Team MBCU Rally Adventures: November 2005

Sunset from the car deck while the ferry was docking in Tsawwassen. Nice.

Plenty of room for Doug (who was right behind us in the lineup). Talk about getting shafted.

Last car on the ferry from Swartz Bay! Yessss!

Rally mud/dirt factor: 8...slight colour visible, chrome was completely covered. It took some effort to get through to the plate letters.

Ready to go on the last reg. This was the first time navigators were aloud out of the vehicles except for bathroom breaks.

More of the last stage lineup.

Lined up for the last reg.

Coast to Coast Rally, Day 2, May 15

Day 2 started out with a chill. What that means is we had no hot water in our hotel room. It turns out the entire hotel was out so we weren't any more hard done by than anyone else. We did manage to get a further room discount though.

The rallying for the day was much less eventful than the previous day. Again, that wasn't a hard accomplishment and we were both glad for it. We started out quite well on the first reg of the day with a total of -1 over the first five checkpoints. Unfortunately there was one more to go before the end of the reg and, in another unfortunate circumstance, it happened to be right after a pair of route instructions that fooled my novice navigating abilities. The first instruction was a KL with the tulip showing an actual right to avoid and then another that might be considered a SA MBCU. The next instruction was an AR and the tulip looked identical to the first except that instead of the SA MBCA at the end, that turn was taken. I didn't notice that the distance between these two instructions was 60 metres and I assumed that the first instruction would be complete (pass two roads on the right) before the next instruction/tulip was encountered. Needless to say, we missed the acute-right. I looked back on the acute right as we zipped by and noticed a checkpoint up the hill and I knew right away that I'd missed the call. Stephen got the car turned around ASAP but we were still 84 seconds late to the checkpoint. Lucky for us that was the last checkpoint of the reg. The rest of the reg was a short up followed by a long down with a stretch comprised of many sweeping wide turns. Stephen seemed quite happy in the turns trying to get us back on time.

The remaining regs were uneventful. Our worst checkpoint was 5 seconds early and we finished the day with a total of 101 points. Far better than the previous day's score of 1011. With such a dramatic turnaround on the 2nd day, we were able to capture 2nd in novice class and 13th overall for the event (there's that #13 again).

After the roundup at rally HQ, we headed to the ferry at Swartz Bay. We made good time to the ferry. In fact, it was just good enough...we were the last car onto the ferry. Sadly, Doug and Brian were right behind us in the Adrenaline Rally Golf but they were cut off. There was plenty of room behind us on the ferry deck for a Golf too. :(