Bummed that I wasn`t able to go. I would love to hear some stories from participants and workers.

Once you wake up!!!

Dave Cotie wrote on 02/16/14 at 18:10:28:


Haven't really slept yet, other than a few brief nod-offs in the car on the way home.  Not that hard to stay up 36 hours and fix your sleep pattern if you have already stayed up 24.    Gave me time to give the car a quick wash and switch back to the Toyos.  Too tired to intelligently edit videos.  Go Pros really suck at night.

Unusual for me, but my head was just not in it for the first couple of sections in Leg A last night... usually I'm thinking ahead, but not Saturday night.  I had enough focus to drive, but usually I am wary of tricks and I'm able to process what's going on.  There's kind of a trend of things going wrong for us fast in the first 10km at MLWR and I usually need my wits about me.  (Think about the route check in the first 5km a few years back where the OPP was blocking my way into Henshall's CP1, where we were given Time Outs on a standard sticker but apparently that was a Route Check and I was supposed to just pause a minute and not have a time out.  How was I supposed to realize it was a route check if I have a Time Out?)

Sure enough, things didn't make sense right off the bat with the first ET.  0.75km we start a quiet zone on Quarry road and it's signed for 40km/h, so we make sure our speed isn't more than 40km/h.  ET ends at 1.92km but we're still in a quiet zone, CAS was 60 in the notes from that point, but the Event Supp regs that Bruce highlighted in the driver's meeting said we can't do more than 50km/h in a Quiet Zone unless another sign is posted.  Furthermore, he made a point of introducing us to the radar operator who was going to enforce that rule.  He also pointedly warned us that he doesn't have to wait 10km to place a CP because we did the ODO check in advance.  But... organizers assume 80 on Provincial roads if the sign isn't repeated in... what... 800 metres?  Is Quarry road in city limits though and that rule doesn't apply?  Anyway, supp regs say it must be POSTED to be higher than 50km/h, so there's no way I should be doing over 50.  Maybe I should still be doing 40??

Great... he can place a CP in the Quiet Zone like in previous years.  We're pretty sure we'll be taking points at CP A1 now.

Okay, order of precedence of rules, GCR's, NRR, Bulletins, ORRC Rules, then Series Supp Regs, then Event Supp Regs, then Section notes.  Biggest risk was a 5 minute penalty for speeding, and he's a judge of fact and speeding can't be protested, so I'll do 42-44km/h (within the 5km grace boundary of the speeding penalty) and I planned to make up the lost time once the Quiet Zone ended.  If the CP is placed before I can make up the time, I'll just file an inquiry.    

Great... less than 2km and 3:00 minutes into the rally on the third instruction and I've already got my first inquiry planned, and we're going to be taking points because we set our Timewise CAS at 60km/h, contrary to what the supp regs allow.  It's the third note in the book... there's no way this slipped by everyone.  This has got to be some type of trick that I'm just too out of it to fathom.

This is already not going well...

We saw the radar, but no CP by EQZ at 3.88.  I up the speed and find that the handling is WAY biased to oversteer.  We dropped our tire pressures to competition level before doing the ODO check 2.5 hours before the rally.  Now the tires were 27 to 28psi and there's no rear grip while I have to make up just under a minute lost in the Quiet Zone.  I'm hoping the handling will come back once we put some heat in the tires.

Fortunately there's time to make up the deficit before the first CP at 6.11 on Landon.  The sticker would tell me if the AgainstTheRules 60 in a QZ was a trick and I was supposed to know that Supp Regs supercede section notes if I arrived at the CP early.  Or if I zero it, the organizer is expecting me to average 60km/h while threatening me with radar if I go over 40km/h... or maybe it's 50km/h depending on how I interpret the supp reg...

I cross the CP 2 seconds into the 60km/h tenth and the sticker says I zeroed CPA1.  I've never been less happy to zero in my life.  That verified that yes, we were being asked to average 60km/h in quiet zones and we'll get 5 minute penalties if we're over 40km/h.  We have to find a way to go 50% faster than QZ speeds without getting into trouble.  Fantastic.  Let's hope he keeps placing those CP's with some reasonable distance after the QZ.  That's all within the first four turns of the rally.  What's coming next!?!?

The first constabulary of the night after turning left onto Detlor, cruising with my high beams on.

It was lucky for us that there weren't many rally computers out there in use last night.  Our "normal" competitors were all volunteering in the rally, or we'd probably not have won expert.  My only solace was that we offered Louis a set of snow tires so that he could run the rally but he declined.  And we found Trevor an experienced navigator that he declined.  The experts didn't want to compete for personal reasons... okay... we still appreciate that they were running checkpoints for us.

Opal was solid the whole night, which NEITHER of us expected... she's usually asleep by 8pm these days and she woke up early Saturday morning with no nap.  Fortunately my head started to come together somewhere around Section A5.  It was a loooooooonnnnnng Leg A.

Nothing exciting here.... I just forgot to shut off the GoPro when we went inside after Leg C.  Just 7.5 minutes of people running around at 10x speed at sunrise.  http://youtu.be/4sAT7RU0whg

Thanks, Stephen re the scores. Guess I was also still sleep-deprived when I posted that. I will re-post that section below -

When all was said and done, the team of Narini & Cartier were clear winners in the Bear Cub (shorter) event with only 6.6 penalty points in a VW Golf. In the full event the Expert team of Deneka & Gamble ran a super clean event with only 1.2 penalty points in their Subaru, followed by Burden & Killam who came all the way from Massachusetts in a Subaru Forester. They had 8.7 total penalty. In Intermediate Harvey & Harvey came first with 9.3 points. The Novice class had really tight competition. In the end Armstrong & Deathe emerged victorious with 6.8, followed by Mayes & Puscasu with 9.5.

I would also like to commend the competitors for being such a pleasure to deal with. They were totally pleasant at all four checkpoints that Mat J and I covered and many voiced their appreciation of our being there as volunteers.