2003 Season Race #7 and #8
Portland Rose Cup 6/15/2003

The Portland Rose Cup races are always a highlight of the 4 Flight S2 Cup calendar. Farthest away geographically for most drivers, and often with unpredictable weather conditions, it is still well worth the trip. There is a great contingent of serious S2 racers in the Portland area and the racing is always competitive.

We had Tom Nelson move up from CS2 to join the S2 ranks in his new Swift DB2 and his son Christian drove his Tiga in Sunday's Regional. Welcome!

Practice was in damp conditions. David Ferguson went out with a full rain setup, and re-familiarized himself with driving the Van Diemen, a car he tried out last year but hasn't been in since because he was still awaiting the arrival of his own copy from the UK. As the track began to dry, he came in to avoid totally trashing the tires. Ellen Ferguson waited until half way through the session and went out on slicks in her DSR.

2002 4 Flight S2 Cup Champion Chris Tryon celebrated a birthday on Friday the 13th (yep, that's the day he was born.) and the Tryon's threw a nice party in the paddock for all the competitors, family, and crew. Tryon was there to try out his new Fram-Am car in the Regional race.

Qualifying was in the dry. Ferguson did about 5 or 6 laps and came in to find out what the times were (CDS lap beacon wasn't working at that point). Discovering he had turned a 19.9, he went back out but the car was oversteering, and he struggled to turn a 19.4 -- but a black flag all gave the chance to come in and have the tire pressures adjusted. With the rears back down to the ideal pressure, the drivers were released for a final 2 laps. Ferguson was right behind John Bachofner, but when Bachofner went wide in T12, Ferg was able to get by and record a 19.2, good enough for the pole.

The National race started with a waived off start. Getting ahead of a couple of DSRs, Ferguson was able to open a large gap back to Brewer and Bachofner. The running order at half-distance was Ferguson, Bachnofner, Brewer, Moran.

Joe Moran had a transmission problem that blew out the side cover and dumped oil in T12. 8 cars would fall off the track before everyone figured it out. Including Bob Lovenson, and the leader, Ferguson. Ferguson backed it into the tires, but with minimal damage, and restarted as quickly as possible, his tires were spinning in dirt as John Bachofner came around, right behind Ellen Ferguson in her DSR -- she slowed because of a radio warning, and that kept Bachofner from joining the melee. John Brewer would spin, doing the 360 thing and continuing without missing a beat.

Ferguson dropped back to second, but with only a few laps remaining, could not catch John Bachofner who went on for the win.

Car No	Driver		Make	Finish
37	John	Bachofner	Swift	1
99	David	Ferguson	Van Diemen	2
20	Tom	Nelson	Swift	3
17	Leo	Giroski	Wasp	4
41	Bob	Lovenson	Swift	5
82	Gary	Holcomb	Swift	6
22	John	Brewer	Swift	7
77	Joe	Moran	Carbir	8
13	Tim	Liefke	Swift	9
18	Chris	Keating	Swift	10

Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day for the Regional race. John Brewer had the pole and led off the race from the green flag. He built up as much as a 10 second lead over Moran before a FCY bunched up the field. Mark Schue was spotting from the chicane for Brewer and when the green flag came out he said "green, green, green" into the radio and John got on it. Unfortunately Brad Tonkin's crew did not relay the info to him and Brewer got into the back of his slow Radical. This allowed Joe Moran to get the lead. There were about 3 or 4 laps left and Brewer did his best to catch Moran but Joe won by .839 seconds.

Bachofner recovered from a spin to finish 3rd, followed by Leo Giroski and Tim Liefke.

Car No	Driver		Make	Finish
77	Joe	Moran	Carbir	1
22	John	Brewer	Swift	2
37	John	Bachofner	Swift	3
17	Leo	Giroski	Wasp	4
13	Tim	Liefke	Swift	5
41	Bob	Lovenson	Swift	6
84	Larry	Bergman	Tiga	7
10	Christian	Nelson	Tiga	8
82	Gary	Holcomb	Swift	9
28	John	Kraft Jr	Tiga	10
18	Chris	Keating	Swift	11