“… so if kinetic energy goes as the square of velocity, it does matter what the thing weighs! Because to gain velocity, you’ve got to deliver enough power to add that much kinetic energy, right? Before the motor blows up… and before you run out of salt”

Well, really, that last concern’s not realistic. If you’re fast enough to put your wheels on the long course, you have five miles to accelerate. It only took three for the Poteet & Main streamliner to get to 408 m.p.h. There’s plenty of runway.

Pressure, temperature, friction. I tell ya, it’s just like science class.

“What was the record in K-BGCC again?”

– well marked in the route book, mind you — including a short concrete bridge after a turn.  The bridge’s near-side underbracing is sliding into the gully, causing the far side to heave skyward. A pothole is building just past the tilted bridgedeck, which makes the drop-off after the slab particularly deep.

I think that trailing edge was what scraped one of the button-head bolts off the skidplate, taking a piece of the aluminum crossmember with it. The freshest aluminum color shows where the last bit was attached before I plucked it off.

Marvin and I smelled oil during the trip

First it seemed like motor oil, then towards the end of the weekend it shifted to the fetid odor of gear oil. With the skidplate off, the sheen on the front differential led my eyes naturally to the … missing cover bolt. I haven’t checked the level in the diff yet. Your good thoughts are welcome. The motor oil may be coming from the camshaft seal, not a big deal.

And to complete this trilogy

Our flat tire treacherously cooked itself as it slowly lost air. Another smell story, I fear — shortly before we reached RMH Friday night, I  thought I smelled rubber…  but in the rush on Saturday morning, I didn’t investigate; and when I re-mounted the street tires for our return, I neglected to check their pressures. So when we set out early Sunday morning, she was probably already toast. BF Goodrich thoughtfully discontinued the Traction T/A in that size, but my favorite tire store found a replacement in Texas.

But wait — there’s more

This isn’t just a whining post…

Psst: don’t look now, but I do believe that Mistah Crippen is 2-for-2 in the BC Rally Series.

As Marinus mentioned the other day (The Road to Rocky Mountain House) we ended up in Alberta because neither of us blinked.  And not flinching turned out to be a pretty good approach to the rally too.  Made easier by getting car #1.  Usually a somewhat dubious honor, it allowed us to be unaffected by the chaos and drama on the route behind us: 6 extractions, several stuck cars (cleared by competitors), and multiple mechanical issues.  On the downside there were no tracks to follow, although that means there were no ruts to deal with except when the course looped over subsections.  And we got to scare off a lot of wildlife, at least 3 dozen white tailed deer during the day.  Fortunately none of them attempted to run across the road to get away from the red demon bearing down on them.

GNU appears to be relatively heavy on the Calc class cars.  3 of the 6 registered Unlimited cars had mechanical difficulties the week before the event (including last year’s winners Peter and Geoff Hill) leaving a small field of class competitors.  But the 14 calc cars that ran the event were not going to be push overs.  The 2009 2nd place was a Calc car, only 2 seconds down with 3rd going to a Novice team 3 seconds further down.  We were gonna have our work cut out for us.

We started the first regularity under a startlingly clear blue sky and it went just grand until about .3k into the section when I noticed that the odometer hadn’t been zeroed at the beginning of the section.  Usually we pull up to the start, auto-calc the factor, load the presets, and pull ahead.  In this case we weren’t 100% sure of the rules at the start of a section so we pulled up to the start, auto-calced the factor, pulled back into the parking lot and waited for someone else to pull ahead of the zero point to wait out their time. No one did so we followed suit.  Which means the presets got loaded at the last minute and I failed to notice the lack of a zero.  While the problem was mostly fixable, in my hurry to get it done right away, I subtracted 47.011 miles instead of 47.110 miles leaving us just ever so slightly off (and myself a pretty puzzle of why that took so too long to figure out). Not the best start, but we eventually got back on track and it didn’t cost us too many points.

