"Yesterday was hot, today it is very hot!" - David Johansen from the movie Let it Ride

Hot and cold in Oregon.

As you know the temperatures during the race weekend at Portland were on the warm side. OK 100 degrees is hot but it was the low 100s so stop complaining.

Actually it was a very dry heat as the humidity was under 20% at the time. I was talking to New Englanders Will Turner and Matt Plumb about this and they both agreed that in New England the humidity would have killed us all had it been this hot at say Lime Rock.

We came to Oregon like typical tourists not realizing that it does get warm in Oregon. The person at the motel in Grants Pass indicated that the high 90s and 100 degree temps aren't all that rare in summer. Ouch babe.

Actually we traveled to Crater Lake from Grants Pass and from Crater Lake to the Oregon shore. The temperature swings were extreme as when we left Gants Pass it was about 90 and then we were playing in the snow up in the Crater Lake National Park.

Back into the 90's heading to the Oregon shore but as we approached the shore the temps plummeted into the high 60's by the time we got to the shore at Florence. After playing in the sand and dunes we drove up the coast and stayed in the ocean resort town of Newport.

On Thursday when we headed up towards Portland it was 68 degrees at 10:30 in Newport, our hotel as with most was not air conditioned as they don't see the need, Along the route the temp rose about 1 degree per mile and when we got to Oregon City it was 100!

Portland was great. We stayed in a Silver Cloud Inn in a nice section of town with plenty of shops and restaurants and bars within walking distance. The rose gardens and Japanese Gardens were cool but neither of us are into gardens all that much.

Leaving Portland we headed east along the Columbia River Gorge and in Hood River we crossed the Columbia and headed north in Washington along a very scenic road.

Driving along the Columbia River one can easily see why the early settlers had to take the wheels off their wagons, build a raft and raft down the turbulent river to their destination of Oregon City. After all of those miles searching for water I suspect that the early settlers were plenty sick of water after their trip down the Columbia River.

On the Washington side the river was wide, they have dams along the river now, and wild as the wind was extreme and there were actual waves of substance and white caps on the river. This area is a haven for wind surfers and on Monday there were over 100 of them out there as the winds were high and the waves high.

A local couple told us that the wind was a bit extreme on that day and that there were a few days a year like this but usually it was plenty windy along that stretch of river. It seemed as if plenty of people took that Monday off to play in the river.

Not for the faint of heart though.

Some misses from Portland

Due to all the other action going on in Sunday's GT race I really didn't mention Randy Pobst and Phil McClure much. I mean all they did was finish 2nd and 3rd. Trouble was that they both drove pretty smooth races that included so much contact and off course excursions.

Except for Randy who did get tapped by Max Angelelli but he really didn't even get that much sideways.

McClure has established himself again this year as he and his Aggregate Industries/3R racing Corvette are still the Corvette to beat in WCGT. Apologies to Trans-Am refugees, as some BB mavens are now calling them, Lou Gigliotti and Leighton Reese as well as Tony Gaples and Tom Oates; McClure has the results to back up the claim of king of the Corvette hill as this point in the season.

Not that the rest of the Corvette contingent isn't capable of doing just that.

At any rate McClure and Pobst had another great run on Sunday and while McClure worried Pobst for much of the race they kept their noses clean and their cars on the pavement. Such is the way you win championships.

E-Mail from Champion Racing.

I got an email from Louis Milone of Champion Racing and he indicated that it was Scotty White who pin-balled Michael Galati's #2 Audi RS6 into Andy Pilgrim's Cadillac CTS-V.

Louis said that, "Scotty came over and apologized about a million times for his mistake, and we accepted it graciously, as expressed he did not want to mess with the points race, and the incident did cost Mike a few points." Scotty B. White isn't a driver who I do not believe has the reputation of being a crasher so I am sure he was sincere. He got a huge jump on the restart, too huge according to the officials who penalized White for it, and was really coming up hard on the leaders at the time.

"But what a run it was," Milone continued in his e-mail. "That car had not had a mechanical wrench turned on it since Puerto Rico 2003, and it ran like a top in the race. Well until the incident. Now it is a broken up mess! But it's our job to fix them, and that we will do."

