November 15 & 16, 2003. Cache Creek to Williams Lake, British Columbia. Final round of the Yokohama BC TSD Rally Championship, and final round of the Pacific Coast Challenge (Washington, Oregon, Vancouver Island, and BC mainland).
Thirty-one cars left the Bear’s Claw Lodge in Cache Creek Saturday morning, intent on seeing 466km/290mi of varying conditions before dinner in Williams Lake.

The Transit section north on Highway 97 was dry. Turning onto Big Bar Road, teams found that earlier light snows left a thin covering over the gravel. Further into the Regularity fresh deeper snow had covered icy roads, some sanded, some not. Leg One toured through forest and prairie, past working ranches and the Big Bar Guest Ranch, and finished with a loop into Clinton for food and fuel.

“Big Bar” claimed two cars. The Audi 4000 Quattro of Dennis Gunn and Rebecca Rocks was carrying three zeroes when it suddenly lost all coolant and heat. The crew walked, about 6km, back to where one of Clinton’s tow-truck drivers was extracting a 2003 WRX from a moderate “off”. Also, at 70-odd kilometers into Big Bar, Car 24, Suzuki Swift caught an edge in one of the ruts, got side to side, eased completely over, and with what was described as a pirouette on the hood, regained its wheels and came to a stop within sight of the checkpoint crew. After collecting a detached mirror and clearing the snow from the grille, the teams continued on to complete day one.

Somewhere between the end of Big Bar and the beginning of Meadow Lake, the ’69 VW Beetle of William McRae and David Harms suffered a broken throttle linkage. Now being operated with string through the window to the engine, they decided on the prudent route and took the main roads to finish day one in Williams Lake, at the Laughing Loon Inn.

Leg Two left Highway 97 on Meadow Lake Road with smooth gravel, covered with light snow. In the front of the rally, Meadow Lake was fairly clean. By the passage of 29 more cars, the open areas were loose surface, the shaded areas polished smooth. 25km/15.5mi into the Regularity the route turns onto Dog Creek Road, less traveled, deeper snow. 12km/7.5mi into Dog Creek, Car 3, Subaru RX suffered an “assisted off”, courtesy of a big blue SUV traveling against rally traffic, into the right side ditch (Remember: Winter roads—Summer ditches). The detour found a rock and detached the toe-adjustment link on the right rear. Steering was now in three different directions. Navigator Max was already unbelted and running down the road with a triangle in hand as driver Ron grabbed scissor jack, lug wrench, and a big hammer to begin repairs. After clearing a bit of space between metal and tire, radioing their position to the Zero Car and to Sweep, the crew waited for the rest of the rally to pass, then returned to Clinton for a “real” repair. (Compliments of Wayne Walch at Jim Walch Repair—shameless plug. Thanks Wayne! We were second in line though, he had to finish work on the Clinton Fire Truck before he could fix the Subaru—probably some kind of local rule…) The ’87 Subaru RX was able to rejoin the rally, bypassing the end of leg two and the beginning of leg three to check-in on time at the final control, and as Max has stated often, “with numbers instead of letters in our score”.

At 63km/39mi a double-90-left brought an increase in the instructed speed, but also a significant increase in the snow depth! Of the first 14 cars, 12 were AWD (and 10 of those were Subaru). The course at this point had recent tracks, probably that of the ever-present F250 pickup, and Paul Westwick’s AWD Turbo Impulse opening the route. Car 1, Greg Hightower of Bellevue, with Russ Kraushaar of Battle Ground, said the ’98 Impreza RS was “floating” on the skid plate more often than not through most of the deep snow, making steering an adventure. Car 2, Eric Horst of Shoreline and Steve Willey of Seattle in the BMW 325ix fared a bit better given the extra weight of the BMW, and of course Paul and Greg’s fine effort at clearing the road. Car 4, Subaru Legacy Turbo with son RJ and dad Ren Carroll from Kamloops were caught by Car 5, ’02 Subaru Outback Sport with Steve Richards of Everett and Gary Reid of Olympia, who were in turn caught by Car 6, ’99 Impreza RS with Lee Sorenson and Rod Sorenson, managing a mere 19 late at the end of Meadow Lake Regularity. Lee and Rod came up from California for their first Totem, having won Thunderbird ’03 in February.

As the AWD cars cleared a path, the mid-pack two-wheel drive cars encountered just enough snow, just too little traction, and too little room for passing, resulting in several “groups” forming for the next controls in nearly bumper-to-bumper fashion, the later AWD cars learning the term “force majeure” and eventually accepting their extra points. Recall that Canada recognizes both French and English, but the phrase “time dec” does not appear in either.

Meanwhile, midway through Meadow Lake the ’74 VW Beetle of Garth Hales and Mike Palm broke an axle shaft and ended the VW versus Saab competition for Historic Equipped class. The ’68 Saab Sonett II of Teresa Davenport and Brian Hackney, and the ’70 Saab 96 of Fred Ankeny and Satch Carlson, later recovered from the deep snow delays and finished both days.

Eventually the deep snow gave way to smooth roads with moderate speeds through Helena Lake Regularity and into the break at Lac La Hache. During Helena Lake, a checkpoint and turn were mis-marked, the turn coming up before the odo. This made for some spectacular recovery attempts ranging from “straight through then turn around” to “well executed pendulum turns at the last instant” covering the control worker with snow, to “drive on looking for more information” only to return later. The control was eventually dropped from scoring, with the provision that penalties from that control to the next would remain.

