Canadian Rally on TSN/RDS

The first event of the 2008 series, Perce-Neige Maniwaki, has been aired on RDS and is now available at flatovercrest.com, in association with CARS and TV2Go. The English version will be on TSN this fall.

The next event on the CARS calendar is the Rocky Mountain National Stage Rally in May. The Prescribed Burn Rally Team will be competing at the Olympus Regional Stage Rally in April as part of their preparation for Rocky.

Prescribed Burn Rally Team Takes Open Class Win at Cochrane Rally 2008

This year Cochrane was a fast paced, exciting rally, complete with winter driving challenges, amazing offs and fierce competition.  Sunday’s stages were ice and gravel blanketed by a few centimetres of fresh snow.  The conditions were highly variable depending on running order, and changed substantially throughout the day.  The Prescribed Burn Rally Team set out first on the road in the morning, setting respectable times despite the slippery and deceptive untouched snow on the stages.   By the first service they proved to be behind the pace of the leading group, who were taking advantage of the grippy gravel that was appearing as the rally progressed.    The second leg of the rally took place on the tricky and technical Harold Creek stages; these stages claimed two rally cars during the event, and the Prescribed Burn car almost became a third.  Early in stage 3 Mark and Jennifer came flying into a sharp left slightly unprepared, and ended up on top of the large snowbank, on the outer edge of the road, sliding along it and managing to use whatever wheels were still on the ground to avoid going over the edge. This corner saw a lot more action after the Prescribed Burn team came through – some competitors bounced off the bank, and one car went off and rolled over completely.  The rollover was the big story of the event, until another team launched their car off a crest and wedged it between two trees on the second pass of the Harold Creek stages.  The crews from the crashed cars were uninjured but out of the rally.  Mark and Jennifer made up time during the final leg of the rally.  They set top times on stages, and were within 10 seconds of second and third place overall.  Delays from earlier in the rally caused two late stages to be cancelled, and the opportunities for the Prescribed Burn Team to continue making up time were lost.  The team was still in line for the open class win, as the next closest open driver ended up hitting a bridge trying to catch them.  As all the teams filed into the final control it became clear that the results were extremely close, with a large part of the field possibly on the podium.  This situation is unusual in rally, and it took the officials a long time to declare the results.  Mark, Jennifer and the Prescribed Burn Team took the Open class win, and placed fifth overall, 20 seconds out of third.  The Bullit Racing Team of Colin Armstrong and Jason Thain won the event and the Group 2 title.  The next Alberta event is the Rocky Mountain Stage Rally in May.   Link to event photos from Formula Photographic HERE. Link to Shawn’s photos, including sequences of the close calls on Harold Creek, HERE. Link to Louren Sansregret’s photos HERE. 

Cochrane Rally Opens Sirius Stage Season This Weekend

Twenty teams from BC and AB will be rallying through Albertan ranch country at the 2008 Cochrane Rally of the Ranchlands on March 15 & 16. Sirius team members Jennifer and Josh will be in the right seats for Mark Jennings-Bates in an open Impreza and John Breen in a P-3 Focus, respectively.

The G2 battle will be the main focus of the Cochrane Rally this year. Two of the top G2 cars have new codrivers, and a perennial favourite is returning to his old VW ride for the event. Mark and Jennifer are slated as car 1 in the start order, leading all the 2wd cars onto the stages. Being the first car on the road will be a new challenge for Jennifer. The Prescribed Burn rally car has been fined tuned at Rocket, and the volunteer service crew will be out in full force for Cochrane. The Prescribed Burn Team is hoping for a reliable start to the 2008 season, and aiming for a podium place at Cochrane this weekend.

Link to event homepage HERE.

Sirius Rally in the News

The Alcan pace had me barely skimming some of the comments while we were on the rally, but now I’m enjoying going back through and seeing what people wrote. I almost missed a heads up from someone we met on day 2, a teacher at the school, I think, about an article in the Quesnel Cariboo Observer. Hopefully we’ll be able to get a paper copy but it’s also available online HERE.

Rookie Sirius Team Takes Second Overall at Alcan Rally!

We’re finally getting settled back in to life not on the road, and here’s the overdue conclusion to the Sirius Alcan Adventure:

The combined efforts of cars 16-18 resulted in the second place team prize for the 2008 Alcan Winter Rally. Our ‘all newbie’ crew is very proud of finishing closely behind the accomplished Arctic Challengers, who won the team honours despite one of their cars suffering some damage on the ice road. The Tres Hermanos RT took overall honours; the Alcan site still doesn’t have scores past day 4 so we can’t post all the details. The results were announced at the finish banquet, and a score sheet was distributed, but in the post-Alcan revelry we lost track of both. Josh and Evans left early to make it home the next day, so the points totals are listed in Josh’s post below. We made a leisurely trip back, stopping at the Eagle Eye for a mountaintop lunch, but it was cool to see our other teammates rushing happily home to their families.

Here’s the breakdown for each Sirius entry:

Josh & Evans Keatley – CAR 16 (grey Subaru Forester)
FIRST PLACE class IIE
9th overall
the ‘behind the scenes’ lowdown: Josh and Evans were the token father/son effort, and the Forester they rescued from the wrecker turned out to be a great Alcan ride. They were dependable teammates and Josh put on a heck of a show at the ice races, posting fast times in a non turbo car.

Jennifer Daly, Gord Ryall & August Ustare – CAR 17 (wrb 2004 Subaru WRX Wagon)
ICE RACE CHAMPIONS
second place class IE
11th overall
the ‘behind the scenes’ lowdown: If not for our day 4 sleep in, we might have had our class win and the team prize. Once we got behind, we had more of a fun holiday and didn’t pay a lot of attention to the points, but our TSD abilities still improved dramatically. When Gord started winning the ice races, I got to do more TSD driving. Gord has sworn off TSD entirely as of the last day of the Alcan, so August and I will compete as a team for selected events this year, hoping to continue on the improved and competitive pace we attained on the Alcan. The rally was a scouting mission for future adventures, and the draw to explore the Yukon and NWT is even stronger now that I’ve seen a little of what it has to offer.

Bill Beers & Doug Heredos – CAR 18 (Big Blue Dodge Ram)
second place class IIE
12th overall
FIRST PLACE favourite last minute teammates and road buddies
the ‘behind the scenes’ lowdown: We were lucky to have these two stage rally guys from Oregon as the objects of our pranks, impromptu cameramen / media hounds and dependable Kokanee company. The truck was an unlikely ride but they drove it with style and a sense of humour. If there had been close to the expected number of ice races, they might have been able to coax us into switching up for the Rex. They stayed close on the heels of the Keatleys, and the tightness of this race helped us overall in the team standings.

Adding one more blue Subaru to the mix made for a lot of camera opportunities and better chances to gang up on the Dodge, and by the end Stevan and Kristin were pretty much teammates as well. Stevan braved a pretty bad virus to join us for the token champange splash at the finish. Kristin was a great navigator and had a solid handle on TSD by the end, even though she had no idea what she was getting into when she started. We’ll be watching for them to turn up on the Canadian stage circuit in the future. I’m not totally certain, but their presence in our class, despite not having a rally computer, may have upped the Sirius Team score.

We’ll add thoughts, top ten lists and ramblings as the impact of our rally sets in, and we’ll be busy with the 2008 stage season very soon. It was 4 years in the making but I think we got everything we hoped for and much more from the Alcan Winter Rally. Immense thanks to Jerry and all the volunteers who set the route out before us.