Last weekend we drove it to Olympia for a family birthday party, just to put some miles on it. (In the last year fewer than 20 miles were put on the car.) On the way home, we pulled off the freeway to get gas. At the stop sign, we noticed it was awful quiet inside. The motor wasn’t running, and it wouldn’t start.

We pushed it away from the stop sign, and opened the hood. Within 2 minutes, 2 cars had stopped: ‘Need any help?’. No, we thanked them and waved them away. There was fuel coming out of the vent pipe like an old style percolator. Hmm. It’s probably flooded. Heh. It’s v. v. flooded.

We started the car, got gas, and hit the freeway, this time with a fire extinguisher in the co-driver’s lap. We made it home to Portland and used the last light of the June day to pull the float bowl. The problem: either the nitrophyl float was saturated and sinking, or the float level was too high. Even after we replaced the float, gas still poured from the sight hole while the motor idled.

We cranked the wet float setting WAAAYYYY down past the dry setting. The excess fuel seems to be under control… our fingers are crossed that’s the only mechanical issue we’ll see.
pssst! see the ‘D’ sticker?

Update:   The car ran well during the rally, good enough for 3rd place overall.  The gas problem seems to be fixed.   The next outing will be the Rally Against Parkinson’s which includes a pair of regularity runs around PIR.

Most of TeamD are part of RASC (see the board of directors for 2008) and Eric is the rallymaster so the majority will be working the event not running it.  Our southern compatriots Marinus and Rene will be competing along with Greg and Bill while Eric, Steve, Marvin, Dan, and Hans will be working, scoring, etc.

Me?  I was going to skip this event in favor of Crestline Trail in BC in two weeks.  However, that event has been postponed and I am lucky enough to have a wonderful wife who let me change plans at the last minute so I will be coming along as well.  Marvin is working No Alibi so my choices were to work or to scramble for a temporary replacement navigator (as if replacing Marvin were even possible).  The postponement of Crestline trail means that the next available TSD rally on my calendar is not until August. 

My hands shaking from probable rally withdrawl, I started a search for a navigator so I could compete.  Once again, luck was on my side as Max Vaysburd was suddenly without a driver (Ron, having had a mishap on a prorally event, decided to pull his entry).  After long (2 minute) and difficult (ya wanna?  ok…) negotiations, a new team was cemented and our entry finalized.

No Alibi starts tomorrow.  The gravel tires are on, the rally computer is mounted and tested, the harnesses are installed, and all systems are go.

Stay tuned for updates and photos.

In the end, we had 3 wrong answers. With 1000 being the a perfect score, we tied for 21st place with a score of 985. 76 teams participated in the rally. It was very well organized. During the rally we covered some of the paved transit areas from NOBM 2006. In the end we drove home to Portland feeling like we’d improved our sign reading ability and had fun to boot.

The rally master promises a more difficult rally next year.

Marilyn is all glam now. All she needs is a feather boa.

There were 5 traps. We’d seen 4 of them before. And we still fell for 3/5 of them.

Trap #1 - The old reliable ONTO

Yes, the road REID just outside LaCenter, WA required a sharp left turn to stay ONTO. It was just after a curve, tucked neatly behind a little hill, right next to a dead end road. Well camouflaged, but we saw it. The car one minute ahead of us didn’t. Well - they were supposed to be one minute ahead of us. But they started a minute late at the beginning of the leg, so we were trying to occupy the same space ’til their miss led them away from us.

 Trap #2 - the ‘watch for deer next x.x miles’ trap

22. L at NE Lewisville Hwy; Search for DB Cooper next 1.6 miles; L at second “McBride”

23. Wait 1 minute 42 seconds at “Impaired Site Distance” ITIS

24. L at NE Lewisville Hwy

McBride is a loop. The 1st 2 signs for McBride came up before the 1.6 miles were completed in instruction #22.  Off course cars turned early and saw the impaired site distance sign and waited while on course cars did not.  An off course route control, the rally master in a DB Cooper disguise, was waiting for those who turned early.