Leg Three circled east of Lac La Hache to Spokin Lake Regularity, north to Mountain House Regularity, then south into the finish at Williams Lake.

Day Two began with the announcement that due to the deep snow problems of day one and additional (continuing) new snow, Alkali Lake and Exeter Regularities would be dropped from the morning activity. Unfortunately this eliminated instructions such as “Caution! Exp L” “Caution: Exp R” “Hairpin R” and “Caution! Exp R for 2km”. A 95km/60mi Transit in light snow from Williams Lake to 100 Mile House replaced Leg 4.

Leg 5 began with the Bonaparte Lake Regularity on smooth roads with fresh snow. The twisty little bits were separated by just enough straight roads to make up lost time. One long straight contained a surprise. The week prior to Totem this section had been muddy. It seems the new snow had covered a large rut, in the middle of the long straight, which threw most of the cars sideways at speed without warning. The latter parts of “Bonaparte Lake” became a bit more challenging due to the deep snow, blind corners and crests, and oncoming traffic. At the final checkpoint nearly every car found a different line through the corner sliding through snow banks at the apex left, and also outside right. Car 4 nearly caught Car 3 after a “déjà vu” moment with another truck. Car 9 and Car 8 were bumper to bumper, the checkpoint reporting just a cloud of snow with two cars in the midst, then one red Alan McColl rear-drive RX7 and one white Paul Eklund AWD Impreza TS leaving the corner. There may have been something to be said for the Imprezas—Car 1 red ’98 RS, Car 14 red ’95 L with Martin Chung and Christa Monasch, and Car 22 black ’02 WRX with Casey Woodrum and Benson Miller were the ONLY cars to zero this control, and it was Casey’s first snow rally! The universal comment from drivers was that there should have been video at the checkpoint.

Bonaparte II followed a 45 minute re-group break, to allow Saab maintenance, lots of photos and stories, a snack, and time to relocate the checkpoint crews. The Regularity began downhill, into long uphill, into gradual downhill through twisty roads on deepening snow. 18km/11mi into the section, teams encountered “Caution! Exposure L, Watch for fallen rocks next 0.5km, 0.3 mi” and it was all of that. Car 2 and Car 6 caught a much closer view (as well as someone ahead of Car 1, but no one is saying much about that—it could have been a local, right?). The hard right was in sunlight and getting more “slippy” with every car. The following hairpin left was in the shade, could be planned for quite some distance and actually afforded good grip.

Two more checkpoints and a 3.2km/2mi transit brought the rally to “Brigade Regularity”. This is the last chance to do well or to do poorly. Speeds of 65k, 70k, and 72k kept drivers’ attention, then the path narrowed after the checkpoint, speed dropped to 60k, and some found overtaking a horse trailer to be troublesome. The driver was friendly and willing, just nowhere to pull out. Speeds dropped from 45 to 40 to 30 to 20k for “Caution! Exposure L!” and “Caution!! Car Breaking Cross Ditch” as the rally descended the ridges into the valleys and out of the snow. The wide smooth gravel passed ranches, pasture, and campgrounds.
A right turn onto Deadman-Cache Creek Road brought out another “local traffic highlight”. The ever-present F250 slowed to 20k, in a 53k CAS and meandered left and right for quite a distance until a point where he could no longer physically block the entire road… At that point, each car passed slowly, waved (right?), and tried to make up a minute, at double the CAS… Later teams encountered firewood across the road, compliments of the F250 and another local resident. These small distractions brought teams up to the “Yawning Pit of Death”. YPD is a bit exaggerated but has collected more than a few cars. The “hard left downhill, 180 right, into double apex left”, is either fun or fearsome depending on what one has been told of the turn. First-timers were briefed on the corners, cautioned to keep a couple of seconds early so as to be on time for the control surely hidden just beyond… A twist for 2003 was another control just before the turn, as well as after the turn. Next year expect a series of lawn chairs up and down the hill, some as checkpoints, some as photographers, and possibly some as style judges.

Teams finished a short transit into Cache Creek and the Bear’s Claw Inn for prime rib and trophies. There was no further attrition on day two. With 26 starters and finishers, Overall scores ranged from 28 to 2856, over 310km/194mi on day two.

Dan and Stuart Fealk in their ’89 Subaru XT6 saved 27 points to beat Casey Woodrum and Benson Miller for SOP/Paper class honors. Calculator class went to Martin Chung and Christa Monasch 65 points ahead of Paul Eklund from Tigard and Kala Rounds form Portland. Historic Equipped went to Fred Ankeny and Satch Carlson in the Saab 96. Historic went to Richard Childs and Helen Welter over from Calgary in the ’74 BMW 2002tii. Novice went to Kevin Freisen and Erin Freisen from Williams Lake in their ’97 Outback—just a little jaunt around their back yard.

In complete contrast as to distance traveled to the event, from Fair Oaks and Elk Grove, suburbs of Sacramento, Lee and Rod Sorenson took First Overall/Unlimited with 28. Eric Horst and Steve Willey were second with 33. Greg Hightower and Russ Kraushaar were third with 54 after their snowplow duties. (Our 76 would look OK if it didn’t have a 2400 in front of it from the “off”).