One night in January while sitting at my computer, I received a message through cyberspace from my son Dan, an 18 year old freshman at Western Washington U. He said, hey Dad check this out, it would be so cool.(www.rallybc.com)

After perusing the site and all the old stories about cars being picked up by logging bundlers, and flipped rigs, I wrote back that he was out of his mind. My experience with rallies was limited to a high school club event in 1968, which consisted of trying to follow a route using cryptic clues. I remembered the cold November rain in an area just north of Detroit, getting stuck in the mud, walking to a farm house to borrow a shovel, and after 8 or 10 hours arriving at the final checkpoint long after everyone had packed up and gone for the day. 

Dan, whose experience with rallies consisted of watching a few from the African desert on speedvision, was not deterred. He enlisted his friend Luke to be navigator and sent in an application. Meanwhile, I secretly wished I could get the Friday and Monday off from work and that Luke would change his mind. First, Friday opened up, then Luke decided he couldn't miss school. Now the idea became intense and I bargained to be away for part of the day Monday. Plans took shape and Dan and I arranged to meet in Vancouver on Friday and drive up to Cache Creek. We still had no clue. A friend of mine who rallied in the early 80s recommended rally lights (out of the question) studded tires (no way), and few other details like a clipboard and watch. 

We managed the clipboard, a light that plugged into the 12v outlet and a stopwatch in addition to the triangle, tow rope, and fire extinguisher. But no shovel.

After being hassled by immigration because I didn't bring a birth certificate and grilled about where I was going and what was a road rally, I was allowed into Canada and met Dan. We had a pleasant drive through Whistler, taking the back way up to Cache Creek. Upon arriving at the check in, we noticed that a foreign language was being spoken. We picked up a few phrases having studied the information available on the web site. After signing in, we were given a paper and told to get our car tech checked. We stood around in the frigid night for about 30 minutes, until we were next. At this point the sole inspector announced it was time for a drink and he would do no more checks that night. We figured he at least had a legitimate reason, and headed for the local pub. Dan, who was never questioned about his underage status, and I had a few and went to sleep, still having no real idea about what was going on. 

We had our breakfast and got our tech check done. We were impressed by how the cars were equipped, and how we were not. Time for novice meeting. Starting to have some idea but still in the dark. The instructions were handed out and as I began to take some notes, my pen quit. I had purchased 2 more at the local convenience store, opened the pack and found out neither one worked. Started to panic but found one sitting abandoned on a table and continued to write. After the instructions were complete, it was time to synchronize our watch with the rallymaster's. I took out the newly purchased stopwatch to find it had stopped functioning completely, probably froze to death during the night. More panic, I did understand that without the exact time, nothing could be calculated. Dan and I ran over the nearest quickie mart and found a cheap digital watch in the showcase and for $9.00, we were ready to roll.

Set the watch, grabbed the calculator, which still functioned and to the best of my understanding started calculating how long it should take to get to each speed change and landmark. Now I know why the time should be calculated in fractions of a minute instead of seconds. Next moment of panic. Does the first car start at time zero or at 1 minute. I had done all the calculating based on the first car at zero time. At the start I figured based on when the cars in front of us were leaving that I had it wrong and had to add a minute to all the calcs. We didn't bother using a factor for our odometer since we had only tenths of a mile and it seemed as accurate as were going to get. 

Our time came, and 1 minute after the BMW2002 in front of us, we were off. After passing the smashed pickup on the first stage, we noted that the 325e behind us had caught us. We let him by. I figured one of us was way off. Then a few minutes later, car 48, a Toyota, came flying by. I was concerned that I had really screwed up. We stuck by our schedule. Much of the 2 days are a blur, I remember fingers attempting to hit calculator keys as the car jumped, and numbers spinning around in my head. Often, my instincts as a father were to tell Dan to slow down, despite being a little behind in our times. Sometimes, though, I told him to speed up. (not something many teenagers hear from their parents). Just before the night sections started on the first day, we managed a 4-minute dinner at Subway, during which I combined eating with more calculations. The night came and Dan became awesome. With only the standard beam headlights, (high beam didn't seem to be beneficial), Dan guided, slid, and powered his Impreza with precision. We found ourselves only seconds off the ideal times at all the landmarks. More importantly all 4 wheels stayed on the ground and out of the ditches. Two stages from the end, I felt like I had enough, but we arrived at Williams Lake ecstatic that we made it through the day. After a good dinner, decided not to wait for results and went to bed. 

Morning came quickly and when I went downstairs found everyone pouring over the results. I found it amusing when someone in the lobby asked if anyone knew what time it was, realizing that everyone knew the time within 1/100 of a second. When I figured out what the results meant, I realized we were in 2^nd place in the novice division, 70 points from first and 1 point ahead of 3^rd. Overall, 16^th place. I realized that one of the cars that passed us on the first stage had arrived over 100 seconds early at the next checkpoint. 

The route had changed somewhat from the printed instructions, so we got the changes and started calculating. I figured out that with enough time I could calculate at what time we should be at each mile instead of only the checkpoints. This would give us much better speed modulation. Sure enough, we started hitting the landmarks within a few seconds. On the last, extremely difficult stage over the slickest road, Dan caught the 2002 and the Saab in front of it at the same time. We were at perfect time but could not get around the Saab for almost 10 minutes.
 
 

By then, we were over 100 seconds down and saw our score deteriorating. I convinced Dan that there was no way to make up significant time this late in the rally and just keep the car on the road. We finished about 90 seconds down at the next checkpoint, then cruised in and went on to the Lake race track where I couldn't convince Dan to let me have a turn at the wheel. 

When the results were posted, Dan went over to check. When I saw that grin on his face, there was no doubt what he had seen. The cars that were 1^st and 3^rd after the first day were nowhere in sight. The win in the novice division was nice, but there could have been no better, more intense way for a father and son to spend a weekend. The 2 hours of video footage that we shot from a camera duct taped to the dashboard will keep the memories alive.

Thanks to organizers, (there was no getting lost this time), the sponsors and the Breazeale's for the smoked salmon. It was fun meeting or at least speaking with the other competitors and nice to meet Satch Carlson whose columns I have enjoyed reading in the BMW CCA magazine, Roundel.

We can't wait to come back.

Dan and Stu Fealk

Dfealk@yahoo.com

Sfealk@home.com