Regularity #2 was quite a bit more complicated and we quickly found out our 45 minute conversation on the way up about communication style wasn’t going to cut it.  Marinus and I have never run together before, and this event turned out to be a bit of a trial by fire.  A lot of instructions happening close together and just never letting up.  On the up side, the extra repetition made it stick and I was never sitting there with nothing to do for the next 6k.

A few km into Regularity #3 a car comes zipping by in the opposite direction.  Hmmm that looked like the Rallymaster I wonder what’s up?  Sure enough a few more km and we’re crashing through frozen over puddles with no other tracks in sight.  All the references are coming up so we’re on course and now the lead car!

We finished the first leg (4 regularities) with 7 points, in a tie for 1st with the next car back at 9 points.  Not bad, but 4 of those points were from the the first reg. A generous 45 minute lunch break allowed everyone to relax (or at least finish their calcs), eat, brag/bemoan, and generally have a good time.  I’m going to represent that break in the narrative by talking about CAST.  For any non rally oriented reader who has wandered into this post, that means average speed: Change Average Speed To.

Now I’m a navigator, I generally don’t pay attention to CAST much.  CAST is the province of a driver.  To me they are numbers that get crunched, simple variables used to arrive at the perfect time (the ever elusive goal of both drivers and navigators).  They are something you tell the driver, perhaps over and over again, perhaps just once at the change. Sometimes reality intrudes into my dreamy world of perfect numbers & zero scores and I am forced to sit up and take notice.  Sometimes that is the relatively benign quiet zone as you crawl past some house perched next to the road or a pedestrian crossing.  Other times you find out there is a problem from an announcement of the driver, often heavily laced with expletives and from which you might glean the printable words of “CAST” and “pray”.  Or perhaps you come within inches of slamming the back end of the vehicle into a checkpoint car as your vehicle fishtails from one side of the road to the other (the driver insists we had a couple of feet of clearance when we went by, but my clenching muscles insist it was mere inches).  Or as you slide off the road into the ditch in slow motion you might have time to think, “Perhaps that speed was a tad too fast.”

What little intelligence about GNU that has trickled across the Canadian Rockies and into the Team D files suggests that the event features briskly competitive CASTs.  ”Briskly competitive” is code a responsible Rallymaster might use to indicate he has put in speeds you have no chance of matching (well not for long anyway) the whole time and you’ll have to slow down but he’s got to be circumspect about the whole thing because a) doesn’t want to scare people off and b) the event needs to be insured.  Mind you, I’m not saying that’s an accurate summary of previous GNU’s.  But I’m also not saying that isn’t an accurate summary of previous GNU’s.   Someone who doesn’t like the event might say, “******* insane CASTS!”, with a scowl.  An irresponsible supporter might say, “******* insane CASTS!”, with a smile.  And then perhaps a little cackle just to let you know that descriptor should be applied to more than just the CASTS.

That is all background to support the statement that Marinus, who is no slouch as a driver, was understandably nervous about the event.  Needlessly so as it turns out.  Why?  Was Marinus a self effacing super-driver who can totally kick butt?  Was the GNU reputation a bit overblown?  Was Marilyn a super car that who won’t take any guff from mere road conditions?  Personally I blame Mother Nature!  Significant warming in the two weeks between the checkout ride and the event dramatically changed road conditions. But roads recently covered in ice presented their own unique challenges.  I believe Marinus is working on a hydro-centric post so I won’t steal his thunder on that aspect.

Did I mention lunch was pleasant and relaxing?  Near the end of Regularity #5 (the first post lunch regularity) I turned to Marinus and posed the question, “Did we get a too complacent and/or relaxed at lunch or was that a significantly harder than the last reg?” At least one car got stuck, and one of the Calc cars nipping our heels got stuck behind the competitor trying to extract the stuck car and lost significant time.

