WCRA website promoting Stage and TSD Rally Sport in British Columbia
BC Region Series - Totem 99 Rally

Totem 99 RallyMasters Message

 TOTEM RALLY 1999

OFFICIAL RESULTS & MAP OF THE ROUTE

This year's West Coast Rally Association Totem Rally, Round 4 of the BC  Rally Championship and Round 2 of the Pacific Coast Challenge, has come to an  end.  Enclosed are the official results of the rally.

I would like to thank our series sponsors, Wilkinson's Automobila for  donating prizes and continuing to support rallying in British  Columbia; Nokian Tires; and  ABT Communications Inc. Particular mention should also go to Richmond Toyota for supplying  a check point vehicle for this event and to Chum's Restaurant in Cache Creek for giving  us  space to do registration and awards (and a free meal for the organizers). Scott Trinder  and Saving You Money.Com supplied the free t-shirts.

All of the volunteers who helped me put on this  event also deserve  recognition. Andrew Dobric, my co-organizer for spending many late nights creating the  route book and who also missed dinner on Saturday Night to crunch out preliminary results  which  didn't get posted until morning anyway (Doh!). Adrienne Lang (Car #14) for helping  out with Registration when she could have been calculating the route. All of the  checkpoint Crews: Leszek and Marek, Martin  and Lucia, Mark and Tony, Andrew and Peter, me,  and Scott and Adam (they actually only made it to Hope before car troubles sent them back  to Vancouver). Thanks also to Martin and Roy for co-stewarding the  event. A special thanks  to Phill and Sue for running sweep for us. Finally, thanks to Paul Westwick for guiding us  from afar.

This year's rally ran from Cache Creek to Williams Lake and back.  We  were fortunate to be able to find several new sections of road, although in future years,  we will have to consider making the 2nd regularity a little shorter. We also  tried to add a new twist to TSD Rallying in BC - Moving Mileages. This proved to be an  unpopular addition and will not be part of the events we put on in the future. For all of  those wondering, Andrew and I are completely responsible for this, so please quit chasing  Roy Lima out of the country!

As usual, there were a number of unplanned incidents. Just getting to  the rally proved adventurous for some. Those heading up via Duffy Lake Road encountered a  flipped vehicle blocking the  road for some time. A little later on, the Alfa Team of  Westhead and Prescott took out their exhaust on a rock, almost making them late for the  rally the next day as they made emergency repairs. Scott and  Adam Trinder only made it as  far as Hope before some interesting electrical gremlins started to go to work in Paul  Westwick's car they were borrowing. Not wanting to be stranded in the middle of the  bush,  I gave them my cell phone and they headed back to Vancouver.

Someone decided to make the beginning of Reg. 2 "smoother" by  grading up tire eating square rocks for the first  5KM or so. 50 km/h was a reasonable  average in the pre-run! The Range Rover (Car 6) suffered flats early on and re-joined the  rally in leg 2. The Richmond Toyota Team in the Corolla also fell victim to 2  flats  (people really should start packing 2 spares). They were towed almost out to civilization,  but met up with a few locals who were kind enough to offer a ride into Cache Creek and  prompted them to  leave the car in the middle of the bush. We were a little nervous about  this on Saturday evening, wondering if there would be anything left of the car when they  came back to retrieve it. It has been sighted  in Vancouver since, however, and it was all  in one piece.

There were many wildlife viewing opportunities. Everything from cows,  to bears, to bison. I was actually herding about 100 cows at  one point on my way to a  checkpoint. The waterbar section in Reg. 2 was the undoing of the MR2 of Stanley and Jong  (Hey guys - I've got a piece of your front grillwork if you want it back). They  eventually  dropped out of the rally with a trashed exhaust and a lot of bodywork flapping in the  breeze. The BMW 2002 (Car 7) had a close encounter of the GM kind. No damage to the truck  and just a  little to the car so they waved goodbye and pressed on. Something about loose  battery cables etc. caused a few momentary problems, but they ended up making up any lost  time by the next checkpoint.