Come on Louis you guys had JJ Lehto in the car taking VIPs around Infineon the weekend before. Surely that has to count for something. Wink, wink.

Seriously, the Champion crew guys did a super job just getting Michael on the track for Sunday's race. I am sure they all slept really well Sunday night because they got little to none the rest of the weekend!

Weight gains catch up to WCTC BMWs?

In the heat of Portland heat and track conditions were a factor and that factor was exacerbated by the weight added to the BMWs.

I talked with Nic Jonsson on Sunday after he had just gotten out of the Lamborghini Murcielago R after the morning warm up for the ALMS event. He indicated that he "just couldn't hang with the Acuras (of Kleinubing and Plumb) and Stretch" due to his added weight.

"Then the tires just went away and I stated falling back," Nic continued. "First PD (Cunningham) caught me and got by and then Espenlaub. I was able to hold off Espenlaub."

"The added weight took a toll in the race," concluded Jonsson. "I gained on Bill (Auberlen) in the championship and that was good, but we both lost ground to Plumb."

In terms of driving the Lambo Nic said, "In this car you can be way more aggressive because it has more grip and much more power. This car is more physical to drive and it wears you out to drive it. The BMW I can drive all day and not get tires but this car is heaver and faster. It does have power steering but not much!"

Jonsson co-drove with Tracy Krohn because Scott Maxwell couldn't get into the USA from Canada for either Infineon or Portland. They didn't finish, they were classified 19th, due to a broken gearbox.

Bill Auberlen looked to be having the very same issues as the extreme heat, said to be about 140 degrees in track temp, made the tires go off on all of the cars and it seemed that the heavier the car the sooner the tires went away.

An interesting side note to the adjustments made to the BMWs was that on the same day Grand-Am Cup made adjustments to the BMWs in that series.

"They added 75 pounds to the BMW," said Will Turner. "Which pretty much means us!"

Such is the reward for winning Will!

The happiest guy in Portland

This had to be Tim Wiens. Not only did Tim finish 5th in his 1st Interstate Inns Viper but his 3R Racing team finished 1st, 3rd and 5th.

Andy Pilgrim did use a little toot on the chrome horn to get past into 4th but Tim didn't mind much.

"He was coming up on me and was going to get by me anyway," smiled Wiens. "The tires were so gone I was just hanging on and I knew it was just a matter of time before he (Pilgrim) got by."

Besides when your team wins the race and you have three in the top five you have plenty to smile about.

Miscellaneous Twisty Bytes

Have to give a shout out to Charles Espenlaub and the Tindol Motorsports team as Charles has been bubbling his way towards the front edge of the TC finishing order since Tindol put Charles in the #97 Sparco USA/Oakley Mazda Protégé.

He and Jonsson had one of the most entertaining dices in the Touring race but Charles just couldn't get past. Still a 6th place finish in the World Challenge Series is nothing to sneeze at.

Charles is a good guy and a talented driver and it is great to see him in good equipment and doing so well.

Special thanks to John Thawley of Creative Communications and the Autosport Development team of Stu Hayner for the pictures at Portland.

I got another e-mail from Geoff Gibbs from the UK see below. My main reasons for posting this, beyond the ego stroking ones, is two fold. One to mention, once again the charity work done by the racing community which in this case is Andy Pilgrim and the second is to once again to demonstrate that the Worl Challenge does reach beyond the shores of North America.

Hi Jim.
I'm an English fan, keen supporter of Andy Pilgrim, who I met when I came over for Sebring 2003. Pretty wet Friday evening but the US fans made it a great trip. He helped with my charity fund-raising for a Kids charity in the UK by getting the Corvette drivers to sign some t shirts. Sorry he lost his ALMS spot but glad he's having a hot season in the Caddy. Think his drive at Sebring 2004 was the drive of the weekend. Foul up on my flight stopped me getting over this year.

Very much enjoyed your Portland report. Keep up the good work, otherwise not sure will get much detail of the Series in the UK.
Geoff Gibbs

Thanks Geoff.

If you want to send a note about any of this I can be reached at JimBourn@TheRaceSite.com; but be forewarned, we may use your letter in an upcoming article.

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