"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.

There may not have been as much snow and ice as in some past events, but I've heard there was more than enough to get some into trouble.  Get your entry sheet filled out in advance, 2003 is apt to be just as good or better!

©Ron Sorem 2002     Subaru RX Rally Team     ronsorem@hotmail.com

The 2 days leading up to the rally were a disaster. Everything went wrong. The most notable pre event problem was that the custom rally computer being built for us failed Friday morning and despite several hours trying to stitch it together we had to leave it at home. Stress levels were rising. Now we're late leaving Vancouver and stuck in the rush hour traffic. Crawling by Burnaby does nothing to alleviate the stress level. Having cleared the traffic and merrily heading out of the city, I realized that I had left some stuff behind. Some of it we needed, some we didn't. So, on the phone trying to get other competitors to bring it later that night. This is about the point I have a strong desire to turn around and just go home. We're not going to be lucky this weekend and I'm contemplating having to tell the wife that the Subaru is at the bottom of a cliff, hugging a tree and I endangered her only son.

 Saturday dawns clear and cold. All that's left to do is get some emergency supplies of food from town and buy a highlighter so that we can be sure to mark the speed changes (one of the things I forgot). So, just a quick trip into town at 8:30 to find Pharmasave. They don't open until 9am so we'll wait. As we wait, it would be a good idea to get the glass polish out to clean the windows and lights. Open trunk, take out polish and cloth, close trunk and then remember that the keys are now in the trunk. This would not be a problem if I had not previously locked the car.

 Now we're miles from rally HQ, in an empty town with just 1 hour before the rally starts. Owen is throwing a fit and pointing out how stupid I am. I am trying to be calm. We could phone for help, but I would have to break the window to reach the phone on the dashboard. Nothing for it but for Owen to run back to rally HQ and plead for help, so off he goes. A few minutes after he leaves, I'm remembering that his sense of direction is not good and wondering if he'll even get back to HQ. A few more minutes pass and I spot Lordco down the street. The lights are on. At least it would be warm in there. They were open. I explained my plight and they suggested a tow truck. Time is running out, I'll try anything. The guy at Lordco mentions that if I had a CAA card it would be a free
service. Thank you Subaru! Automatic membership of CAA. 15 minutes later the guy arrives. 45 seconds later, the doors are open and I have the keys. A quick thank you and I'm off.

 Owen is already back at HQ after meeting a competitor driving a new Audi TT around town. He's surrounded by lots of people who seem to find my arrival amusing. One of the competitors points out that it's useful to give the navigator a spare key which they wear around their neck. Being in Novice class is a good idea. We still have lots to learn.

 We've made it to the driver's meeting and the route books are handed out. Owen goes off to do the math. I stay at the meeting to hear all the special instructions about hairpins with 800' drop offs into Adams lake etc. etc. Maybe we should just go home. Owen thinks we should press on. I agree, let's see how it goes.

 We're off. On time and the car is behaving. The first transit proves that the tire pressures are spot on and the odometer is accurate. At last our luck has changed.

The first stage is a mixture of gravel, ice, and snow over ice. We're running car #19 so there are only very experienced drivers in front of us. This is useful because as we approach various corners we can see tracks that go very wide on the outside of bends. This is good indicator that we come to appreciate. As we pass the various time controls we think we're ok. Stage 2 passes without incident, we're doing good. Leg 1 is then complete and we're in a better mood at the gas stop.

 Then comes leg 2. This has a long 90km stage. Owen hasn't worked out all the checkpoint times so he'll have to do the math in his head as we go (and he has to read the instructions). Something's got to give. About 10km in, there's a favourite trick of rally masters. 2 instructions where the first one just says "sign on right". The second is immediately after and it's a left turn. Owen reads the 1st instruction. We get to the sign. Now he reads the next instruction. I respond with "You mean that left - back there". Screech, turn, backtrack. Now the odometer is off by something like 0.28km. The math becomes extreme. The odo only reads to 0.1 and we have to guess the 0.08.

 Things start to go downhill. Driver and navigator conversations are getting louder, more agitated and less informative. The only thing we can agree on is that we are not on time. Some way into the stage there's a gap of 10km between instructions. Normally, Owen will work out time checks for every 0.5km or 1km of that section. We're just over 1km into this and I inquire if he intends saying anything for the next 10km. His retort is short and to the point. I decide it's best to just try and drive to the stated speed using the speedo. I use this quiet time to devise ways of recovering the situation. Well something worked and eventually we're back to shouting at each other in complete disagreement.

 Then comes the opportunity to turn things around. We're coming upon a "bear left" instruction. He did mention the extra piece of information about the road narrowing but that was about 0.5km back and I've forgotten by the time we enter the intersection. Bear left, he says. I see a goat track disappearing down into the trees. That's not a road so I intend to go straight on. There is a road to the right so this is actually bearing left. I am justified in my assessment. Owen disagrees. We stop, argue, reverse and disappear down the goat track which turns into a luge run for Subarus. He's right and I just cost us 32 penalty points. With our other disagreement of 21 points that provides the major contribution to our day 1 score of 88. At least Owen is in a better mood and as long as I stay quiet while he berates me, we seem to be doing ok.

By the end of day 1, we're 1st in Novice and 8th overall. Why does it feel like failure? Well, that's rallying, full of what if's and if only's.

Day 2 starts with a short, fast ice stage. We're told at the start that even the video guy has had to be rescued. It's icy out there. 60km rounding the bend with the 2 video cameras. The back is hanging out. I'm hanging on. No lift, it's a keeper. I want that video. The day's started well, this is a good omen.

 These stages have much more snow (sorry ice). We're doing good. Apart from the creeping error in the odo from wheel spin out of the corners we're on time and the penalties (if any) are low. Finally, things are going to plan. The only excitement on day 2 is rounding a checkpoint (that we zeroed) only to find 2 cars stuffed into the bank on the exit. We round them without incident and we're on our way.

 Final results came in after 6pm on Sunday. We made 1st in class and 7th overall, 109 points total. A great result and well clear of 2nd in class. But this is rallying and with just a few less points we would have been 5th overall. With the accessory odometer, we could have been in the top 3, but maybe that's just me dreaming!

 We didn't take any pictures because my camera is not back from repair yet (you see how everything went wrong). Just hope they got that corner on video. Roll on next year. We'll be back.

Peter Parsonage