An unusually heavy week of rain descended upon Calgary, Alberta just in time for the 2008 Rocky Mountain Stage Rally, creating challenging conditions for the organizers, teams and volunteers. The second round of the Canadian National series had thirty four entries and showcased new contingency programs and factory support from Subaru and Mitsubishi.

As teams traveled out to the first stages, a rare short break in the rain occurred and Mark and Jennifer flew through the familiar roads without incident. By the first reseed they had moved ahead of their usual regional competition, and just in behind the funded factory teams. The third stage of the rally was the longest and a favourite of Mark’s; although turbo problems had prevented the team from truly taking the stage in the past, this time they pushed hard and drove Powderface all out. On the transit back to Calgary two top teams were stopped on the roadside, and another was left on stage with a blown motor. This attrition put the Prescribed Burn Team in the running for a top five National finish.

The impact of the weather was apparent early in the rally when flooding forced the cancellation of the short spectator stages. In lieu of the planned gravel course, the organizers devised a head to head, WRC style tarmac super special for the spectators expected at the Race City Speedway on Friday night. Despite the downpour, a sizeable crowd equipped with cameras and umbrellas turned up to see the teams and cars at service and on the track. The Prescribed Burn Team ended day one in fifth place overall, its highest National standing ever. Mark and Jennifer aimed to carry the speed and composure they attained on the Powderface stages into the Porcupine Hills, despite the torrential rain and rumours of car-sucking mud on Saturday’s tricky and technical stages.

The Prescribed Burn Team started day two by setting fourth fastest times on the first two stages, moving them ahead of Mitsubishi teams from Quebec. Mark and Jennifer were surprised at how well they fared since they battled thick fog and confusion about chicane placement on the first stage. At the first service the focus was on tires, and many teams were changing to new gravel tires or narrow mud tires. Deep mud and rocks on the next two tight, narrow stages cost the team time and a lot of tire wear, but they managed to lose only one position.

Mark drove at the very edge for the grip and the conditions over the last two stages, but their closest competitors with mud tires gained ground. The Prescribed Burn Team finished the Rocky Mountain Rally in sixth overall, also collecting important points as the second place novice entry. Patrick Richard and Alan Ockwell won the event for the Rocket Rally Team in their new Subaru Canada WRX STI.

According to co-driver Jennifer Daly, the rally was a success: “I’m very happy with our performance and I think we are steadily progressing as a team. We were consistent and we are gaining confidence; sixth overall is an outstanding result. We relied heavily on our volunteer service crew to maintain the car and especially the tires at this event. They were dedicated and steadfast despite the terrible cold, wet, muddy conditions they endured all weekend.” Dave Hood, Eric Bauld, Alex Schubel and Dave Steeper were in attendance as service crew for Rocky.

Over the course of the event, the rain flowed in rivers across the transit roads and into culverts on stage, creating huge puddles that splashed into the roof vents and engines of the rally cars, forcing at least one retirement. The Canadian National series is being filmed to air on TSN in the fall, and according to the veteran rally videographers, the 2008 Rocky conditions were the worst ever.

After reviewing the stage times, driver Mark Jennings-Bates summarized his performance: “We set a competitive pace on Friday and maintained it for the Saturday morning stages. The mud got thicker and deeper as the day progressed, and against other teams with specialized mud tires, we lost precious seconds and dropped in the overall final standings. There are well equipped new or returning teams on the Western Canadian circuit and we’re looking forward to some close battles this season.” With new rivalries brewing, the team will begin preparation for its next outing, the Mountain Trials Regional Stage Rally, taking place in Merritt BC on June 13 & 14. Mountain Trials is a home event for the team and they will be driving hard for a podium finish.

The Prescribed Burn Rally Team is supported by BCResortHomes.com, Agar Paint & Autobody, BigO Tire in Westbank, OkanaganVisitor.ca, Provisiondata.com, Stacy Screen Print, Kelowna Moving Centre, Wyatt Autoparts, Wishbone Industries, The Great Canadian Oil Change and Bell Racing.

The Prescribed Burn Rally Team had an action packed weekend at the historic Olympus Rally in Pomeroy WA. The first US event for the team was a challenging mix of smooth ridgeline roads and tight corners in and out of grassland valleys, with some teams reaching speeds near 200 km/h. The rally was centred at the Garfield County Fairgrounds, where driver Mark Jennings-Bates, codriver Jennifer Daly and service crew Dave Hood, Alex Schubel, Dave Steeper and Eric Bauld enjoyed the old fashioned small town generosity of the host community. The Olympus Rally has a historic past as one of the oldest rallies in America, and as a previous World Rally Championship event.

On Saturday the first regional rally came to a sudden end for the Prescribed Burn Team less than two miles into the second stage. The car slid slightly wide on an acute loose gravel corner; the soft bank edge fell out from under it and the car landed at the bottom of the steep outside ditch. Unharmed, Mark and Jennifer scrambled out of the gulley to await the course closing crew, who capably extracted the rally car and notified the rest of the team. Determined to continue, Mark drove the car back out of the stage in reverse, with two flat tires, bent rims and a crooked front wheel. At the stage entry they were rescued by their service crew, who towed the car back to the fairgrounds to assess the damage. A few hours of hard work and some spare parts got the car repaired in time to reenter the second regional rally, a commendable achievement for the volunteer service crew.

