The Adventures of a Rally Roadie

March 4

Barbara’s flight home was scheduled for 1:50 AM on Sunday. The good news was that the hotel had a shuttle. The bad news was that she was leaving. We had had a wonderful trip together. There were disappointments – we didn’t get to drive the MacKenzie River and we didn’t see the Northern Lights. We really needed to practice doing TSDs before we came. But, all in all, it was a wonderful trip. I was to miss her greatly on the solo drive home.

Colin and Ramona, Ohio Root, John and I have formed up a convoy to travel together for the first couple of days back east. The first day is to Whitehorse a mere 725 miles.

We meet up at 6:00 for a quick breakfast and then into the cars for departure in the dark. John has a detour to the airport to drop off Gretchen who is flying out and will meet up with us on the way. Out of the hotel, north on the nearly empty and dark streets to a fuel stop. Then onto the freeway to Wasilla.

After all the driving we’ve done in the narrow, ice-covered roads in the far north, the freeways are actually irritating. This really must be a sickness if you’d rather drive the roads of the far north rather than the wide, maintained freeways of Anchorage. A sickness, indeed. I hope there’s no cure.

Off the freeway at Wasilla and east to Palmer. It’s just dawn and the light is coming up. We’re following a river towards Glenallen and Colin calls the first moose. They’re along side the road and they’re very hard to see. Fortunately, they’re down and and resting after the nights feeding.

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March 3

Among other reasons, since this year’s Alcan was ending in Anchorage, the rally was timed to end the day before the start of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race. The Iditarod is the famous dogsled race that honors the rescue of the residents of the town of Nome, Alaska during a diphtheria outbreak in 1925 when serum was raced from Anchorage to Nome. The grueling, more than 1,000 mile race starts with a winter festival that is the highlight of the Anchorage winter.

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March 2

Today is the last day of the rally. A TSD here in Valdez. A transit to Wasilla. A TSD in Wasilla. A transit to the hotel in Anchorage. Check in at the MTC. Done.

Of course, it wasn’t that easy. First there’s the TSD in Valdez and the snow. We have a TSD right out of the box before we leave. And, with all the snow, route finding maybe a bit of a problem. To say nothing of seeing the check points.

We’re off at 8:04. Car #1 has gone. Car #2 doesn’t start after the engine lunch at the ice stage. Car #3 goes and then us. Left at the start. Right at the stop sign. Left on to the main road at the stop sign. No checkpoints so far. Wrong. Diamond Jim is in a white Tyvek haz-mat-style jump suit buried in the snow at the top of one of the enormous snowbanks that make up the canyons that the roads are in. I never saw him. Barbara said that she thought that she had seen him. His car was parked a few meters away empty.

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Here’s a link to the Spot Messenger Satellite Tracking data for the Alcan:

http://rallyroadie.org/downloads/Alcan5000_2012.kml

Click on this link, save the KML file and open it with Google Earth or any other mapping software that understands KML files.

Enjoy.

Obi-wan

March 1

The extraordinary amount of snow that Valdez has gotten this winter has made the scheduled ice race impossible. (Hmmm, where have we heard that before?) The lake where we were to have the race hasn’t been plowed by the town because they have literally exhausted their snow removal budget. They actually spent the entire amount of the budget in the month of January and it’s been snowing steadily ever since. They just could not scrape the ice on the lake for us. We have a change of venue.

The “ice race” has been moved to a road that goes to a landfill and it has been changed from an “ice race”, a kind of slalowm, to an “ice stage”, more like a stage of a stage rally. The idea is to start on command like a start of a stage rally stage go downm the road to a turn around and come back to the finish line a few hundred meters short of the start line. Go as fast as you can. Best time wins.

The stage is a slightly down hill start the leads in to a right hand sweeping turn that exits into a left hand sweeping turn that leads into a short straightaway. Turn around and run the reverse to the finish. The good news is that the sweepers are very wide. The bad news: the snow banks are huge, high and frozen. Hitting one could be ugly. What could possibly go wrong?

Jerry leads us on a single file recon lap. A slow recon lap. That doesn’t prevent Paul Eklund, the #2 car, from exploring the edges and practicing a handbrake turn at the turn around. Back at the staging area, people are taking gear out of the cars to lighten them and lowering tire pressure to try to get more grip. I just remove the spare and the gas cans from the roof rack just in case I really screw up and get the car on its roof.

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March 1

During the night, the motel started to fill with snow mobilers (or as the Palin Snarky Dictionary calls them – “snow machine operators”). They’re arriving for a trip that starts on Friday to ride to Dawson City over the Taylor and Top of the World highways. The distance to Dawson City is about 200 miles and the highways are closed for the winter – officially listed as “impassable”. And people think we’re crazy! What could go wrong?

