Sirius Team Completes 2007 Rally Season Together @ Totem

August, Gord and Jennifer placed 3rd in calculator class and 13th overall at the Totem TSD Rally in the Fraser Canyon this weekend. The team finished with 77 points overall, improving on previous totals by hundreds of points.

The Sirius Team covered over 800km in their 2 day Totem journey, and got a sense of how they will run things for the ALCAN5000 in February. Now that we know we can get along and do well for the TSD sections, car preparation will be our major focus in the upcoming month. The rex’s ALCAN makeover will be detailed on the website, so check back to see how Gord turns a tired daily driver into a winter rally machine!

Click HERE for final results.
Click HERE for Formula Photographic images.
Click HERE for Sirius photos.

Kananaskis Rally Rounds Out 2007 Stage Season for PBRT

The Prescribed Burn Rally Team finished their 2007 stage season placing 3rd in open class and 12th overall at the Kananaskis Rally in Alberta over the long weekend. The team was aiming to take the overall win, but they were plagued again with mechanical troubles and some bad luck. Mark set competitive times on the small Jumping Pound morning stages, despite a spin on one lap and stuffing it into the ditch by the spectator point in the last lap. The fastest way to get the car back on the road was to throw it in reverse, so the spectators got quite as show as the car shot down the course backwards for 500m before changing directions at an R6.

Powderface was the main road for this year’s rally, and a favourite of the Prescribed Burn Team. Coming into this long, flowing stage Mark and Jennifer felt sure that they could catch the rally leaders, who were ahead by 20 seconds. An untimely tire puncture cost the team more than 4 minutes on the first Powderface run, putting them out of overall competition. They fixed the tire and posted a great time on the first Powderface reverse, but then suffered a blown turbo hose, the same hose that did them in at Rocky, and dropped out of the running for the open class win. Once the hose was reattached, Mark and Jennifer ran the final lap and finished the last stage of the rally with the 3rd fastest time.

The 2008 season begins with the Cochrane Rally of the Ranchlands on January 19-20th. The Prescribed Burn Rally Team will be fighting hard for its first overall win, and chasing the novice title in the Canadian National series.

Click HERE for event photos from Prescribed Burn Rally.

Click HERE for Shawn Bishop’s pics.

Prescribed Burn Rally Gains Ground at PFR 2007

The Prescribed Burn Rally Team overcame unusual road conditions, weather and tough competition to place 4th in the regional race for the 2007 Pacific Forest Rally. This result exceeded the goals the team set for itself going into the rally.

Reconnaisance proved to be a big challenge for the entire field, with ankle deep snow on the Thynne/Brookmere stages. Mark and Jennifer were able to complete one pass of these stages, but were stopped with many other teams for a long time while cars ahead slid on and off the road. They had no problems with the snow in the rex with its new winter tires. On the way back to Merritt, Mark and Jennifer met up with their new service crew bringing the very recently painted yellow car. Ian, Dave and Reagan did a fantastic job prepping and maintaining the car all weekend.

Friday evening started well, but ended in an unlucky DNF. Mark and Jennifer were running with their Western rivals over the first few stages, and were getting comfortable with a faster pace. The car ran out of fuel on the last Princeton stage, preventing the team from running the popular Railyard stage in downtown Merritt. Aside from this blunder the car ran really fast and reliably for the rest of the rally.

Saturday the team drove consistently and improved almost every stage time, surpassing their usual group 2 competition and chasing within reach of a podium finish. Questionable tire choices for the snowy morning stages had put some of the top open teams within 20 seconds of the Prescribed Burn times. Mark and Jennifer flew through Helmer at the end of the day, improving upon their morning time by over two minutes, but the 3rd place open car was also much faster with better tires. The team finished 4th overall, with more than 3 minutes ahead of the next entry. The team has definitely picked up the pace: “In every instance we beat the podium finishers on different stages in a bizarre mix of conditions, all of whom have far more experience on the roads”, says Mark.

Antoine L’Estage won the rally, with Norm LeBlanc defeating ACP for second overall. The open regional podium was LeBlanc, Trinder and Olsen.

The next event is the final rally of 2007 for the team, and we are aiming for a win. The regional Kananaskis Rally takes place on November 10th outside of Calgary, AB.

Click HERE for results.
Click HERE for photos.