The second leg featured a number of sections briefly looping across parts of previously run sections, much harder the second time through with 20+ car tracks to deal with.  The leg culminated in a section called Corkscrew Mountain.  A 27 km section that covered 4 pages of the route book, including one single page dedicated to a mere 3 km of that route, with 10 instructions (8 of which were cautions ranging from 1 to 3 in severity).  That 3 km was basically a downhill section consisting of hard rights (exposure on left) and hair pin lefts run at CAST 55.  2 weeks before it was pure glare ice and that speed, according to a checkout worker was … well lets just say he ran it at under CAST.  During the event most of the snow and ice was gone and I still heard no real complaints about the speed.

In the end, Marinus and I took first place (both overall and class) with 26 points.  Followed by a tie for 2nd with 40 points.  Both Calculator cars, Ryan Oliver & Jack Bensley won the tie (in a vintage 1970 Volvo) edging out Shane McAssey & Mark Geusebroek.

I had a ton of fun at the event, very glad we made the long haul out.  I’m still a bit stunned we actually completed the trip.  Will we be doing it again next year? … Perhaps.  It’s a big long commitment and maybe once was enough.  Marinus calculated if he drove home to Portland after dropping me off in Seattle he would have achieved an average speed for the whole event (including time spent sleeping, drinking, or otherwise not on the road) of 30 mph.

Marilyn, outside a restaurant at Lake Louise, in Banff National Park, Alberta

Why are we here?

“We” are Marinus and Marvin.
“Here” is Rocky Mountain House, where the Gnu is.

“Why” is the hard part.   Oh, how far back should we go, seeking an answer to that question….

I can start:
A year ago, Marvin and I toyed with the idea of doing the Gnu together.  We never came to a clench on it, so, like many temptations, the opportunity went by.  And I felt a tiny loss, a once-and-gone tugging at my core, when the event went on without me, and Gnu ’09 was in the past. Darn it!

This year, at The Thunderbird’s closing ceremonies, a delightful rallying couple from Alberta extended a personal invitation to run the Gnu. Jamie & Cynthia’d aimed the invitation at Renee and I — but my favorite navigator recently switched workhorses, so to speak, and the entirety of her 2010 PTO is spoken for. (Yes, her PTO is 100% rally-related, what’d you think?) So she couldn’t make Gnu.

Oh, Maaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnn!

Marvin and I braced each other (“You interested?”)
and each declared our intent (“I would do it…”)
and then we circled and stalked each other ’til the day was nigh, the chips were down, and it was time to
put up or shut up.

Which is why Ron saw us on the road to Gnu today. Neither of us blinked.

800+ miles, 14 hours on the road; just some practice for long days of the Summer Alcan

–Report from Ron Sorem

March 26, 2010  7:44AM  MP 72 (speed limit 70 cars 60 trucks)

Bright red BMW 325xi eastbound in mild traffic…

Curious as to thoughts of Marylin’s driver when after passing a Big Rig, said Big Rig starts wildly flashing his high beams.

Does the driver slow to evaluate the situation?

Does the driver continue, maybe increase speed ever-so slightly?

Does the Big Rig exceed the truck limit for 6 miles trying to catch the little red car with no success?

Sadly, the latter…

Lost sight of them at the Cle Elum exit, drove through town on the half chance Marvin had demanded another caffine stop…

No luck…

They were on the hunt, on the Trail, of the GNU…

BTW, calling Marvin’s 2006 cell number gets a really grumpy “not a morning person” wrong number!

Good luck guys!!!

Yeah, I know, put the 2meter in the truck…

–Ron

Marinus says,

First, my inner editor (who’d been shouting, “Yes, yes!” into my ear Wednesday night, but wouldn’t look me in the eye yesterday) demands some corrective flashbacks. So here are two tiny tweaks to the Saturday part of this story:

It wasn’t crazy fast. The speeds I’m talking about are in kilometers. “Twenty over” a 60 cast is 50 mph.  KMs are like Monopoly Miles.  The speeds chosen might have been predicated on less snow, but if you look at the detailed scores you’ll see that several teams had little trouble with ‘em.

