk started first and posted a time of 3:08, all the fast Subarus in the northwest couldn’t beat that time, but one car did. The defending Doo Wop champ John Lane and his co-driver Jason Grahn posted a 3:06 in their 1976 Volvo 262.

Lane was even faster on his second run down the Blue Slough Road, but he missed one of the chicanes used by the organizers to slow the top speeds on the pavement. Jardevall posted the fastest time on the second stage, and all the other stages in the rally, to take the overall win by 1:19 over Mager and Dumaoal. Mager’s speed in his new Subaru Impreza was impressive as he battled Hintz for the title of fastest northwest driver. The two swapped stage times early on, but in the end it was Mager ahead by 23 seconds. 

The two runs through the Montesano City Forest were the highlights of the day. The nine mile stage known as Pico is a technical challenge with lots of slippery turns and trees lurking at the edge of the road. This year the weather added to the difficulty, at times the stage was covered with frozen rain and snow.

Mark Tabor and Nick Taylor raced to fourth overall at Doo Wop 1 in a Production GT class Subaru WRX. Charles Buren and Mike Milos were fifth in the first two-wheel-drive car, another Subaru Impreza. Eklund and Price were sixth, running on three cylinders after a coil became disconnected on the first stage. Eklund said, “we an engine vibration and it sounded strange on stage, but I never felt that it was really down on power, I thought I had bent a valve.”

Goodwin and Warner were seventh overall, second in PGT, while Lane and Grahn finished eighth delayed by a broken wheel and a spin on the day’s final stage. Malcolm Davies and Bruce Parker were ninth with Steve and Kelly Greer tenth. Matt Tabor and Jeff Zurschmeide finished eleventh, third in the PGT class.

Crane and Nielsen were the Group 2 winners in their Corolla, twelfth overall and just 12 seconds ahead of Andrew Lockhart and Don Burress in a VW Golf. Tennis and Trowbridge were third in class at the end of the day after they were rescued by Crane.

Jay Woodward and Jasper Umetsu ran with the leaders in the all-wheel-drive Mazda Protégé turbo until they broke the differential and parked it for the day.

Mark Mager and Miller Dumaoal.

Matt Tabor and Nick Taylor 

Mike Goodwin and Tina Warner 

 
Adam Crane and Britta Nielsen

Nate Tennis and Amity Trowbridge

 
Lou Beck and Randee Orion

Doo Wop 2

Sunday morning brought freezing temperatures and snow flurries right down to sea level. The most dangerous driving of the day may have been the transit over the hills to the start of the first gravel stage. “The gravel stages were great in the snow,” said Jardevall, “but it was really treacherous on the highway.”

Jardevall and Schrenk resumed their domination, posting the fastest times on all of the seven stages in Doo Wop 2. They finished more than two minutes ahead of Mager and Dumaoal. Hintz and Hintz were third again, but Eklund and Price moved their three-cylinder Subaru up to fourth. Goodwin and Warner improved to fifth overall and captured the win in the PGT class.

Tennis and Trowbridge were sixth overall and first in Group 2, but only eight seconds ahead of Crane and Nielsen. There was another eight second gap back the third Group 2 finishers, Lou Beck and Randee Orion in a Ford Focus. The top three two-wheel drive cars had a great race and were separated by only 16 seconds at the finish.

Greer and Greer finished ninth; Lockhart and Burress were tenth, with Bruce Tabor and John Elkin eleventh, the production class winners in a Nissan Sentra.  

The fan’s favorite 500 horse-power Volvo, driven by Lane and Grahn, rolled out of the rally in a snowstorm on the first stage of the day. Buren and Milos had the Group 5 class wrapped up until the turbo went up in flames two stages from the end.

Sadder still was the result for Gary Cavett and Martin Burnley, after problems on day one, they were locked into the top five finish until their Subaru expired just before the final stage.

Dave Hintz and Rick Hintz

Paul Eklund and Jeff Price

 Charles Buren and Mike Milos

Bruce Tabor and John Elkin