TeamD Adventures

In Pacific Northwest Native American myth, the Raven figures prominently as a powerful and mischievous spirit. In light of TeamD’s performance at the 2007 Totem Rally in British Columbia (and the event logo, left, presumably a raven) it’s fairly clear that he enjoyed a weekend of trickery at our expense. To wit:

Before the rally, the Raven infected Jeff and Marvin with who-knows-what, leaving them to fight off early-winter illness: they and the mighty WRX stayed home to mend. (Clearly, Bilstein Heavy Duty shocks got nothin’ on a mythical bird with magical powers.)

In the end, though, TeamD prevailed, or, at least, endured and enjoyed the event: Bill and Greg earned a respectable 10th finish, Steve and Eric undoubtedly enjoyed themselves while shaking down the “new” 325iX for Alcan (at least, they seemed to enjoy the drinking), and Hans seemed to have finally put enough Timewise pieces together to help Dan and the Saab to a 5th place finish, the top spot for two-wheel-drive vehicles.

Scores are now final.

Eric and Steve parlayed their day one score of 6 to a total of 8 and first overall. Glenn Wallace and R. Dale Kraushaar put up a good fight, zeroing the second day and taking their 14 points to second overall. Marvin and I finished day 1 with a total of 22 but a 2 on the second day was enough to ensure 3rd overall, two points clear of R.J. Carroll and Michelle Mah who were the highest Canadian finishers. The third Team D car of Greg and Bill came in with a very respectable 36(?), especially considering their relative newness to the sport.

Martin Chung and Christ Monasch took first Calculator (and possbly the BC TSD championship). William McRae and Dave Harms took first Historic, Steve Perrett and Kathryn Hanson finished first in paper class (securing PCC for a second time), and Rob and Lucille Anderson finished first in Novice.

Thanks to Rallymaster Richard Lynch for the great event. Stay tuned for stories from the other Team D participants. Ask about the deer and the logging truck.

“Tree!”

About 53k (of 92) into leg 2 regularity one, a fallen tree stopped the rally. There was no way to clear the tree and not enough time to transit to the last regularity so the rest of the rally was cancelled. The participant cars formed a line and followed Paul out of the regularity, to 70 mile house and back to Cache creek.

Now we eagerly await scoring.

…is a happy rally car.

Leg 1 started out with gravel and ice and ended with snow and ice. During the first regularity, we think after the last checkpoint, we lost sensor 1. Marvin quickly switched over to the backup and started tweaking the factor and we got back on time but it was a nice wakeup call.

Regularity 2 was punctuated by a small tree that fell between cars 2 and 3. Eric and steve were unaffected (conspiracy theories are flying ) but cars 3 through 6 were delayed as the tree was moved. We got back on time but the cars ahead of us were not so lucky.