The snow on Saturday’s sections required exceptional levels of concentration, from both of us. And for me, at least, more than the usual level of exertion. About ten minutes into the deep snow sections, the driving demands exceeded my upper body aerobic conditioning.  Here’s how I know: A short time after we passed the snowplow, my vision was closing in, the edges of my view graying out. Nope – I wasn’t passing out; I was just breathing so hard that the windshield was fogging. I panted out, “Need de-fog”, like a surgeon calling for sponges, and my co-driver cranked up the fan.
Hubris -10.

Right, where were we? Oh, yes, Sunday.
Sunday morning.
1 a.m. Sunday morning. That’s when we got to bed.

We weren’t up late waiting for scoring — provisional scores came out hours before, and we held second. We also weren’t celebrating overmuch, though we were very pleased with our performance. No, we were awake that late because our nervous systems were still overcharged.

Bbrriinngg! The alarm went off at 6:40. Our abbreviated rest period had us a little wary of what lay ahead. All the teams seem to run better the second day, so we needed to be sharp.

The first couple sections were snowy (are you surprised?), but the previous day’s training defused any fear of that. Oh, the roads were still slick, but not jaw-dropping, as OK Falls had been…

After the morning break, curving back to Merritt, the elevation was falling, and in equal measure the snow banks dissolved. It’d been warm enough to sublimate the crystals, but not warm enough to evaporate the resulting droplets. When we were out of the rocky foothills into the rolling ranchland, the roads weren’t wet: they were muddy.

I thought the snow was slippery. Hah! Compared to the slimy green-brown mud in the last two sections on Sunday, the snow bit like tarmac. The road was winding and sweeping over the ridges on the Douglas Lake Road. No snow meant no snowbanks, and after Saturday’s pinball session I actually missed those soft white guardrails.

So the routine became: turn the wheel; front tires push; car mildly slides; careful tweaking straightens us; and we’ve lost a couple hundredths. That went on for many minutes, while a creeping tension filled the cabin. I knew we were down; my co-driver knew we were down; what my co-driver didn’t know was I couldn’t get it back.

Bang! That was a control. The in-car silence afterward was funereal. And we were still down. Zap! Another control. I began grimly hoping that Winter Scoring’s grace period might actually pay off for us. Finally the muck thinned, and we caught up.

We passed the end of the last regularity, and headed out on the last transit back to Merritt. We were exhausted, and downfallen… the points we’d taken seemed huge. When we do well, it’s always as a result of good teamwork; and when we fall down, we try not to assign the blame within the team. But I’d seen the error on the driver’s display as we passed the controls, and those digits belonged to me.

It was Superbowl Sunday, still early in the game. The random cheering from other patrons confused my frazzled brain. We checked in at MTC, ate, and swapped tales, played secret agent to pry into how the teams around us ran. The spy reports did not build our confidence.

But you know what? We made the podium, in second place still. I walked around the corner from the dining area and exhaled, relieved, reassured, and totally, completely, spent. 17 points over two days, I can live with that. Back in ’07 we had 744 points.

How did that score improve so much? Easy answer — we’ve been hanging out with great TSD ralliers. There’s a long list of ‘em, from the Olson twins, the Saagers, Satchmo, Russ and R. Dale and Katy, Brandon & Jason, the Team D folks from Seattle, Kevin & Chris & Ben & the Tabors, the J.Zs … we’re surrounded by folks who “get” rally. They’re nice and helpful and sharing before and after the events — and they’ll press you past your limits when competing. We’re already looking forward to the next “brisk gravel rally” (and I’m working on my stamina).

