[John Vanos]

Lets hear some Baie stories! This was our first baie but we do not want it to be our last! Fabulous roads and hordes of spectators!! I do need hard compound tires next year though, those roads ate my mediums for breakfast!!

We had a great event. The result was a finish a little lower than we had hoped but all of our competition finished which is a rare thing. Most of the rally we were going fast but not really pushing the limit too far to ensure we would finish the event in one piece.
That being said we did have a few minor offs which warrant some comment. The 5th stage of the event on friday night saw us carry a bit too much speed into a L2 and we slid to the exit of the corner and I promptly stalled it in the panic stop. Unfortunately it took me about 30 secs. to get the car started again, and then I had to wait for Alan to belt in again before we set off, I bet we lost a minute there. Saturday did not have much drama except for the last 4 stages. The 4th last stage I misunderstood a note on a very quick downhill section with a big bilnd jump. The note was !jump stay centre. I stayed rightish instead which resulted in us getting big air and landing with our right tires in the ditch. A bit scary!
On the last stage (Camp Brule) we had a very close call. There is a section with a 1km straight into a L2 into R2. We got up to ~170km/h on that straight which was a little scary. We hauled the car down in time but due to my exuberance trying to put a show on for the spectators I got on the gas too early in the R2 and slid wide at about 60km/h into the bank on the outside of the turn. This impact put us on 2 wheels and slammed us back down while still moving. We bent at least the lateral links there, we must check to see what if anything else. We continued the rest of the stage at about 75% speed to ensure we made it. Stupid mistake on my part, but hey, it was only my 2nd rally!

Only mechanical problem we had was we lost our exhaust from the flexpipe back on stage A6. Our service guys went out to retrieve it at about 1:30am and with the help of the guys in the MR2 we welded it back together and got it on the car for saturday.

We ended up 14th OA in the national which means we move up to a seed 5a which is nice. Loved the stages, lots of technical sections interspersed with hugely fast pieces. Congrats to all who finished and in particular Randy Zimmer for schooling all us p4 guys!

Thanks to Iain at Planet Motorsport for giving us a dead reliable car, my codriver Alan Ockwell for being a fantastic guide for me and for not yelling at me when I hit the bank and my service crew Brent Moyer and Adrian Wintle.

See you all at Black bear and Defi!
John

 

[warwick]

It looks like you were the first-place Novice finisher (according to the baie web results), which is great...you drove a smart rally, and certainly looked quick when we saw you!

W

 

[robin]

Well, our rally started out OK. We were running a nice pace on borrowed notes in A1, but stalled in the HPR after the bridge. We spent 20 or 30 sec trying to get re-started (forgot to turn anti-lag off - doh!) - I was just about to hop out with the triangle when we got it fired and continued. Overheated on A2 due to a broken heater hose - continued limping in safe mode (feeding the car the contents of our water bottles) until service 2. Fixed hose, topped up coolant, transitted fine and then promptly overheated again on the next stage. Limped around in safe mode, Martin burnt his hand putting more water in the car and we finally gave up after A6 - headgasket from the first round of overheating. We're starting to wonder what a problem free rally must feel like...

On a more positive note, the roads we saw were amazing, the crowds encouraging and the scenery awe-inspiring. We'll be back.

Robin Fleguel
(co-driver '96 Escort RS Cosworth)

 

[rightseat]

First, came recce craziness in "Nigel" my silver street RS. One control worker said, "Hey, you can't run recce in your race car!" Guess he thought the RS looked pretty mean. Dust like you wouldn't believe, millions of sharp clattering Baie rocks and plenty of nasty dips ruts and low spots. Nigel ended up more dented and dirtier than the race car. Oh, well...the good notes were worth every stone chip.

We had a blast in the rally itself, hardly put a wheel wrong all weekend. Well, there WAS a high-pucker moment Friday night at a "L3 into R3 into !! L2/narrow bridge" combo...especially exciting since we'd lost the HID light pod and it was darker than an armpit in the spitting rain and I was being quite carsick at the time. For a moment there, I was thinking, "It'll be OK, we're gonna go over the bridge straight backwards and everything will be fine..."

