TeamD Adventures

For some reason my head is pounding. Could it be that it is now 1:00AM, the day the Alcan Rally starts and I’m still up packing? That I ate way too many cookies at registration today and at the Alcan reception tonight? That I’m grinding my brain trying to think of what I’ve forgotten?

The out of town teams have it easy. They went through this already. They left home days ago. They already know what they forgot and bought new. They are sleeping soundly dreaming of ice and snow and second place trophies. I’m awake, yet dreaming of sleep and starting the rally rested. Such sweet thoughts those are…

Driver’s meeting and Tech Inspection was held today in Bothell. All 16 teams were on hand to hear advice, rules, stories of Alcan rallies past and to have their vehicles inspected to ensure safety and compliance.
Car numbers aren’t passed out until the paperwork (licenses, registration and insurance) is checked and verified. Tech inspection makes sure that there are no loose items in the engine compartment and no obvious flaws with the vehicle as well as ensuring that safety items like triangles and a tow strap are present and that there’s an installed radio that will work on the official event frequency. Turns out there are quite a few ham radio folks in the event so that will give us gabby types more to do on the long transits.

Of course, we had no problems and neither did the Horst/Willey BMW. Rob and Nick are going to have some extra work tonight, mostly installing a stereo. We’re finishing packing the car and have had visits and phone calls from friends wishing us luck. Now if we can get a good night’s sleep, we’re off at 8 am tomorrow!

As the February 18 jump off approached, we started to get a *little* nervous about the number of electron-consuming doodads that we were stuffing into the WRX. The stock battery was only about two years old, but it never inspired confidence never mind awe. The stock alternator? Rated at 75 amps, so even with a conservative rating, we were skeptical of it keeping up with the the demands of dual Ham radios, stereo, rally computer, laptop, driving lights, and more.
(more…)

Two TeamD cars spent some quality indoor time today in the TeamD Vinyl Tech Application Center (V-TAC) in Lake Forest Park, Washington. Thanks to our great sponsors we had a difficult time choosing where decals would be applied as well as getting back in practice for getting the dang things to line up properly and not get messed up.
(more…)

One of the common questions I get when telling people about the Alcan Winter Rally and Time Speed Distance (TSD) rallying is how the rally and scoring works. I’ll try to give a brief overview.
(more…)