By the end of day one, we had two retirements (Car 9 and 16). Team  Cavalier (Car 14) was also on the verge of retiring with a holed heater core. At the start  of day 2, however, they were ready  to go, having put some stop leak in their rad. Day 2  was pretty much without incident as far as I heard. The mileages continued to distract  everyone. Some of the speeds could have been a little higher (see  Roy, I wasn't driving  like an idiot). Most people discovered that they needed an extra gear between 1st and 2nd for the hill climb. Looks like we should have made the speeds a little  higher so you all could've actually used 2nd and had a little more momentum to  carry you over the edge.

In  the end, although the Unlimited crews noticed the mileage problem  the most, they continued to get the best scores. For all the guessing they were doing,  there were a surprising number of zeros. The team of  Ankeny and Kraushaar (Car 1) best  adapted to clean up first in Unlimited and first Overall. The Glass and Weise team (Car 5)  took first in Paper. I'll bet the Tabors were having a chat with them about that!  Welland  and Rapson (Car 7) came in first Historic. Finally, the new team of Koszegi and Patola  (Car 13) cleaned up Novice and took fifth Overall!

Aside from the mileages, everyone seemed to  enjoy themselves.  Eavesdropping on conversations at the end of the rally is always fun for organizers as  that's when we get to hear about this corner, or that bit of road, the snow, the mud,  whatever.  This being my first ever rally from an organizing point of view, I really  appreciated the positive feedback. Thank you all for coming out. Hopefully we can have  twice as many entries next year!

Leslie Tuck, Totem '99 Co-Organizer

PS: If you would like to share your story about Totem 99, please e-mail  me at ljtuck@hotmail.com. I'd love to hear about it.

Totem 99 Teams
Car # Driver/Navigator Vehicle Class Overall
Position
PCC ?
1
Garth Ankeny / Russ Kraushaar BMW 325ix
U
1
Yes
2
David Jensen / John Kisela Subaru Legacy
U
3
Yes
3
John Fouse / Dennis Wende Subaru Legacy
U
2
No
4
Steve Richards / Gary Reid BMW 325ix
U
4
No
5
Michael Glass/ Pat Weise VW GTI
P
9
Yes
6
Stephen Willey / Eric Horst Range Rover
U
13
No
7
Mike Welland / John Rapson BMW 2002
H
7
No
8
Bill Westhead / Neil Prescott Alfa Berlina
H
8
Yes
9
Christian Chia / Shim Ching Toyota Corolla GTS
N
DNF
No
10
Scott Huhn / Kristen Tabor Mazda 323GTX
P
12
Yes
11
Jon Tabor / Darlene Sackett Dodge Neon
P
10
Yes
12
Matt Tabor / Chris Hale Subaru Impreza RS
P
11
Yes
13
Dave Koszegi / Todd Patola Subaru GL
N
5
Yes
14
Adrienne Lang / Marion Lang Chevy Cavalier
N
14
Yes
15
Fred Wiedemann / Shelley  Donaldson Toyota Celica
N
6
No
16
Budd Stanley / Corey Jong Toyota MR2
N
DNF
No

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 23:12:41 -0700
From: "Anthony Latham"
Subject: [R] Totem 1999 & The Red 510

First, apologies for cross-posting it you receive  this twice

Totem Rally 1999

  Just arrived home in Vancouver after working controls this weekend - What an event -  800 kms of flat out running over the best gravel roads in southwest British Columbia. If  you haven't  run a BC regional TSD rally before you have to try - guaranteed  satisfaction for the relief of pavemenitis. Conditions were considered changeable by  Environment Canada which means  everything from bright sunshine to rain to snow showers.

After a long wait just north of Horseshoe Bay, Mark Ward & I blasted north up Hwy  99 in his 72  Datsun 510. Some of you may know the road to the ski hill at Whistler - it  gets even better the further north you go. On through Pemberton +ACY- over the Duffy Lake  extension to Cache  Creek the road snakes like a three hour Nurburgring. This was the kind  of route Mark built the 510 for and the little box took to it like a greedy rich kid to  his sudden inheritance. This was  just the Friday night practice though - even better was  yet to come.

