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 |
|