Ah, but there’s another side to that coin, you know. If you get in there, and you make a mistake, you feel stupid.  In fact, you feel stupid on two levels: one, you should have known not to press on that thing that you pressed on (substitute “pry”, or “trim”, or “pull”, or “cut” until the shoe fits), and two, you should have known a priori that this particular repair was beyond you.  This repair should have been given to the folks with the special tools and secret books: the techs at the dealer.

Apropos of nothing, have I told you about my modern German techno-car? Have I described its multiplexed communications channel for control of accessories? Did I already mention the MOST-bus that connects the “automotive media devices”?  If I’ve not raved about it yet, you should know that the MOST-bus covers about 4 of the 7 OSI layers. It’s slightly intimidating, to tell the truth.

Look: all I want to do is play my iPod through the stereo. How hard can that be?

Well, there are two answers to that. If you just want to control the tune that’s playing with the iPod’s touch wheel, and you’re satisfied with a few hours of music on a iPod charge, it’s simple. Plug in a stereo mini cable and you’re done.

But if you want to charge the iPod while it’s in the car, or change the track or playlist with the radio controls, or maybe see the track or artist name on the radio’s character display…  then you need to interface with the MOST-bus. Thankfully, BMW has anticipated your need! And they’ve produced an accessory MOST-interface box! And you can buy this, yes, from a dealer, as a kit!  It comes with instructions!

Mmmm… yes… it comes with a little booklet bound in cool, white, semi-glossy paper reminiscent of the owner’s manual. The booklet is the “end user” documentation:

How to play a tune. How to change volume. How to plug in your iPod.

The kit does not come with installation instructions… of any sort. That omission sends a pretty clear message:

The owner is not expected to install this.

To be fair, there’s a portion of the installation that most people, of whatever skill level, will be completely unable to do: reprogramming the car’s command and control system to recognize the new device on the MOST-bus. That takes special electronic equipment only found at BMW dealers.

But you could, theoretically, install the hardware and wiring, and simply take the car in for reprogramming
– if you were mechanically inclined
– if you had past experience in automobile dealership service departments installing accessories
– if you found the real installation instructions somewhere.

I am, I do, and I did.

So I thought I’d “save” the hour’s labor charge that the dealership wanted to install the hardware & wiring. I gathered my tools and went to work. Draw now the curtains in your imagination, and race forward in time to that point where I admitted defeat and began backing out. Never mind the nature of the insurmountable obstacle that turned me back; what’s important is the next bit. After the trim was all back on, and the battery reconnected, I started the car to verify that it still operated.

And a new warning light came on, one I’d never seen lit before. It trumpeted that the 4×4 system was inoperative, and – more than that – it screamed that some fumblefingers had been touching things he oughtn’t.  Key off, battery disconnected, trim back off, double-check all connections, reassemble:  4×4 warning light shining still, like the sun at midday.

Ohhh, the angst, the agony, the self-torture and self-loathing I felt then. “Save” money? Hah! I’d be paying for that hubris, in spades! I dreaded the report I must give to the service advisor: “I tried to do something myself, and I think I broke something somehow.”  My confidence was shattered. My spouse was kind but I thought I saw, even there, a flicker of disdain for my weak skills and my smug arrogance.  Twice times stupid — that’s me.

The car came back from the dealer this week, with the MOST-interface installed and the systems reprogrammed and the 4×4 warning light dark. The iPod works great.  Want to know what caused the warning light?

Bad steering angle sensor.

It’s in the column, nowhere near where I was working; couldn’t have been damaged by anything I touched. It was a mere coincidence that it failed while I was tearing apart the dash.   Just. A. Coincidence.

Veterans and Novices

Normally the previous year’s winners are assigned Car #1; running that spot is equal parts honor and duty.

The honor should be obvious, pride of place wot wot. And there are benefits to running up front: you never have to wait in line for the pump at the gas stops; the locals that you see still have no idea that their road is hosting a mass migration of four-wheelers; the low, wet spots on the section aren’t chewed into mudholes; where there’s snowpack, it isn’t all shiny and slick; and there are no deep tracks in the snow leading off the road … yet.