Saturday, we lit up ALL the shift lights in 5th... airborne over mild crests at 187 kph on a 2k straightaway, freakinholey old crikey! Landings off Camp Brule jump were so hard, my neck still hurts. But all in all, the grins and the funky subaru sculpture trophy outweigh any lingering aches and pains. We had a ding-dong battle all thru the rally with Jon Nichols' fire-breathing Golf and Irish leadfoot Patrick Lilly in a wicked winged Evo. Going into the last leg, we were all still within the same minute. Then Nichols went off while pushing to catch up, John drove like a demon, and we edged out the Evo by barely a minute.  We were still quite far adrift of L'Estage, Iorio, Erickson et al, but our 5th-place finish retains our 2nd rank overall for season points in the Canadian championship. Now THAT's a rally to remember.

Our service guys Duncan and Erik did super wrench work. Baie was by no means a boring event in the service park, there was an alternator replacement, an axle change, and a separated exhaust that gave T2 a sexay V8 bass rumble until Duncan pounded the pipes round again and plugged em back in.

We got to spray champagne on the OPRC podium, so our car is streaked with sticky grape juice and our driving suits smell just wonderful. Check out the schweet new website flatovercrest.com for awesome pics, live updates and excellent quotes. Warwick Patterson , Andrew Harvey and Dean Campbell are making the other rally sites look lame-- great work guys!

Thanks to JoMo for being LDR's Official Awesome Wheel Twiddlah. Thanks to Duncan and Erik for getting us back out onto the stages on time and in one piece. Thanks to Bronson and Steve and F1 Dyno for keeping T2 fettled, she is one snarling dirt-spewing beast -- we love her dearly!

And finally, thanks to Maine's own MikeyRad for showing up en famille, lending key moral support and most important of all, buyin beaucoup beers at the victory bash.


Dave G
Co-Pilote and Air Traffic Controller
www.lastditchracing.net

"...Embrace loose gravel, beware big trees..."

 

[randyzimmer]

Sorry Robin and Marin,
I opened the hood twice, once to check the oil, the other to fix our big failure, steal a fuse to replace one for the intercom.
Switched front tires (to NEW ones!) Sat AM and got some rocks unstuck from between the gastank and the skid.
I had to solder a connection in the intercom box.

Driving, I won't say we were always on the road but the times off were no worse than a few of the rocks we had to miss while on it.
Dave got a little hoarse from shouting a couple stages but Ole did a fine job rechecking our notes and making updates so not doing recce didn't hurt. It may have helped a little not to have had a close look at the ski-run.

Thank you Labrie's and Tim for having a little trouble a couple times to let us get out ahead. I knew you guys were coming! I thought you might take the bait on C1&2 when we took it easy but to your credit(s) you stayed calm and on the road to the finish. This had to be a record for cars finishing (at least near the front). Mechanicals were very few (sorry again Martin) especially for the jumpy-bumpy terrain that makes up the BDC.

We had a ball and hope all the rabid fans had a good time watching.

rz

 

[Pou]

The rally was quite eventful for the Just-in-Time rally team.

First of all, we blew a head gasket and got a problem with the alternator on saturday night.. Oh, wait, those problems were on the service truck, not the rally cars! The truck managed to get to New Richmond and back to St-Jerome anyway!

During the recce, we got a flat on our great RE-92 tire! We had a full spare and bough a used one at Subaru New Richmond at lunch to change the flat one so it wasn't a big problem.

Regarding "the Original" (Stephane and Annie), they noticed just before the tech that the terratrip was working on and off. Didn't had time to fix it, so they did the whole rally without it. On A3 (17km), one of Annie's shoulder belt wasn't fasten properly and she noticed it near the start. She got it fixed but lost her mark in the paces notes. Without the terratrip, she never really got it back so Steph drove the last 12km blind and lost a minute.

Saturday, they had 2 punctures (slow leak) but on each occasion, they only noticed it at service. And near the end of the rally, they lost 2nd gear but finished anyway.