Saturday dawned (too early for some of us) and we found ourselves with a field of 16  entries.  Notables? Let's see - 3 Team Tabor entries (The Tabor name is becoming the  Microsoft of the rally world as you all know), Satch's Bad Dog BMW 325ix in the  capable hands of Russ  Kraushaar & Garth Ankeny, rally stalwarts Gary Reid & Steve  Richards in Steve Norman's 325ix, Bill Westhead's experienced Alfa sedan, three  cars from Vancouver Island & the  Seattle novice team in the Range Rover. (Team  Trailboss or Great White Hunter depending on who you talked to) With John Kisela &  Dennis Wende both navigating in Subarus it looked  like Russ & Garth were in for a  fight to win overall honors.

 The first day ended in Williams Lake were we counted the wounded. Let's see - 2  flat tires on  both the Range Rover & Christian Tsia's Corolla GT-S, ground strap  & left front fender on the BMW 2002, front bumper on the novice crew's Toyota  MR2, rear muffler on the Alfa, etc. The  amazing thing is every competitor had a smile. The  roads were perfect, the speeds were good & brisk - the only problem really was the  amazing elastic odo correction factor in the  route instructions. The faster you went, the  larger the mileage error. While this is a problem that effects all competitors equally it  was more than enough to give the rallymaster grey hair.

  My grey hairs were being caused by the surprising speed of my driver & his 510. Did  I mention it has a built 2 litre fuel injected 3 vlv per cyl motor? Add that to  Mark's substantial skill  behind the wheel and it equals on cool trip. He really needs  to run stage rallys though - his talents are wasted on open roads.

  Day 2 and our wildlife spotting scores jumped up when old Mr Black Bear thumped his way  across the road 50 metres in front of us - I swear he didn't even notice the barb  wire fence, just  kind of cruised straight through it. Wow. Our sideways drivers spotting  scores went up to as the rally headed south back to Cache Creek. place names like Little  Fort, Dog Creek & Gang  Ranch came & went.

 I just looked at the clock so thats all for now. If any competitors will post their  individual tales  We will try and print them with the results. Congratulations to all the  competitors but especially to Russ Kraushaar and Garth Ankeny for their deserved win. Are  you there Satch?

  It seems Bad Dog has made peace with the BC scenery. Cheers to all - more tales later

Anthony Latham

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 12:46:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Eric Horst
Subject: Re: [R] Totem 1999 & The Red 510

 Just one tiny correction from Team Trail Boss: It was one flat tire and the  ill-preparedness of a  spare with only 20psi in it which ruined Leg 1 for us.

 The disappointment didn't last too long after we got a quick tire fix and rejoined  the group on  Leg 2. For our first gravel rally and third rally with computer we came  prepared to learn many new lessons. Lessons were not in short supply. As a novice  navigator I have heightened  respect for the experienced navigators who pulled good scores  from the challenging course measurements.

But I'll agree, if you haven't run a BC Regional TSD rally you do have to  try. Quite a treat.

 - --Eric

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 14:12:05 -0700
From: Russ Kraushaar
Subject: [R] Totem 1999

  Just wanted to put out a good word with regard to Totem this last weekend.

For those not familiar, this was round 4 of the BC (TSD) Rally Championship and round 2  of  the Pacific Coast Challenge. In the fine tradition of BC Championship events it  featured plenty of gravel and speeds on the happy side of brisk. Most of what follows has  a rubber mile theme  to it and discusses how we all coped with it. Please don't read  an "attitude" into this or think I'm whining about it. This was a very good  event put on by people that worked extremely hard  to show us a good time. If you  haven't run Totem (mostly gravel) or Thunderbird (mostly snow), I'd recommend  both highly. The organizers have assured me the equipment responsible for  the bad mileages  has been sacked.

 As I said, however, there was a bit of an issue with mileages that only served to bring  on a bit  of that deja vu feeling for a crowd thick with Alcan 5000 veterans. Jerry's  "rubber miles" are legendary in these parts. I guess now we have Andrew's  "elastic kilometers".

  My driver, Garth Ankeny, fairly shined on his first outing in a BC event, putting up  with my ponderous mumbling while keeping the Bad Dog on a theoretical zero. We both  enjoyed the  rally and the convenient lounges - two in the same hotel! That's an  organizer that's thinking! John Fouse and Dennis Wende provided the usual top-notch  competition and political satire  but we had one thing they didn't, Somebody  Else's Car! (Thanks again, Satch! You're right, it really IS worth at least 10%  And don't worry, Garth can fix it! His dad has a bitch'n set of tools!)

