John Vanos and Alan Ockwell win the 2006 Galway-Cavendish Forest Rally driving a 2000 Subaru Impreza. With a field of 22 teams for the event there was no lack of talent for Vanos to deal with. At the start of A1, the teams of Reilly and Felice, Donnelly and Fleguel, Kemp and Maxwell, Vanos and Ockwell were looking to set that fast stage time for the reseed. Vanos set that time by 2 seconds over Reilly to be first on the road in the dusty conditions. At the end of A1 John Kemp and Brian Maxwell ended their day with an electrical problem in the Mitsubishi Evo.
A2 treated most competitors well except for Donnelly when he had a soft roll into a ditch retiring the Subaru STI. The teams of Wallbank-Wallbank in their Isuzu Impulse and Ryall-Leonard in their Subaru Impreza were starting to gain positions in the order. Also note that the 2 wheel drive cars of McCleery-McCleery in their Ford Sierra and Barnes-Korovkine in their Toyota Paseo were making a fast climb up the list. Still the battle was at the front with Kemp and Donnelly out and the team of Amor-Lumsden starting to fall of the pace. At the end of A2 Reilly gained 3 second back to lead by 1 second.
A3 saw the team of Gagne-Sanfacon in their Subaru Justy roll onto the roof. They were able to roll it back onto the wheels and continue but had to put the car on the trailer at service due to windshield problems. At the end of A3 Vanos took 15 seconds from Reilly.
A4 took it easy on the teams and everyone had a clean run. There were a few teams that can put on a show. In A4 I was able to see Ian Crerar and Nathalie Richard throw that Porsche 911 around some very technical parts of the stage. The Classics also did a nice job with Rick Williams in the Ford Cortina and Norm Murdock driving Jeff Lantz’s Ford Capri. Car 0 had a problem in this stage. It was reported over the Ham Radio the Craig and Doug spotted Beaver at the 6.1 km mark and had to help them off the road. By any chance were these Beavers holding Bell cell phones?? At the end of this stage visibility was getting worst and Vanos was able to gain 8 more seconds.
A5 was also good to all teams but the decision was made to move to a 2 minute window between teams for A6. Vanos took another 27 seconds and could feel he was close to a win.
I’m sure in A6 Reilly gave it his best but this day belonged to John Vanos and Alan Ockwell who ran a great rally and put on a show for all the spectators to watch.
The winners of GCFR are:  O/A- John Vanos - Alan Ockwell
                                        Expert- John Vanos - Alan Ockwell
                                        Novice-Andrew Wallbank - Ted Wallbank
                                        GR 5 – Colin McCleery - Nancy McCleery
                                        GR2 -  Norm Murdock - Larry Wells
                                         P-4 -  Alan Ryall – Bruce Leonard
                                         P-3 -  Sergie Grishechkin – Dmitri Kuzman
                                         P-2 – Matt Barnes – AlexKorovkine
I would like to thank HotBits Sport Suspensions for presenting the GCFR. Also, CSC Racing, Belcroft Tree Farms, the Canadian Jig Grinding Co, ClearWaterDesign and Subaru. A special thanks to all the workers.

Thank you
Rob Mackenzie
Organizer GCFR