Our first half score: 15. Hey, looking pretty good.

Trap #3 - There isn’t a free zone ’til Rallymaster says there is.

After the halftime break, the first instructions of the second half read:

1. CZT: 11:25 TO BEGIN TSD SECTION 2, ZERO ODOMETER; TURN LEFT OUT OF NORTH DRIVEWAY OF THE TRADING POST GROCERY PARKING LOT (THE DRIVEWAY NEAREST THE GAS PUMPS) TO GO SOUTHBOUND ON AMBOY (BACK THE WAY YOU CAME IN): L @ STOP (YACOLT); BEGIN FREE ZONE

2. R @ STOP (”RAILROAD”)

OK, to get ahead of car #10, because they were lining up to leave on our minute again, we left a little early. We thought we’d get to the end of the free zone and wait for the right time. MMmmm hmmm. Where does the free zone begin, again? Ahh, not immediately…

You guessed it. Larry, the checkpoint worker, was sitting in a pickup truck, parked across the street from the grocery store parking lot, hiding behind the decoy ‘FOR SALE’ sign in the window, clock in hand. Leg Score: 17 points.

Trap #4 - Ordinality 101

The well known out-of-order-instructions-on-a-page-break trap.

15. LEFT at THORNTON

17. OBSERVE “WATER ON ROADWAY” PAUSE 30 seconds

=put your page break here= =put checkpoint here=

16. OBSERVE “WATER ON ROADWAY”

If you did them as they were printed as opposed to as they were numbered, you arrived at the checkpoint 30 seconds late.

Score: We’d have gotten a 2 on that leg. But we took 28 points instead.

Trap #5: Spelling Swedish Names For Fun And Points

19 R @ SRIP “NE LANDERHOLN” ITIS. <——You think there might be a trap here?

The sign doesn’t say Landerholn, it says Landerholm. Navigator called it wrong the first time around, and the driver “confirmed” it was spelled right the second time by. BZZZT! Two rongs don’t make a wright. Maxed that leg: 300 points.

Total score: 368, good enough for 4th place, but out of trophy range. 3rd place score was 329, 1st was 110. Another rally by Reid is coming up June 21st — strongly recommended. Columbia Gorge Classic

Here are links to the HQ versions…

• The Google Map Route flyover is much better in HQ
• Day 1, Kirkland to Quesnel
• Day 2 on the Blackwater with Hans
• Day 2 on the Blackwater with Dan
• Ice Slaloms on Day 4
• Dawson City to Inuvik was Day 5
• Day 6: Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk has a much better view of the dark ice road in HQ
• Then we turned around and headed back to Inuvik and Eagle Plains to finish Day 6
• Just the racing fox on Day 7
• A repeat of the ice slalom on Day 8, but in much slippier conditions

Oh, and the kids will want Buzz in HQ. Clip 1 above the Arctic Circle and Clip 2 after the finish

At the TeamD labs we work hard so you don’t have to!

It seemed that this last event was his last hurrah, where he clearly demonstrated the signs of giddiness not at all foreign to anyone who’s done the Alcan rally.

However Buzz did indeed recover when he arrived home and is again happily chatting away at normal speed, ready to journey north. Whether he can be located at that future time will be yet another story. Perhaps he’ll be ready for fresh batteries then.

This silly video snippet brings an end to my Alcan 2008 content. All my good (and not so good) photos are on the team Flickr site. All the video I captured is now shared. My Team cohorts have the digital ball in their court. Other Alcaners also captured moving pictures with modern technology. I challenge them all to produce it, whether they think it’s good or not. Share those bits — don’t let them languish on a hard drive that will some day succumb to the forces of operating system (or hardware) evil!

Also the Orange County Register newspaper (California) did a nice write-up on the efforts of the daughter-father team of Gretchen and John Alkema, who brought the big Chevy pickup. Here’s a link.