Racing wouldn’t be racing without a certain amount of drama and the final round of the Oregon Region IT-E race was no exception. Leading up to the final race, COBB Tuning Surgeline-Sponsored driver Cameron Bennar had won the last four races putting him solidly into the points lead. His closest rival, John Houdack in the yellow, wide-body NSX trailed with a wide margin with his only win coming at the begining of the season.

However, a peculiarity of the rules allows drivers to bring points from out of region into your home region points race. This allowed Houdack to bring points from a single win at Pacific Raceways from the Washington region, into the Oregon region series. This gave the yellow NSX the point lead going into the final weekend.

Each weekend is comprised of practice, qualifying, a sprint race and a feature race. While only the Spring and the Feature are worth points, the qualifying session determines the grid for both races. In prevsious races, Cameron had been able to put a solid 3 seconds per lap on the NSX, however, it was discovered during practice that 3rd gear in Cameron’s STI had gone bad leaving him without a critical gear for turns 7 and 12, two of the more crucial corners at PIR as this is the entrance to the back straight and the high-speed transition from the back to front straights respectively. However, the yellow NSX had mechanical issues of it’s own, precluding it from qualifying, which put Cameron on the pole.

During qualifying it was discovered that 3rd gear would work sometimes, the decision was then made to save 3rd, slow the pace and bit and see if a win was still feasible without 3rd. It was. Cameron was able to fight off the yellow NSX for a win in the sprint. This put the point standings with Cameron down by a single point going into the final race.

Another issue that had been discovered in previous race was the Subaru’s ravenous thirst. In a 30 minute race, cameron would be stretching the limits of his fuel load. It was decided that a fuel conserving strategy would be employed. Instead of charging out of the gate and putting a massive lead on the NSX, Cameron would let Houdack by and cruise in his slipstream. Then, with 5 minutes left in the race, would make his move, dash past the NSX and take the win.

However, an error in the pits would make this strategy redundant. Just under ten laps into the race, the NSX pulled off the racing line and parked. It seems that his pit crew neglected to tighten his lug nuts. With the NSX effectively out of the race, Cameron’s championship was secured and the COBB Tuning Surgeline STI cruised to a well-deserved victory without the aid of sneaky rule bending.

The NSX was able to rejoin the race several laps down and finishing in 3rd behind the 2nd place Porsche.

Cameron’s next stop will be Subiefest scheduled for October 10th at Willow Springs Raceway in Rosamond, Calif., where he will battle it out for the title of the fastest Subaru in the land agains’t the country’s top Subaru tuners. Stay tuned!

Cameron’s championship-winning STI was assembled at COBB Tuning Surgline and tuned by lead calibrator Tim Bailey with the COBB Tuning AccessPORT and AccessTUNER Pro.