TeamD Adventures

Last year, we borrowed a ’74 Triumph TR6 to run the CGMGA Classic Car Rally. Only sports-y cars made earlier than 1981 can enter. Our own vintage car was in the midst of a 15 month restoration project last year — but now the exterior work is finished. Although the interior still has much to be done, the car is ready to rally, or so we thought. Last weekend we drove it to Olympia for a family birthday party, just to put some miles on it. The problem: either the nitrophyl float was saturated and sinking, or the float level was too high. Even after we replaced the float, gas still poured from the sight hole while the motor idled. We cranked the wet float setting WAAAYYYY down past the dry setting. The excess fuel seems to be under control… our fingers are crossed that’s the only mechanical issue we’ll see. pssst! see the ‘D’ sticker? Update: The car ran well during the rally, good enough for 3rd place overall. The gas problem seems to be fixed.

Some people might think that rising at 6AM on a Sunday morning to start a rally is crazy. I’m here to tell you that the crazy ones are the Alcan Rally fans, supporters, and families that got up early today to come out to see us off. Our TeamD hats are off you all of you!

Let me also give a special thanks to all the loyal TeamD fans. Ken Lingbloom also reports that the Bellingham paper may be printing a feature on the event.

Good morning! Today is the start of the Alcan Rally. The Soda Creek section has some tricky parts and will also likely be run in the dark. After this final TSD for the day we drive the final miles to Quesnel, British Columbia for our overnight. We’ll be 490 miles from home and one day into this 10 day adventure.

Today was the driver meeting and tech inspection. In some ways the non-local entrants have an easier time this evening than us because all their packing and preparation needed to be complete before arriving in Kirkland.

We ran Monster’s Revenge (formerly Armageddon) last weekend. We drove up from Portland the morning of the rally and started as car #13. We blew the odo section, going a few feet off course. But, we managed to recover. Overall, the transits were very tight on time. Once finishing a regularity, there was barely time to get to the start of the next one. Now we had 20 points. Another adjustment brought us to 19.