On our side (The Clone), we got a good start friday night. But on A5, we nearly got off coming too fast on a L3, stalled the engine on hard braking and then, just couldn't get back to pace and lost our rythm. We managed to kill a hare on the long 17km stage. Saturday was better, no real problem except that we bent both rear struts bottom bracket and had the alignment all off for the last 4 stages.

But we're both very happy to reach the end of the rally and we all had a lot of fun! It's amazing to see how many people just sit on their lawn and wave at us all day while we're only on transit! And like last year, the hoola hoop girl was there but near the service park this year.

See you all at Defi
Pou
http://www.just-in-time.ca

 

[Mek41]

the fun started on Sunday morning for some!

On our drive out of New Richmond, we spotted a certain big blue service rig from New Hampshire at an 'establishment' where clothing is optional for the staff...not naming names though. Unfortunately we didn't get a photo, otherwise it would be on www.flatovercrest.com for sure!
Anyone care to fill in the details?

Andrew

 

[robin]

RE: the fun started on Sunday morning for some!

>On our drive out of New Richmond, we spotted a certain big
>blue service rig from New Hampshire at an 'establishment'
>where clothing is optional for the staff...not naming names
>though. Unfortunately we didn't get a photo, otherwise it
>would be on www.flatovercrest.com for sure!
>Anyone care to fill in the details?
>
>Andrew

Maybe the co-driver went in to practice Yoga...

Robin

 

[John Cassidy]

RE: the fun started on Sunday morning for some!

I heard that the tranny in the beast gave up. Works as an excuse if the boys wanted to visit the daneuses! ;-)

Cheers! John

 

[Steve McKelvie]

RE: the fun started on Sunday morning for some!

The mystery of the blue truck lyes in the following message. Some of you have seen it before but I am too lazy to change much.


This is long but a lot happened.

Dave Siesicki and I competed in the 2005 Baie Des Chaleurs Rallye in New Richmond, Quebec this past weekend. This was the third event in this Canadian Rally Championship. Dave entered his Audi 4000 Quattro while I was the co-driver or co-pilote in Quebec.

While riding my motorcycle up to Dave's place on Wednesday morning my rally board that I use as a base for making the recce notes fell off my motorcycle while approaching a toll booth on Interstate 95. I noticed that it had fallen off shortly after passing through the toll booth. I ran back through the toll booth to discover that it was still intact but sitting four lanes out from the middle where I was standing. I was able to run out, retreive the board, and run back to the center median without getting hit by a car! I repacked the board and went up to Dave's place without further incidents.

Dave and I then met up with Tim Penasack and Marc Goldfarb for breakfast and the long drive to New Richmond, Quebec. On the way up we stopped by John Cassidy's house to see the world headquarters of Last Ditch Racing. John was a gracious host giving us a cold drink and a tour of his place. The remainder of the trip to New Richmond was long and uneventful.

Thursday was a busy day doing recce. As our recce vehicle we used Dave's pickup truck - roomy and air conditioned! We were allowed a two pass recce. Dave and I ran this event last year together, so our notes from last year were updated. On Stage C1 we only did a single pass recce because we blew the exhaust off the truck and we coudn't stand the noise. Last year's notes seemed OK in any event for that stage. Dave repaired the truck in the hotel parking lot Thursday night.

The rally started on Friday evening. After completing the first stage with a time that moved us up 10 positions we discovered in the service area that Dave's new re-manufactured alternator had failed. It must have been re-manufactured using varsol and spray paint. We were classified as DNF due to exceeding maximum permitted lateness. Our rally seemed over.

We then launched a successful appeal to the organizers to allow us the enter the Ontario Regional event and thus be allowed to run the Saturday stages. Now we had to get our alternator fixed! We got the local Volkswagen to dealer to open up his shop and get us the proper regulator. He even delivered the part to us, but alas it was not able to resurect the Audi alternator. We then decided that we didn't need no stink'n alternator - we would run on battery power only. We had a plan!

Up early on Saturday morning, we were at the local restaurant having breakfast when in through the door came a couple of motorcyclists wearing helmets. When they took their helmets off, we recognized them as Forrest and his friend Mark (?). Forrest has co-driven with Vittorio Bares in this event before and Mark was crew. They had ridden all night as the final leg of a trip that started Thursday morning from New Hampshire. They had ridden 300 or 400 miles on back roads and trails on their KTM 640s!! Where they had to, they rode on tarmac. What a ride! We then gave them our hotel key and they went back to our hotel room for a good day's sleep.