The early crash was not the end of the trouble for the Prescribed Burn Rally Team. Turbo problems caused them to limp through the first stage after the restart, effectively putting them out of podium contention. This problem was tackled in the later stages and resolved by the last day of the event, where the team came within seconds of reaching the maximum average speed allowed on the final stage. They also bested some well known drivers of large budget factory teams. Mark and Jennifer gained confidence using pace notes and they were able to test the limits of the rally car; working under time constraints and getting the car back into the rally were valuable experiences for the service crew.

DC Shoes founder Ken Block won the national rally for the Subaru USA team; Mark and Jennifer placed 6th overall in the second regional. The team traveled to the Olympus Rally as part of their preparation for their first national event of 2008, Alberta’s Rocky Mountain Rally in May.

Link to the Olympus Rally website HERE.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

Well, after last night’s awards banquet and social to-do, the Sirius Rally Team has gone it’s separate ways and headed for home.  As the lucky ones closest to (one of our) homes, we managed to make it back to Calgary by 9 in the morning on Wednesday.  As it turns out, neither of us could sleep past 4 am, so we decided to hit the road.  The Icefields Parkway is spectacular in the daytime, but not much to look at at 5 in the morning.

So, a team update on behalf of the travelling Siriusians still on the road!

As a team we all did extremely well, especially for rookies!  Car 18, Bill and Doug, finished 12th overall and 2nd in class IIE, with 271 points.  This was a great finish for a great couple of guys.  They had the most entertaining runs through the ice race course, with the snowbank crushing power of the Dodge.   Car 17, Jen, Gord and August, finished 11th overall and 2nd in class IE with 261.4 points.  They claimed first overall in the ice races on combined times, beating all of the perennial favourites in this part of the competition.  We in Car 16 finished 9th overall and first in class IIE, with 159.9 points.  Most importantly, all of us on the team had a great time, enjoyed each other’s company and made it to the end of the event with relatively little drama.

All of this was announced at the end of rally banquet at the Jasper Inn, where each car and team was described with some highlights, along with their scores and standings.  A computer projector showed photos and videos from the event, and great fun was had watching all the clean lines and major stuffs from the ice races.  After the dinner, we all chatted and talked about the event and rally in general.  It was great being able to kick back and get to know so many people from across the continent(s, for car 12).

All in all, a fantastic event and a great experience!

Josh

We arrived in Jasper this afternoon to complete the Alcan 5000 Rally at mile 4706.944. We’re glad everyone arrived here safe and sound. We’re looking forward to the banquet tonight to share stories and see results. There’s no wireless internet here at the hotel so I’m making this short post from my cellular internet account. Stay tuned for more updates from us.

Thanks to those who followed us along the way and provided their words of support. See you soon!

AU

So we’re back in civilization, or at least Dawson Creek, just across the Alberta border in northern BC.  Since my last update we have travelled north from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, been fogged in on the Beaufort Sea on the drive back south, spent the night in the 1970’s chic Eagle Plains Hotel, returned to Dawson City, Whitehorse and points south, and are now at the end of the Alaska Highway.

Day by day updates:

Friday - Departed Inuvik NWT for Tuktoyaktuk via the ice road.  Arrived in Tuk about 9:30 am, and got some good pictures of ourselves at the Trans Canada Trail marker at the tip of the town.  Walked around town before heading back south again, and got invited in to the town office by the staff, cause they were surprized to see so many cars driving to the town that time of year.  Headed south on the ice road in a thick ice fog, but made it back to Inuvik safely.  Did a little shopping and got some photos of the unique architecture around the place.  Headed south to Eagle Plains on the Dempster Highway. 

Saturday - Departed Eagle Plains early for a side tour to Dawson City in daylight, discovered that at -30 and the middle of winter, Dawson is pretty much shut down.  Got some great photos of Dawson, then headed south for Whitehorse.

Sunday - Had a short (8.4 mile) TSD section in Whitehorse, then off to the lake for an ice race.  Managed to only pick up 4 points on the TSD, and then didn’t take maximum points at the ice race!  Our teammates, Car 17, took fastest overall time of the day, to lead the ice races overall for 4WD studded tire cars.  After the ice races, we headed south on the Alaska Highway to the Watson Lake signpost forest and the Northern Rockies Lodge where we spent the night.  This place is amazing - almost the middle of nowhere, and just a great facility.  Saw about 50 buffalo along the highway on the drive.  Very cool!  On the way down, stopped at the Liard Hotsprings for a soak, and got to relax in the steaming water while the air temperature was about -5 degrees.  Great way to end the day.

Monday - a long transit day, we headed south on the Alaska Highway again, ending in Dawson Creek.  Along the way, we had TSD sections in Fort Nelson and just outside Dawson Creek.  Picked up 16 points total, middle of the pack for the day, but we are still managing to lead class 2E.  Had a short parking lot session trying to help Gord, our teammate and Subaru tech, patch one of the officials cars whose timing belt seems to have jumped a few cogs.  I wasn’t much help, but I felt good about contributing a flashlight.  We are resting up for the final day tomorrow - 330 miles south from Dawson Creek to Jasper, with one TSD and lots of transits.

Josh