TeamD Adventures

As the morning of day two dawned, clear and warm, the reality of the day before started to become clearer.  Car 3 (Jason and Brandon) were sitting pretty in the lead with 4 points.  The two TeamD cars, sitting in second and third with 10 and 11 points respectively, had to run perfect rallies to be in contention for first in case car 3 slipped up (which did not seem likely given their recent tear through the leader board of TSD events).

Car 2 had started a slow limp home the night before (checking in with the rally at Leavenworth and letting us know that progress, albeit slow, was being made).  Car 5 spent the night in Grand Forks but lacking a single tire of the right dimensions at the local Canadian Tire (the size of the default Forester tire not being as common as you might think) they decided to head home, leaving the rally with only 7 cars left.  Car 9, a spirited 21 year old turbo sprint, started the rally missing gears 1 and 5 (which made uphill starts a bit more interesting) lost turbo boost at the end of day 1 but, with a healthy application of duct tape and zip ties, was able to make repairs and continue.

Regularity 8, the first of day two, was a repeat of Regularity 5 from day one with the added addition of a 10km free zone serving as a second odometer check and a five minute pause to regroup after the free zone.  Unfortunately for them, car 1 ran into some rally computer difficulty at the end of the free zone and while solving that, forgot the 5 minute pause.  They discovered their error down the road but not before blowing past a fairly confused checkpoint or two (the checkpoint workers not expecting a car quite that early).

Regularity 9 was a repeat of the first regularity from day one run in reverse.  This was the regularity that cost us 6 points on day one (due to odometer factor issues) so we were particularly careful with our mileage.  We carefully measured the odometer check free zone from Regularity 8, did our math, came us with basically the same odometer factor that we started with (the one that worked not so well) and decided to stay with the one we had used with more success on 2-7.

Regularity 10 took the competitors west, then, with a right turn, north toward the “under repair” Okanogan Falls road that was originally part of the event.  As we approached the location of our right hand turn we started looking for the sign that would precede it.  The sign should have read “report all poaching” or something similar but we never saw it.  The conversation in the car went something like this:

Marvin:  Where is the sign.
Me:  Is that our turn?
Marvin:  Did you see a sign?
Me:  Is that our turn?
Marvin:  I’m looking for the sign.
Me:  Was that our turn?
Marvin:  I didn’t see a sign.
Me:  Was that our turn I just drove by?
Marvin:  Did you see a sign?
Me:  Check the mileage.  Did we just pass our turn?
Marvin:  Umm….. Yes.
Me:  #%!@#$%^&*(

Quickly throwing both the car and the rally computer in reverse, we backed up the road to the missed right turn, put the computer in forward and the car in gear, made the turn, looked at the CAST (72!) and the error (30 seconds late!!) and proceeded north at a goodly pace hoping to catch up our lost time before we saw another checkpoint.  Which we did.  Fun.

Regularity 11 came right back down the road to the turn (this time a T so missing it would have been hard) and proceeded out west toward the finish.  The rally has been running through open cattle ranges and we had been seeing them on the sides of the road for some time but half-way through this last section I saw cattle in the middle of the road, somewhat blocking our path.  I honked liberally at them as we approached them, hoping to elicit a response and then noticed that the lead animal was be-horned.  Marvin suggested that perhaps a more cautious approach would be better and I agreed.  I didn’t want to try to explain holes in the side of my car to the body shop (“no really, the car was gored by a bull”).

The rally ended back at Osoyoos and scoring was speedily accomplished (hurrah!).  Although we managed to score only 1 point on day 1, giving us a total for the event of 11, Car 3 once again showed their skill by acing the day and winning the overall rally with 4.  Great job, guys.  TeamD ended the weekend firmly in positions 2 and three, both overall and in class.

Thanks go to the rallymasters, organizers, workers, and sponsors of Crestline 2008.  It’s inaugural run was a success and I look forward to attending again next year.