Bad Night on Bald Mountain

The Sirius Rally Team successfully completed the Night on Bald Mountain TSD Rally this past weekend. The high mountain roads of Washington’s Snoqualmie pass were packed with exposure hairpins and sneaky corners; the Pacific coast rain also added to the challenge. The road surfaces were smooth packed in some places and covered in marble pebbles in others. This event was extremely organized and run at a brisk pace. Jennifer and Gord started the rally quite high up in the order, leaving hardly any time for math before they started out on the first regularity. Troubles with calculation plagued the team for the rest of the rally. The rex pulled into the first gas stop with a smoking rear tire – the newest and least bald of the worn winters had punctured, and the rim was mangled from driving on the flat. It hadn’t affected the car’s performance on the road, so it was hard to guess when and where the tire actually punctured. A quick change to a spare summer and a bit more math, and the team was back out for leg two.

Jennifer got a huge amount of driving practice over the weekend, most importantly on the untimed Monte Carlo sections, which were gravel roads without prescribed speeds. Gord had the math ‘dialed’ by leg two and the team felt confident that their performance was improving. The team had an off near the end of the rally, where they slid through a tight left and crashed into the bush. The last regularity was a second time through with a CAS increase of three miles, and a dramatic decline in road conditions. The recovery was quick as the team was able to bust back onto the road through the bush in reverse. The rest of the reg was speedy in an effort to make up the 30 second time deficit. In hindsight, it would have been smarter to take a time deck for the off and avoid accumulating points, but catching up was way more fun. The event was well staffed with volunteers and there were 24 checkpoints total – a good test of tsd ability.

The team finished with an unimpressive last in class and 21st overall, accumulating 450 points. Congratulations to Ben Bradley and Russ Kraushaar, who killed the event despite a sluggish ride. Thanks to rallymaster Greg Hightower for a great rally and for letting us crash at his place – camping at Snoqualmie Pass turned out to be a really bad idea, and we were lucky to have another option!

The team is looking forward to better results at Midnight, Armageddon and Totem, coming up in the next month. August Ustare will be back in the right seat for some of these events, after a fairly lengthy break from rally. His navigational abilities should help the team become more competitive as they strive for better results in the rallies leading up to Alcan.

Link to final results HERE.

2007 OK Lake Rally Test Day in Review

The rally teams present at the OK Lake Test Day logged about 100 km of seat time on Saturday, and the event was a great success. Alliance Rally Team, Prescribed Burn Rally and the Rocket Legacy ran the stage until they were exhausted. The Tisza Motorsport Team made a few fast runs but were forced to retire early because of a suspicious oil leak. All the teams were happy with the stage, especially the tight technical sections.

This was the first test day organized in BC and it was a good chance for new organizers and volunteers to get oriented to stage rally planning and execution. There were a number of people present who got their very first rally car rides, and all pulled into the finish control with huge grins.

Thanks again to everyone involved. The Sirius Rally Team is plotting for another stage event in the Okanagan for the coming year: another test day, possibly, or maybe even a full regional in the snow!

Link to Sirius’ event photos HERE.

Check out professional shots from Formula Photographic HERE.

Check out event photos on the Okanagan Racing site HERE. (not a very user friendly interface but lots of car shots.)

OK Lake Rally Test Day Tomorrow

The first Okanagan rally event in recent history, planned by Sirius Rally Team staff, is taking place off of Bear Creek Main FSR tomorrow. There are reports of snow within about 200m of the stage finish, so it is shaping up to be a wild ride. There will a car from Alberta and one from Kamloops out for pre-PFR shakedowns, as well as the local Prescribed Burn Car, and a car from Rocket Rally. The latter two entries will be showcasing rally up close in the right seat for raffle winners and volunteers.

Volunteers should arrive @ 0800. Recce begins @ 0800, and the first car out is @ 1000.

Thanks to the Orchard City Amateur Radio Club for HAM support, and Coldwell Banker for providing lunches for our new volunteer crews!

Click HERE for supplementary regulations.

Sirius Zeros at Gold Digger

The Gold Digger TSD Rally results have been posted. Gord and Jennifer collected 3 zeros, the most ever during their somewhat unsuccessful but seriously enjoyable TSD careers. Although they placed at the back of the pack, and ahead of only one team – pals and foolhardy TSD’ers Onur and Jeff, Gord and Jennifer are almost getting good enough for Alcan!

Click HERE for results.

Watching and Wandering at Defi National Stage Rally

Over the Labour Day Weekend, Gord made his debut as a rally spectator at the Defi National Stage Rally while on holiday in Montreal. The rally takes place a couple of hours outside of Montreal in small towns around Ste-Agathe and Duhamel. Joined by Jennifer and displaced BC rallyist and pal Andy, who extended generous hospitality and pure insanity behind the wheel of his minivan, they experienced Quebec rallying at its chaotic best.

In Quebec the spectators haul their chairs, coolers, bbqs and other rally gear onto school buses to be transported to the stage. Bus after bus was filled with people and there were big, enthusiastic crowds at the spectator points; the party atmosphere added a lot of fun and craziness to watching the cars speed by.