The parking lot is awash in “snow machines” rocketing along. Time to leave before territoriality sets in. Load the car. Check out. Get in line for the morning TSD that starts in Fast Eddy’s parking lot.

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February 29 Whitehorse to Tok

The schedule calls for us to redo the two TSDs and then move on to Tok in Alaska. The first TSD is the Long Lake TSD which starts in the Steamboat parking lot. I remember from 2008 that the trick with this TSD is to leave early because, unlike the first time we did the TSD, there is morning traffic to deal with complete with school buses.

In 2008, we didn’t know why the cars were leaving until we left on time and got stuck in traffic. As we sat waiting for traffic to clear we could see the clock getting farther and farther behind. We leave almost a minute early and the plan is to wait at the hospital until the clock catches up.

The plan works but we end up blowing a couple of CAS changes and we end up with a bad out run. The return run goes better but we can’t make up the damage that we did in the out run. Oh well.

We get back to the hotel. Barbara goes out to do a little shopping and I stay and reorganize the car and load the bags. Then we head out to do the Fish Lake TSD. Fish Lake goes better but we’re tired and we just want to move on to Fast Eddy’s at Tok.

The drive up the Alcan Highway is beautiful and relaxing. There’s no traffic and we move on quickly. Soon were in Tok and check in. Dinner and bed. Tomorrow we have a TSD here and then an ice race in Valdez.

Obi-wan

February 28

An easy day with nothing to do but drive to Whitehorse. We left late, about 9, and just loafed our way to Whitehorse. Lunch at Carmacks again on the way back. Check in to the Westmark and take it easy.

I suggest that we find a good pizza restaurant for whomever might want to come. I ask the two girls at the desk for a recommendation and get two different pizza joints – one that we would have to drive to and one that we can walk to. We opt for the one in walking distance. Planned departure is 6:00.

Down in the lobby at 6:00 and there’s already a group of 10 ready to go. Off to Bellacino’s which turns out to have maybe 4 tables. John goes in to see if we can effectively take over the restaurant. The short answer: sure. We now have 13 (soon to be 15) and they have some more space in the back of the restaurant.

We order some beer and pizzas and keep doing that until no one is eating or drinking any more. The pizzas are thin but very good. The beer is excellent. The group is excellent. A great night.

We walk back to the hotel and call it a night. A rest day with a 350 mile drive.

Obi-wan

February 27

We’re up early and ready to go at 6:30. The plan was to leave earlier but the lack of fuel availability and yesterday’s excitement have necessitated a later start. The first problem is fuel.

There’s a new gas station just a couple of blocks from the hotel and it has automatic pumps that take credit cards. Yay! In the car, it starts (a bigger Yay! Yes we’re that low on fuel), over to the pumps. Put in the card, follow the instructions on the little display on the brand new gas pump. Nothing. The flow never starts.

The display keeps asking to “remove the pump handle”, (check), “Select grade”, (check), “Lift switch”, (uncheck). What switch? I can not figure out where the switch is. There’s something that looks like a switch but it won’t move.

Maybe it’s frozen. Try another pump. No joy. And another. Still no joy. We give up and decide to wait until 7 for the office/convenience store to open in another 15 minutes. A local shows up but he’s having the same problem. This doesn’t make for an auspicious start.

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February 26

The edge of the road has a small berm left from the plows which is frozen into ice crystals. On the road side of that berm is another berm of soft snow. As we’ve been weaving along, we’ve been in and out of the soft snow berm and occasionally bumped the harder ice berm. This time, the car wandered and we ended up with the right front in the ice crystals and that pulled the car off the road into the ditch. That went on for over 300 feet while I tried to force the car back to the left.

The good news is that the 300 foot run through the frozen berm ate up most of the energy that the car had and we just slowly dropped into the ditch. The really good news was that there were no rocks, trees, culverts, stumps, other cars or deep water in the ditch. No harm – no foul. Also, no go.

Just a few minutes after we went in, cars #13 and #9 arrived to lend a hand and check on our physical condition. But, of course, first the photos for the wall of shame, ie. the Internet. After the check out and the photos, the verdict: Nice Stuff. (As in he stuffed the car in a ditch.)

A few minutes later, Jerry shows up to assess the situation and calls both Sweep 1 and Sweep 2. They’re about 30 minutes back, so we mill about for a while and then start digging the snow out from the back of the car so that Sweep can pull us back up to the road. More milling about.

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