Canadian Rally Championship on TV – Reruns & Premieres!

TSN will be running the entire 2008 CRC season as a leadup to the 2009 shows:

2008 Rallye Perce-Neige – Maniwaki, Quebec: Mon Jun 08 09 05:00

2008 Rocky Mountain Rally – Calgary, Alberta: Mon Jun 08 09 05:30

2008 Baie des Chaleurs – Richmond, Quebec: Tue Jun 09 09 05:00

2008 Rallye Defi – Ste. Agathe, Quebec: Tue Jun 09 09 05:30

2008 Pacific Forest Rally – Merritt, British Columbia: Wed Jun 10 09 05:00

2008 Rally of the Tall Pines – Bancroft, Ontario: Sat Jun 13 09 05:00

2008 Year In Review – Sat Jun 13 09 05:30

2009 Air Dates:

2009 Rallye Perce-Neige – Maniwaki, Quebec: Sat Jun 13 09 11:30 Premiere

2009 Rocky Mountain Rally – Calgary, Alberta: Sat Jun 20 09 11:30 Premiere

(as reported on SpecialStage)

 

Sweet New Logo for Prescribed Burn RT this Season

The Prescribed Burn Rally Team enlisted the help of trusted graphic designer Cynthia Frenette, the artist behind the Sirius Rally Logo, to update their logo for the 2009 season.  The Okanagan rally team is beginning to attract local commercial and media attention; it has also added a second rally car to the team for 2009, and everyone wanted a logo that reflected the team’s growth and success.  Thanks to Cynthia for an eye-catching professional  that reflects the flare and fun at the core of the Prescribed Burn Rally Team.

Link to Green Couch Designs HERE.

The current PBRT website will be updated to fit the new logo soon, hopefully before the team’s first event of the season, Cochrane Rally of the Ranchlands, on March 1st.

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.

Sirius Gear Available Now

Sirius Rally Team shirts and stickers with our spankin’ new logo are now available for order online. Any funds generated from our schwag will be stored in our Alcan piggybank. They look great and they are a fun way to show support for our team!

Contact siriusrally@telus.net for information, ordering troubleshooting, or specific requests (ex – shirts shown only as Eis Munky are also available in the Sirius style)

Check out our stuff HERE.

Sirius Rally Team Gets Graphic

The new Sirius Rally Team logo is ready for press! We’ll be printing and plastering our new design all over the place in the coming months; details regarding stickers, shirts etc will be posted soon. Thanks to Cynthia Frenette @ Hula La Design Company for creating a great new image for our rally team.

Link to Hula La Design HERE.

The ‘Lost Legacy’ Drives Again!!

The Sirius Rally Team is excited to report that Onur’s Legacy has been recovered from an isolated Squamish logging road, where it spent the winter. He stuffed it into a ditch with no gas and two flat tires in early December, and had to walk about 40 km back to civilization overnight during one of the coldest weekends in 2006.

Gord and Jennifer had joined Onur in two seperate rescue missions earlier this year, traveling up the Squamish Valley road in Gord’s hardy Legacy. The road conditions were passable but the crew was met with snowbanks over 3ft tall. ‘Peggy the Legacy’ spontaneously blew the driver’s side airbag on the last trip home, and was getting too beat to take another ride out into the woods. Onur seemed to be not entirely sure where the car even was, and we decided
to wait until a lot more snow had melted before resuming the search.

The Legacy was discovered and reported to the RCMP this past week. The towing company Onur had consulted to rescue the car last winter was called to retrieve the vehicle, and contacted Onur with the news. Onur and pal Ian set out in a rental truck to find the ‘Lost Legacy’ but were thwarted by two flat tires, and returned to town with a logging crew. They borrowed a better truck from Rob at SMD Automotive in Whistler, and managed to get up the road far enough to find the car. The windshield had been smashed, but with some gas, new tires and a new battery, Onur got to drive his car out. He had been commuting on the Greyhound all winter, and with the recent strike he’s ecstatic to have his daily driver back. Stay tuned to see if this prolonged misadventure / near death experience has been enough to remedy Onur’s total lack of self control behind the wheel….