Friday was the easier day for spectating, but we enjoyed watching the in town tarmac stages, getting a bit lost, and tearing around the early stages after they were closed on Saturday. There was a little bit of rally carnage – a lucky scrape along a tree early in the rally, and multiple cars complaining and limping out of the final stages, adding to a decent total of mechanical DNFs.

The event was typically dominated by Antoine and Natalie in their Tiburon, who have signed on to promote Hyundai’s new performance parts and are newly sponsored by the manufacturer. Matthew L’Estage looked extremely fast on the stages until he trashed his transmission. There were some quick and entertaining VWs at the back of the pack that were fun to watch. Alberta friends Eric and Leanne were looking quick as well, but had too many flats on the longest Saturday stages and fell out of contention.

In total the Sirius Rally Team has been present at all but one of the Canadian National Rallies this year. The Pacific Forest Rally is up next in October, where Jennifer and Mark will be striving for their best finish in the (hopefully) newly painted Prescribed Burn Rally Car.

Click HERE for event photos. (caveat – professional photographers we are not)
Click HERE for event video clips. (again, short amateur clips for fun)

OK Lake Rally Test Day Sirius Style

On September 22 the OK Lake Rally Test Day planned by Sirius team members is coming to Kelowna! Jennifer and Dave have been working extremely hard to make the event a fast and fun preparation day for the Pacific Forest Rally in October. The day will be based on a new group of rally keeners who will be volunteering for the event for the first time.

The 7km stage was chosen by the Sirius Team after hours of scouting the Okanagan Forest Service Roads. It has been praised by experienced rally planners from the West Coast Rally Association, who are supporting the event. A fun combination of newbie volunteers and an experienced WRCA crew should make for a well run and enjoyable event for the test day entants. Gord and Mark (Prescribed Burn Rally) will be representing the organizers and giving new rally fans short trips in their rally cars in order to promote the sport. Mark has raised charity funds by offering a rally car ride as a raffle prize, and the winners will be getting into the right seat as part of the test day.

Novice Pals find Gold at 2007 Gold Digger TSD

Sirius team members and friends successfully completed the all night Gold Digger TSD rally on Saturday/Sunday. The roads were fierce and almost hostile, with large rocks, dry mud ruts and lots of washboard kilometres. A lot of position switching occurred, with the passed cars getting roostered with gravel. Long, pitch dark transit breaks were a great chance to meet and chat with other entrants, including accomplished rallyist and two time Alcan champion Gary Webb.

Gord and Jennifer struggled with math errors and an odo that seemed in need of exorcism. They had a fantastic time, but finished last in class. Onur, Sirius member in training, got extremely lucky and landed a semi-willing codriver at the last minute, allowing him to enter the race. Jeff’s enthusiastic spontaneity was awesome, and it was good fun to watch him go for the ride of his life. They finished with an unusually low score for such carefree novices, and claimed the first novice title, previously held by Gord and Jennifer. Dave and Angie enjoyed working as sweep and checkpoint volunteers; there were also reports of some diesel truck drifting moments as well.

The late night high elevation course roads and early morning mountain views were breathtaking. The last regularity was the Green River road, which flows like an engaging stage course and had plenty of exciting turns and challenges. The morning ended with everyone looking pretty awful but feeling accomplished and happy. A likely groundless protest delayed the official announcement of the results, but it was eventually announced that Onur and Jeff finished first in novice class. We wished Jeff luck as he set out immediately after breakfast to his all day wildlife recreation course. The rest of us chilled out for the day, recovering and working on our new rally stories.

Click HERE for results.
Click HERE for event photos.

Sirius Team to Tackle Night on Bald Mountain

Night on Bald Mountain is an infamous gravel TSD in Washington’s Snoqualmie Mountain Pass. The rally uses an alpine Monte Carlo format, and this combined with working in miles, will be good Alcan practice. Jennifer and Gord are taking the rex; this will be Gord’s first US event as a TSD codriver. Despite its title, this TSD is not an all nighter and is therefore not likely to be nearly as tough as Gold Digger!

Click HERE for event information.

Digging for Rally Gold this Weekend

Sirius Team members Gord and Jennifer are competing in the Gold Digger TSD Rally out of Pemberton BC this weekend. This rally is an all night event with rough roads and fantastic stargazing. The 2006 event was the first rally Gord and Jennifer ever entered together. Blue Thunder is taking a break from its blossoming stage career to tackle the unique challenges of a night TSD rally, with Gord behind the wheel. With Jennifer manning the calculator there’s not much promise of a win, but it will be great Alcan practice and good fun. New rally pal Dave Hood and his wife Angie will be bringing up the rear in the sweep truck for the event. We really hope not to see them on the course until Sunday morning at breakfast! Check back for results and rally stories on Sunday.