We then went back to implementing our plan to run the rally with no alternator. Dave bought two new batteries and a battery charger. We then put a new battery in the car and strapped the other new battery beside it in the trunk. The original battery was placed on charge. We then shut off everything that was electric except for the fuel pump and the fan (which we were able to turn off and on). We figured that if we had the battery voltage went too low, then we could change the battery in about four minutes on a transit. On arrival at a control we shut the car down once and entered the control without stopped at the entry. Where possible we parked the car on a hill and bump started it to save on power.

It worked! We changed batteries and put a different battery on charge at every service and it worked just fine.

No Hula Hoop lady this year, but did anyone else notice the ladies sitting at the end of the driveway on the B1 transit. I think that they had more breasts than teeth! But the breasts were easier to count.

We had a flat tire while waiting to enter the service area which was convenient. Later that day we smelled fuel and it turned out that we had a leaky fuel line. Again conveniently we were able to fix the fuel line in the service area without starting any major fires.

On the stages we had some good runs. By the time we did the last stage, the car was overheating, probably due to us only running the fan part time. The car lost a lot of power and the last stage was a struggle. I think that if the last stage had been 4 kilometers longer, that the Audi would have come to a halt.

We ended up finishing 10th in the Regional event only 9 seconds out of 9th. Overall we were pleased that were allowed to start again after Friday and were able to finish. It was also gratifying to see Tim and Marc finish on the podium and to see John Cassidy and Dave Getchell (the Last Ditch guys) finish on the podium. John/Dave remain in second overall in the Canadian Championship! It looked like fun on the podium, but it seemed like a waste of good champagne.

On Sunday we again convoyed with Tim Penasack and Marc Goldfarb. We left New Richmond in good time. We came across the service crew for Matt Iorio just outside of Carleton, Quebec. They were having transmission problems. We picked up two of the crew members and left Philip Ho to flag down Matt and Ole Holter in the street car to arrange for repairs. The two crew members needed to get to their car in Maine.

We broke our exhaust on the truck again in New Brunswick due to the rough road, but we were able to fix it in a Tim Horton's parking lot in St. Leonard.

On the way back, the safety chains on Tim's trailer broke off the trailer! How safe is that? Tim was able to fix them and continued just fine.

While re-fueling in Maine, Dave was asked to help a local re-install the distributor in the local's Ford pickup truck at the no-service service station. Dave with some help from Bill of Tim's crew were able to help the fellow and direct him on how the finish the project.

The remainder of the trip to Dave's and my motorcycle ride back home was uneventful.

All in all, it was a good rally adventure!

Regards,
Steve McKelvie

 

[warwick]

RE: the fun started on Sunday morning for some!

Ah..."transmission problems"...gotcha

I was wondering who those guys with the KTM's were at the hotel. I never got a chance to talk to them, but I'm glad to hear they had a fun ride up for the rally. Andrew T and I have this half-baked plan to get some KTM or BMW adventure bikes and ride from Vancouver to Mexico WRC next year. We'll see!

Warwick

 

[M Iorio]

RE: the fun started on Sunday morning for some!

Leave it to Phil and Brian to break down at a strip club at 9 in the morning. For one thing, it looks really embarassing, for another the club didn't open 'till 3.

The tranny went sour, slipping and overheating. I ended up limping the beast home in 1 and 2. A few times we were going 20 on interstate 95. We finally, after 500 miles, got in at 4, i got home at 6, slept for 2 hours drove Ole to the airport, and went back to the shop to try to de-mud the car and save the wheel bearings (which don't last through wet conditions in subarus). Alas, 3 of the four were junk. Went home for the fourth, then things got interesting, but I don't want to go into that on this forum.

 

[jeffy]

RE: the fun started on Sunday morning for some!

Better late then never-
Thanks to all the workers and oganizers for putting on a superb event.
And thank you to Andrew and friends for getting Joan and myself to the show on time.