  Steve Richards and Gary Reid hoped to prevail in the same way, borrowing Steve  Norman's 2.7 iX. Gary, however, was using a Timewise for the first time in  preparation for the Alcan  5000 and there is a certain learning curve.... especially given  the elastic mileages. (Actually, this may have been the best possible test of an Alcan  contender! Our factor ranged from  92000 to 99000 and mutated constantly - perfect!!)

The SOP'ers were in a daze. They got a whole new understanding of what the  computer  geeks mean by "factor drift". They could relate with just a stock odo.  At the end of the first leg, the geeks all jumped out of their cars to confirm that the  chaos was not of our own making.  The SOP'ers got out and looked at their tires to see  if maybe the right front and left rear had gone flat. The Tabor gang took some serious  hits in the scores. I don't think they had done the  math beforehand so, for them,  perfect time lived in another world. A strange world. A world with no Tabors. I suspect  they'll be looking to vent some TSD frustration at Prescott. Look out  if you're  running just ahead of one of these guys! (Show Matt a calculator and let us know what  happens.)

 The Lang sisters, Adrienne and Marion (Woo-hoo!! Rally women!) had their challenges  too. A  seeping heater core had them thinking about packing it in and retreating to the  island but at the first breath of distress, there were suddenly about six mechanics  available.

  Maybe next time they could bring mom's car. The one that needs a new clutch!

Thanks again to Andrew Dobric and Leslie Tuck for another good weekend in the woods.  See you at the next one!

Russ

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 15:34:30 -0700
From: Mark Tabor
Subject: Re: [R] Totem 1999

Russ-

Russ Kraushaar wrote:

  • The SOP'ers were in a daze.
  • The Tabor gang took some serious hits in the
  • scores. I don't think they had done the math beforehand so, for them,
  • perfect time lived in another world. A strange world. A world with no
  • Tabors. I suspect they'll be looking to vent some TSD frustration at
  • Prescott. Look out if you're running just ahead of one of these guys! (Show Matt a  calculator and let us know what happens.)
Uhhh....BC TSD Rules don't allow calculators for the "Paper" class  (which you are referring to as the SOP). So, showing Matt a calculator (or letting him use  one during the event) would  move him to the BC TSD class of "Calculator", right?  Besides, what the hell would a driver do with a calculator?

 I wasn't there and have only heard small bits of TSD angst (the Tabor's at  Totem won't be at Prescott, but the rest of us will....).

 Sounds like the organizers have thrown a new way to make those BC rallys,  uh....more....interesting?

Mark --

From: Jon Tabor
Subject: Re: [R] Totem 1999

  You had to see this one coming, Russ...I was going to send it just to you, but I  figured What The Hell?

On Mon, 27 Sep 1999, Russ Kraushaar wrote:

Just wanted to put out a good word with regard to  Totem this last

weekend.

 Agreed. Very enjoyable indeed. My fears of cutting sidewalls on my very street tires  were fortunately unfounded. As a matter of fact, they turned out to do dang good.

The SOP'ers were in a daze. They got a whole new understanding of what the  computer geeks mean by "factor drift". They could relate with just a stock odo.  At the end of the  first leg, the geeks all jumped out of their cars to confirm that the  chaos was not of our own making. The SOP'ers got out and looked at their tires to see  if maybe the right front  and left rear had gone flat. The Tabor gang took some serious  hits in the scores. I don't think they had done the math beforehand so, for them,  perfect time lived in another  world. A strange world. A world with no Tabors. I suspect  they'll be looking to vent some TSD frustration at Prescott. Look out if you're  running just ahead of one of these guys!  (Show Matt a calculator and let us know what  happens.)

You haven't run SOP in a while, so I'll give you some credit. Ya see,  SOP'ers routinely deal with the so-called "rubber mileages". Stock  odo's are not designed to be anywhere near  accurate, they're there to give the  driver an idea of how far he's gone, and how much gas mileage she's gotten. If  there was anyone checking tires, it was me-see my above statement.