MOMAR Squamish Adventure Race 2007

Gord and Sirius team member in training Onur Tezcan completed their first adventure race last weekend. The MOMAR course was a gruelling seven hour journey involving mountain biking, treking, navigation and a rappel. Squamish is well known for it’s steep ascent and descent trails; the main hike ’stairway to heaven’ was the biggest challenge of the race. Although the elite racers completed the course in just over four hours, it was a big accomplishment for the Sirius team to finish the racecourse, as they were very undertrained for the event. Onur probably had no idea what he was getting into but both he and Gord are looking forward to giving adventure racing another try. The Sirius team plans to get out on the Squamish racecourse again as part of regular training.

Jennifer assumed a volunteer role at the race as a result of her injury, and got some good photos of the boys in action. As a volunteer she watched the teams come through an important checkpoint and learned a lot about transitions and race procedure that will be very useful in future events. Her clavicle is still troublesome and will need at least another few weeks to heal, but more adventure races are being planned for the Sirius team, hopefully later in the summer!

Check out the MOMAR Squamish HERE.

Link to the Sirius Rally Team MOMAR photos HERE. There are also photos of our pals from Revelstoke, who also entered the race. Congrats to Bart Jarmula, who finished 3rd in the 1M category!

Stage Season for Sirius Team Member!

Jennifer will be making her start as a stage event codriver for the 2007 season. She is joining the already accomplished Mark Jennings-Bates as part of his Prescribed Burn Rally Team. The Prescribed Burn team, 2006 WCRC Novice Champions, is based in the Okanagan and debuts a new rallycar this year. The first outing for the new team will be May 26, 2007 as a national entry in the Rocky Mountain Rally. Codriving for an established driver will be a challenge and a nearly vertical learning curve, but it will be a great time and a fun way to get ready for ALCAN.

Check out the Prescribed Rally Team website HERE.

‘Munky’ Business (Updated)

As requested, more ‘Eis Munky Rally Team’ decals are now available. These popular decals are full colour and measure 22cmx30cm. They are 15$ each or 2/25$; the funds generated from the decals will help support our Alcan team. Email or Paypal siriusrally@telus.net to order.

Eis Munky gear is also available HERE, and a brand new Sirius Rally logo will be unveiled soon.

Subaru Stars News

On March 22, 2007 the waxing moon will occult Pleiades, the star cluster depicted on the Subaru logo. The view of this event will be excellent from Western Canada. As the moon passes in front of the stars they will dissappear one by one. Since there’s no rally that weekend, we will likely have our eyes on the sky watching the Subaru stars wink out of view.

Click HERE for an overview of occultations and occultation links.

Winner and Vintage Rallyist Weighs in on Thunderbird 2007

In true style and with the spirit and love of rallying that makes us all fanatics about the sport, Satch Carlson won the event in his 1969 Saab Sonett II V4, and penned a letter summarizing his Thunderbird win and many years of rally:

Hey, fellow rally loons! I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all again for the support you showed to Russ Kraushaar and me – and the little red Saab Sonett. Over the years I have been in many rallies where the competition was fierce and the attitudes unfriendly; Thunderbird, however, seems to exemplify all the values of sportsmanship that are supposed to underlie all our efforts. It was amazing to me to feel that the entire field was pulling for us, especially after our mechanical mishaps on Saturday; instead of depleting the world’s supply of Kokanee in the warm, cozy bar, our friends and competitors were vying with each other to see who could round up the tools and hardware we needed to cobble together our rear suspension!

It may have sounded trite or corny when I said that this win meant more to me than anything else I’ve done since I started rallying in. . . um. . . sometime in the early 1970s, actually-but it’s true. And the reason I felt so good about the weekend was that I truly felt that we were among close friends, where victory is not nearly as important as the spirit of camaraderie and competition.

So thank you again for your support of Team AFRICA. Though to tell you the truth, this year we were more than a little envious of those terrific Eis Munky T-shirts!

See you next year in deeper snow,
Satch Carlson, Spiritual Advisor
Team AFRICA

Welcome to Sirius Rally

The Sirius Rally Team is looking for a sponsor to promote during their trek into the North as part of the Alcan500 Winter Rally. A Sirius Rally Team logo is in the works; we will be telling some of our recent rally tales that preceeded the site, as well as getting our recent event photos posted for your entertainment. Thanks for checking out the team and we’ll do our best to keep all our links and news up to date. Contact siriusrally@telus.net to get in touch with us.