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2007
Thunderbird Rally
36th
Thunderbird Rally -- February
17-18, 2007
Merritt - Vernon - Merritt
Round 1 of the 2007 BC TSD Rally Championship
Hosted by the West Coast Rally Association |
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Thunderbird
2007 Rally Report By Jeff McMillen, with contributions
from Steve Willey |
The
50th Anniversary Thunderbird TSD rally is over.
All the RASC cars and their passengers are back
to the mundane daily life of work and family.
Hours slip by and still my thoughts drift back
to the weekend; what happened, what
should have happened, where the snow went, why the 1 dollar
coin works in
Canada and not in the US. |
The
Thunderbird Rally turned 50 this year. At the
rally HQ there is a display of Thunderbird memorabilia
from years past. Rally plaques and plates
are a long tradition in rallying. The display includes plaques
going back to
the 60¹s and 70¹s. Also, there is a copy of the Rainier
Auto Sports Club
newsletter, the Wishbone Alley Gazette, from 1989 with some
Thunderbird coverage. |
48 cars
(21 Subaru's along with 5 Volkswagens, 4 BMWs,
3 Saabs, 3 Audis, 2 Mazda's, 2 Dodges, 2 Volvos,
2 Hondas, 2 Toyotas, 1 Ford, and 1 Chrysler)
spanning years 1967 to 2006 all braved the snow and ice and
mud and water and
gravel to see who could keep on time through two days and eight
regularities
and the winner turned out to be the venerable Saab Sonnett
from 1969 driven by
Satch Carlson and navigated by Russ Kraushaar. These two intrepid
adventurers
braved deep water crossings (deep enough that Satch later commented
that he
had ³spotted a few species of fish² during their
splash), suspension failure
(repaired Saturday night with loaner bolts from RASC Members
Eric and Steve
and much mechanical assistance from other competitors), and
an oil-drenched
clutch (cleaned with a combination of water and coca-cola,
who would have
thought) to come in with a total of 13 points for the entire
event, a great
result, especially considering that their 38 year old, two
wheel drive car was
up against a full field of the best and brightest in the Northwest
TSD rally
scene. That is not to say that their win was surprising. In
fact, Russ and
Satch have been teaching the rest of the field how to run a
rally for many
years and their win at this year¹s Thunderbird is only
one in an illustrious
line of finishes. |
Second
place went to Peter and Timothy Ryce in their
1988 Mazda 323 with 20 points. Third place went
to Lee and Rod Sorenson in the debut of their
1997 Impreza wagon (the internals of which bear
a striking resemblance to the 1999
2.5 RS that went over the cliff at Totem 2005) with 26 points.
First
Calculator went to Josh Keatley and Leanne Junnila in their
1998 Subaru
Outback with 51 points. First Paper went to Steve Perret and
Kathryn Hansen in
their 1986 Subaru GL Wagon with 118. First Novice went to James
and Cindy
Alison in their 1987 Audi 4000 with 255. |
RASC Members had a blast
out in the hills this year. Our focus was
preparation for the 2008 Alcan 5000 but that doesn¹t mean
every point
doesn¹t kill us a little bit inside. With four RASC cars
on the road, we
were expecting to make a push for some good results, and while
we didn¹t get a
trophy, we did collect enough adventures and excuses to make
up for the lack
of hardware.
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During
the day, I pride myself on a special torture
called keeping a running track of our points.