Tabors', on the other hand, don't do as many calculations as you'd  think. Those low scores we have turned in don't always equate to good calculations.  Matter of fact, calculations are quite  rare in my car indeed. Instead, the focus is on  having a good time. Thus, a typical conversation in my Neon during a TSD would be like  this:

 ME: "You shoulda been with us during the very first Thunderbird we did! Whewee,  when we came around that corner and saw that snowmobile, we nearly - --" NAVI:  "That's your turn up  there" ME: "Huh? Oh, got it. Anyways, we nearly  sh*t our pants! And when we hit it, boy. Brant  jumped out of the car and-" NAVI:  "I bet he was pissed! That boy has a temper on him..." ME: "Yeah, pissed is  an understatement. I don't think I've ever seen someone yell at 12 year  old kids  quite like that. I think they started crying. Was that our turn?" NAVI:  "Uhh...yeah." ME  (turning around with assistance from the hand brake): "How  much time did we lose?" NAVI: "Maybe 10 seconds or so. Just bump the cast up a  few." ME: "Will do. Then their father came  out, and he pulls us out of the  snowbank with his truck, apologizing the whole time."

 And so on and so forth. Thus, there'll be no bitching about scores or varying  mileages or  anything else that we find most of the computer people doing. No protests  here. No complaining about mileage 128.0047 being 1/1000th of a kilometer off,  thus causing us to get  a 1 on the leg instead of a perfect 0. Because we don't care  about that stuff. I can't speak for all of us, but this is the general feeling  amongst the Tabor Rally Team.

 As for now, I must go spend time in the real world with my girlfriend. It's been a  long day, one in which in addition to my normal tech support duties, I got to play  electrician ("Okay, flip the  breaker now, it's not smoking anymore!"), and  break into someones car (at least I didn't have to use my CB antenna like I did on  the way up to Totem).

 Jon Tabor ---> "Trees impede my progress" <---

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 08:47:47 -0800
From: "Satch Carlson"
Subject: [R] Thanks for Tony's report

 Thanks for the report, I was there in spirit---and I told Garth what would  happen if the Bad Dog  once again found the Ditch of Doom.  :)

 I was about as excited as an expectant father: Jeez, now I'm a TEAM OWNER+ACEAIQ-  I  called Russ (aka Squidboy) during a layover on my way home from Texas yesterday just to  get the Rally Lowdown, a I had been stuck in Austin with nothing but Formula 1 and CART  races  to distract me from the REAL motorsports action. . .

 Russ' first words were, +ACI-Well, Garth thinks we have enough tools to fix  everything. . . .

 We discussed the odd Flexible Factor without any major discoveries. Andrew must have  been as perplexed as the rallyists. We do know of several things that will affect  measurement in this  fashion. . . the problem is that we know the rally was checked out by  Roy Lima, who is an Ace Rally Boy, so we would think it would have shown up unless  Lima's set-up was identical to the  original. . . so it remains a big Huh?

 We used to get AMAZING distortion---factor drift---in the days of bias-ply tires, and  it is true  that even steel-belted radials will grow at speed, despite what BFG engineers  tell you. The Blackbird used to give us a HUGE variation in the transits, where we rolled  the cruising speed  up to 80--90 mph. But I don't think that accounts for the Great  Totem Drift of 1999, because the rally would have been measured at something close to the  given CAST speeds, and  modern tires don't start to grow under about 60 mph or so.  There is always the slim chance of RF interference causing phantom pulses---but again, any  big discrepencies should have  appeared during the check-out runs.

 Anyway---I was pleased to hear the event was, overall, a driving joy, as the BCers have  a fine reputation for Drivex rallies. I yoost wish I coulda been there. . . SC

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 21:51:54 -0500
From: Richard J Miller
Subject: Re: [R] Thanks for Tony's report

 On Tue, 28 Sep 1999 08:47:47 -0800 "Satch Carlson" < satch@alaska.net> writes: >

on my way home from Texas

>yesterday just to get the Rally Lowdown, a I had been stuck in Austin with nothing  but Formula 1 and CART races to distract me from the REAL motorsports action. . .

 You mean you came through DFW Airport and did not want to listen to my amusing  stories???

 In all honesty, thanks for the compliment and what ever you were drinking, I want some  and will  buy you some should you ever be in the vicinity. Richard (now I am a celebrity)  Miller PS: wish I had saved the cc list - - Bye for now.....

Last Updated on 1999-10-03
By Dennis Wende
Page Design and Content Copyright © West Coast Rally Association