"Since
1957. The ultimate winter rally challenge"
A year ago we were in Cache Creek
BC with the news of 57 starters, a tie for the
record number, and everyone encouraging others
to enter for 2002. Be careful what you wish
for.
Thunderbird 2002 moved to the Nicola
Inn at Merritt BC and closed entries more than
a week before the event with seventy entries and
five provisional entries. Saturday morning's
start saw a record seventy-three cars
start the event. There were two withdrawals
and the provisional starters were allowed to run
as well.
Central British Columbia can have bitter cold
snow or bright blue sunny skies. This year
we were treated to both. The first half
of Day One was run in bright sun over gravel,
which could unexpectedly turn to shallow drifting
snow or absolutely polished ice over the next
crest. Later in the day an overcast sky
cut the glare but some of the white snow and ice
had turned to grayish-brown melting roads, then
to dry gravel regularities and paved transits,
becoming hub deep powder into the night.
Our Day One started with the news
we had moved up from car 14 to car 13, perhaps
a bit unsettling, but we've all had to be car
13 at least once in our rally lives. I had
enlisted the services of long-time rally navigator,
and fellow WCRA member, John Rapson
(who by-the-way garnered First Place Calculator
honors for the 2001 Season with driver Roy
Lima). Roy and I run the same AlfaPro
so everything looked good in the beginning.
The mileage was cleared to zero, we leave the
start, and John asks, "Shouldn't we be building
numbers here?" The odo had quit! A
few cursory checks found nothing so we retraced
to the start and cleared the Subaru's stock odo.
John immediately began the whole calc routine
(he'd just run in Kilometers) again in Miles.
A great start to the day, but we're running so
close to rally mileages that the factor is fine.
I tell John the mileage and he tells me the time.
It's working as best we can hope.
The course is east from Merritt through
Nicola and Quilchena to Pennask Lake, regularities
at Minnie Lake, Douglas Lake, Twig Creek, Monte
Lake, and Duck Range. A transit to Pritchard,
then Pinantan Lake regularity and the transit
into our full-fledged attended gas stop at Salish
Road Esso (hurried attendants, windows cleaned,
gas pumped, free coffee and treats, plus a care
package for all the cars). Through Kamloops
and north along the Thompson River for the Westsyde
Road-to-Barriere regularity. This was 14
miles of fun with a big Caution at 11.59 and at
12.58 the instruction was "Hairpin L, into Long
Hairpin R, into Hairpin L, into Long R, continues."
and it did. All this in full dark, with
a questionable odo, but it was great fun!
Regularities at Adams (Family) Lake, Adams River
and Eileen Lake read like page after page of "Hairpin"
and "Cattle Guard" with speed ranging up to 36
mph, 38.5, and 40.4, before dropping to 37.3 (60
km/h), a cattle guard and bear left onto snow!!,
still 37.3 mph. In three miles we're caught
by Lee and Rod Sorenson of Sacramento
in a Subie 2.5 RS. I'm losing time on every
hairpin uphill, and not enough straightaway to
gain it back. They pass, and then quickly
drop speed. I pass and slowly open the gap.
I was told later that they had passed just before
a drop in rally speed and since I was still late
I didn't hear about it until we'd made it back
to on time, just before a left into a small opening
and drop to 21.7 mph. This oversized snowmobile
trail was cut through knee-deep snow just over
a car wide, and loose and twisty for several miles.
The track widens a bit and we're asked to do 26.1,
then 28.6, but in the snow it's plenty fast.
A transit to the Comfort Inn Hotel in Kamloops,
and the ABC Country Restaurant's Private Party,
just for Thunderbird. 277.33 miles in 9
hours 30 minutes.
Day Two opens with a typical Murphy's Law rally
event. I pull on the hood release to check
the oil. it comes out about a foot and the hood
is still closed!! We're fed, fueled, and
ready to leave but we can't get under the hood.
The good news is the Alfa starts clicking off
kilometers at the first intersection. We
now have accurate distances for John to caress
into zeros at every control. Sounded good.
The warm-up takes the rally out Highway
5 to a short but snowy section to test if the
drivers forgot everything from Day One.
Anyone? Another quick regularity, then back
through Kamloops to the start of the long one:
115.84 km, or 71.98 miles for the rest of us!
As I pull away from the start I'm
passed by a local at speed! Hmm! We
run up the hill on dry and dusty, over a crest
and it's winter roads again. At about 15km
the speed changes up from 34 to 42, at the bottom
of a hill, of course, and shortly into the hill
we have smoke, lots and lots of smoke. Gauges
all seem OK but the stench is now noticeable inside
the car. Top of the hill I pull into a wide
spot and start beating the blank out of the plastic
grille so as to attempt to get under the
hood. For ten minutes I attempt to get under
the hood. At eleven minutes whatever was
burning ran out of combustibles and the smoke
cleared. Tools back in place, cuts and punctures
wiped clean, we're belted in and car 26 passes.
We're 13 minutes down! But we've got over
a hundred km to make it up. My sincere thanks
to cars 26 down through 14 who recognized the
fact that I had caught them at roughly double
the rally speed and found places for me to pass.
Red Lake regularity went by in a hurry except
for the "Triple Caution Hard Right, with Big Exposure
Straight Ahead." I asked John to please
point that out before I came to it. Great
View!
At the fuel break in Cache Creek I
have time to remove more of the grille, remove
the hood latch, open the hood, look for whatever
burned away, jerry-rig a hood pull and proceed
back out to the rally. About one kilometer
out of Cache Creek, we have smoke again and this
time the water temp is climbing rapidly.
A roadside check reveals a coolant leak under
the turbo! While the rally runs out Deadman
and Battle Creek, then Tunkwa Lake and into the
finish at Merritt, we are on the shoulder of the
road, in the mud, removing a turbo and exhaust
and air induction to replace a six inch hose,
which I had in the spares box! Good as new,
we shortcut to the finish and begin the celebrations.
203.47 rally miles in 6 hours 30 minutes.
Seventy-three starters, sixty-nine finishers.
Subaru was well represented with 23 starters including
five WRX and eleven 2.5 RS.
Congratulations to: First Calculator
and First Overall, Roy Lima and
Andrew Dobric in a Subaru Legacy
Turbo (26pts); First Historic Equipped/Second
Overall, Satch Carlson and Russ Kraushaar
in a Saab Sonett II V4 (27); First Unlimited/Third
Overall (tie37), John Fouse and Dennis
Wende WRX (1st) & Lee Sorenson
and Rod Sorenson 2.5 RS (2nd) tie broken
by most zeros; First Novice/Seventh Overall, Peter
Parsonage and Owen Parsonage in a Subaru
2.5 RS (109); First Historic/Ninth Overall, Gil
Stuart and Arnie Lang in a Volvo 123GT
(113); First Paper/Sixteenth Overall, Dan Fealk
and Stuart Fealk in a Subaru XT6 (181).
Six Subies in the top ten. |