This not only gives me something to focus on
and obsess about as I am driving, but it also
helps me focus on how good or bad we are
doing compared to all the phantom low scores that I imagine
our competitors
are getting. At the end of day 1, I am guessing that our car
6 should sit with
something around 10-12 points. Saturday night and the first
day¹s
scores are
posted and immediately I sense something is wrong. Our day
1 total is 28. 4-6
points can go either way but 16? So I look at the detailed
scores (per
checkpoint times) and we have 7s when we should have 0s. Not
just one or two
checkpoints but every checkpoint. Another odd thing; Cars 5,
12, and 13 seem
to have a similar problem. Then a horrible thought comes to
me. What if our
clock was wrong, off by 7 seconds? So out into the cold I go
with my
calibrated watch and I compare it to the rally computer in
the car. Sure
enough, approx. 7 seconds difference. |
How
was it those four cars, all RASC or friends-of
were off the exact same seven seconds? It¹s
a matter of trust, the pitfalls of routine, and
an error to which only an experienced rallyist
would succumb. Steve has a Timewise 650
clock. Once that is set to rally time, it¹s an easy process
to sync our in-car
computers to the master clock. This is what we usually do and
this is what we
did this time. Normally, the next step is to compare that time
to our watches
or stop watches (that we manually set to rally time at the
driver¹s
meeting)
to double-check the reading. Why did none of us do this? Who
knows. Confidence
is an evil master sometimes. |
Another
fun game to play is ³What If?² This year¹s ³What
If?² goes like
this: ³What If The Clock Were Right?² Marvin Crippen
spent some quality time
crunching the numbers and if we take out the clock error, Car
6 (piloted by
yours truly, with Marvin navigating), ends up with a 29 for
the weekend (Why
does the error correction give us only 19 points rather than
7 for each
checkpoint? See Winter Timing Rules in the Thunderbird Supplemental
Regulations). It¹s still not a podium finish but a much
more respectable 4th
overall. Eric Horst and Steve Willey (Car 5)¹s game was
What If The Clock Were
Right And We Didn¹t Get Stuck In That Ditch On Day 1?² Subtract
the clock
error and the ditch excursion and Car 5 ends with an even more
respectable 26
which ties them for third with Car 3. Heck, since we are playing
this game,
why not assume the clock error is 8 seconds (which is what
Marvin thinks it
could be, not 7 seconds). That gives us a 28 and Car 5 a 23,
giving them full
control of third place. |
But
then, what ifŠ See?
You can play this game over and over and eventually
you get 0 points and first place in every event.
The reality is we got what we
got and someone should have caught the clock error. I don¹t
think that¹s going
to happen again soon. |
Dan
Comden and Hans Adomeit in car 12 took the opportunity
to get more familiar with each other and with
Dan¹s Saab 900 in preparation
for Alcan.
This was Hans¹ first serious TSD rally but he grasped
the complexity of the
Timewise and, despite warnings and hand-waving, he dealt admirably
with the
x-factor that lays many an novice navigator down for the count,
namely motion
sickness. Perhaps it is his years of autocross experience or
perhaps he has
that much sought after iron stomach. They left the weekend
with 259 points, a
great score considering that 133 of them were tied to pulling
over to assist
Car 5 in the ditch. |
The
fourth RASC car, Car 17, was driven by regulars
Steve Richards and Gary Reid. They competed in
Calculator class in their 2002 Subaru Outback
and came in 4th in class with a score of 65,
only 14 points out of first in class. |
RASC
friends and caravan buddies Greg Woodbridge and
Bill Joy in car 13 came
through with a 183. As they get more and more confident in
Greg¹s
Audi 90 and
as Bill works on mastering the Timewise (with the able assistance
of Steve and
Marvin) we expect them to continue to climb the leader board.
Despite much
persuasion, they remain reluctant to join us on the 2008 Alcan
5000 but with
more pressure from the rest of us, improving scores, and persuasion
from the
rally community as a whole (hint hint, gentle reader) they
will surely change
their minds. |
Another
annual worthy diversion tied to the Thunderbird
Rally is the Savoia Aero Team Trophy. This year,
RASC cars 5 and 6 and 17 joined Car 34 to form
Team Rainier. Car 34 was driven by John Taylor
and navigated by Matt
Warburton, two stand up guys from BC that joined us last year
for the team
competition as well. They competed in Novice class and came
in 3rd in class
with a 538 (most of which is due to an off-road excursion similar
to the one
that Car 5 enjoyed. |
The
50th Anniversary Thunderbird TSD rally is over.
Long live the Thunderbird TSD rally. |
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