But there’s a price, too, for running out front. You’ll be the first to find the one really slippery corner, or the blown-down tree, or the nodding control crew. It’s like being point man on patrol. On balance, giving #1 to last year’s winners is probably a handicapping method, sort of like the NBA’s allocating the worst draft positions to the best performing teams. More evidence: The rallymaster calls it “The Curse Of Car #1″.

Well, then, who won Totem 2008? Glenn Wallace & R. Dale Kraushaar did. In winning last year, those two zeroed the entire second day. If ever a handicap was called for…

But we got to the Bear’s Claw, and #1 was not on their car; instead, they were carrying #2. Whaaa? Those guys are veterans, they know the drill — how’d they miss the duty?

Pffft. Veterans? I’ll give you veterans. The team in the lead car included a man who first ran Totem in 1959. APPARENTLY, if you show up with a pedigree like that, they just bow and hand you the #1. This time, the award of first position is all about honor.

Near the other end of the train, running #20, a novice team’s in a 4×4 pickup with 31″ tires. They’ve strapped down some big chunks of wood in the back… is that for weight? Or is there a bonfire later? I feel a mild sense of dread on their behalf, but I can’t think of a way to warn them without sounding like a jerk or a fuddy-duddy. As Glenn Wallace put it, ‘Nobody likes the “you’re doomed” speech.’ Same goes for the very pretty Golf, with its supercharger and roll cage; the car doesn’t seem quite right for where we’re headed.

And finally, there’s a leviathan of steel, a sled so wide and so long and so heavy that calculations of its polar momentum outstrip our calculator’s registers: it’s the Rally de Ville.

It wasn't done yet.

Snow

We went through Tech in the midst of snow flurries, a delightful hint of what was to come. Snow’s what we hope for; snow’s what makes Winter rallies such a draw. And Totem did not disappoint: we had light coatings that looked like drizzled icing on a Bundt cake; we had 6 or 8 centimeters of slightly moist snow in granules, like beach sand; we had, early Sunday morning, some churned up brown slush. There was snow, snow, snow, gravel, and snow. Reliable wit Eric Horst opined, “The snowiest Thunderbird I ever saw was a Totem in 2009.”

What we didn’t have a lot of was ice — and no one was complaining. You might remember that the final section on Sunday last year was mostly ice and mostly hilly. Some 2-wheel-drive cars didn’t make it over, and some AWD cars struggled to. This year, there were lots of new-looking studded snow tires scratching their way around Cache Creek before the start.

Winter Scoring

To balance out the snow and ice, the B.C. winter rallies grant three flavors of time relief.

The first is a one-second-each-way grace period around perfect time. If your team crosses the timing mark up to a second before, or up to a second after, the time the rallymaster’s calculated, you get a zero.

The second type of relief expands the grace period after you’ve taken points. If churned up brown slush forces you to slow below CAST, and you’re, say, 20 seconds late into Control #1, you’ll take 19 points there — but if thereafter you’re able to hold the CAST, you’ll still be 20 seconds late into Control #2. It would be uncivil to give you another 19 points for the same shortcoming, so the grace period expands, for you alone, to encompass the amount you were late at the previous control. So your second 20 seconds late is accorded zero points. You can nibble away at your lateness up ’til the end of the section, and so long as you get closer to zero seconds off, you’ll not take any more points.

The final variety of relief is a garden-variety time declaration. Time decs were only recently adopted, and there’s still a certain distaste for them. Long time competitors disparage their use, preferring to just run late and take the points they take.

A time dec “should” only be claimed for delays out of one’s control… but that meaning is obviously fluid. We found a 400 pound Angus heifer standing sideways in the center of the road; it took us ten or more seconds to slow, avoid, and creep around her. Is that delay time-dec worthy? Normally we’d just hump it up above CAST and catch up — but this was on the slush, and I’d been near to my limit just to reach CAST. Faster wasn’t an option. Perhaps if the scores were, on average, larger, the hyper-competitive folks would be more willing to take the points — but ten points is about five places in Unlimited.