Alcan Preview at SnoGit TSD 2007

Jennifer, Ben, Dave and Alex had an entertaining and successful run at the SnoGit Monte Carlo TSD in Marysville this past weekend. The tarmac regularities were fast and flowing; the lack of huge rocks and potholes made it much easier to focus on keeping at speed and on navigation.

Taking tight corners signed at 15 mph at the prescribed 47 mph was very exciting and fun. Despite the thrills Alex managed to sleep through the better part of the rally, but Ben was attentive to the routebook and worked very hard. Being used to a full unlimited TSD system, he was somewhat disappointed in the team’s 73 point finish, but Jennifer was thrilled because 73 points is 100’s better than her best TSD result! Dave and Alex struggled with a stock km odo but managed to finish in 1st place novice and 13th overall. Jennifer and Ben placed 3rd in the unlimited class and 9th overall. Jennifer and Ben collected mostly excellent scores of 0, 1 and 2, but had three poor checkpoints and accumulated another 58 points, putting them out of overall contention. Jennifer got good practice at being a steady TSD driver and picked up many great ALCAN and general tips from Ben, who has placed 3rd in a previous ALCAN and has a wealth of rally experience. He made the trip from Portland to codrive Jennifer at SnoGit and hopefully they will join forces in future events.

The rally was organized, challenging and fun. Hidden checkpoints are novel to these local events and mostly the teams had no idea when they were being scored. There were no ‘tricks’ or ‘diy’ checkpoints, but there were enough unfamiliar elements to keep the Canadian entries busy. The event organizers were enthusiastic and friendly, and the team is looking forward to attending the next Pacific Northwest event, Night on Bald Mountain, on October 6th.

Link to SnoGit photos HERE.

SnoGit TSD this Weekend

Sirius team member Jennifer will be joining up with experienced codriver Ben Bradley for the SnoGit TSD in Marysville WA on Saturday. This TSD will be her first ‘Monte Carlo’ tarmac race. It includes some ‘do it yourself’ control points, which will be new to Jennifer, but old news to Ben! These sorts of checkpoints are part of the ALCAN rally in February, so it will be great practice. They will be competing in the unlimited class with the Rex. Jennifer is making the trip down with fellow Kelowna rally keeners Dave Hood and Alex Schubel, who will be running in Dave’s Impreza. There will likely be some camping in the rain but the tarmac regularities should be good fun, and it’s a great opportunity to learn from Ben, who has competed in ALCAN previously.

Rocks and Roll at Mountain Trials 2007

The Prescribed Burn Rally Team had an eventful but fruitless rally in Merritt this past weekend; working effectively to attain second place by the end of the morning Nicola and Sheep Mab stages, only to meet disaster on both Helmer runs. The rally ended in the first rollover crash for novice rallyist and Sirius Rally Team member Jennifer. It was a slow roll and both Mark and Jennifer were unhurt. Their car will need some serious bodywork before it appears in the Canada Day parade in Kelowna, but at least the crash happened before the car got its brand new paint job.

The event began on Friday evening with a two pass recce session, where pacenotes were generated for Saturday’s competition. Recce was smooth and successful and the team felt confident in their notes. Saturday morning began with three runs of the Nicola and Mab stages, during which Mark and Jennifer traded times the rally frontrunners, and ultimately ended this first leg in second place, with two competitive teams less than 30 seconds behind.

Two runs of the infamous Helmer stage would complete the rally, and the team went into the stage determined to hold on to the podium positions (second place overall and first place open class). The car overheated on the first stage, but luckily it happened near a creek. This setback eliminated Mark and Jennifer from podium contention, but the team decided to continue for experience and fun. Unfortunately the second Helmer stage ended in a rollover caused by a wide ride around a greasy corner, and large rocks which destabilized the car and caused it to roll. The team ultimately landed wheels down in a ditch, unhurt and with repairable car damage.

Despite a challenging rally which ended with a crash, we had a great time and learned a lot. This was Mark’s first rollover as a driver; a roll is something every rallyist eventually experiences, and ours was low damage and exciting. The 2007 stage rally schedule is empty for the summer months, and resumes with the National Pacific Forest Rally in October. This is a Merritt event as well, and Mark and Jennifer will be seeking their Helmer revenge.

Jennifer and the other Sirius Rally Team members are gearing up for a busy tsd schedule in preparation for ALCAN, beginning with the SnoGit tsd in July.

Click HERE for event photos.

Click HERE for a video of the extraction.