Saturday night scoring came together quickly (more about that in a bit), and Paul circulated the provisional scores. With his charming oscillating timbre, Paul the rallymaster always sounds slightly surprised. He had this comment:

“I’m going to be pressed to abandon Winter scoring.”

“Why?”

“We have multiple teams with one point.”

So we knew it was going to be tight. In Unlimited, it was 1-1-3-4-5 on Saturday night.

And, of course, Offs

Sad to say, the 4×4 truck didn’t make it to noon on Saturday. They slid off with enough forward vector to deploy the airbags, and the shaken co-driver wisely called a halt. The race-ready Golf wasn’t winter-rally-ready, and rolled early on. So far no serious injuries, and I trust it won’t spoil it for you if I say there were no serious injuries over the weekend. There were, though, plenty more excursions into the B.C. scenery. I think Sweep did six extractions the first day, from a field of 21 cars.

Saturday ran late into the evening. I guess it usually does, but I recall feeling surprise when I glanced at the Timewise clock just after the midpoint break, and it read 5:30:00. It was fully dark, and there were four sections left to run. Just before the start of the last section, barely outside Williams Lake, the snow was falling in earnest.

The route took a loop off the Frasier Road, and two control crews were heading in to their worker locations from the backside, running counter-course. After a long straight stretch, there was a flat-to-off-camber 90 right on the edge of a ravine, and the sticking snow at the outer edge lay atop withered grass. The leading car braked, set up, turned, and drifted just a skance wide — too much! Despite AWD and snow tires and a thorough driver warm-up on like conditions, there was not enough room to save it. They went forward, off the edge.

The folks in the trailing car, if they did not actually see it, caught on very quickly, and were immediately on the radio.

DIGRESSION: If you do not hold a HAM license, stop reading this and go begin studying for the Technician level exam. You may pick this up again later.

The first radio report gave chills to everyone listening. The car was invisible, out of sight somewhere down in the trees. No one else was nearby. Cars #0 — #6 were already on course, but some 30km from the location. There was no cell coverage. The organizers quickly dispatched one of the workers towards town… and then there was a collective sigh, like a half a hurricane, as the workers in the leading car (who’d gone down the ravine) came on the radio sounding practically conversational.

We continued, on route, on time, following the rallymaster’s lead, along the quickest path to the spot. The hillside was steep, slippery, and unclimbable. Rescuers made up a lifeline of towstraps, and tossed one end down. We arrived just as the workers were pulled over the top. They and their bags were quickly bundled away to the hotel, seemingly no worse for wear. The car was left to slumber in the deepening snow, and (not to foreshadow too much) so too slept an overlooked control log.

The Twist

We went on on Sunday, while Ron stuck around Williams Lake to get the car. After the slushy first section, there was a lengthy regularity along Spring Lake that was simply marvelous, in deep, tacky snow, and lacking the usual underlayment of ice. Two more sections took us to the end. As usual, Sunday’s scores were better than Saturday’s. Back in Cache Creek, it appeared that both the front-runners had taken a single point on Sunday, and it looked like breaking a 2-2 tie would be necessary.

But the control log that’d been lurking in the ravine was retrieved with the car, and delivered to the rallymaster. That score sheet dealt a critical blow to one of the leading teams. With those latent scores included, the second place team had half again as many points as the winners!

That is, they had 3 points total, and the winners had 2.

Epilogue

I sense the day is near when a team will zero both days of a B.C. Winter Rally, and perhaps as close is the day when we’ll need to break a tie at that score. It could happen next February, at The Thunderbird. I strongly recommend that you go to The Thunderbird, and when you do, bring your two-meter radio. You never know when you’ll need it.