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Comments about Nor'Wester 1997 (and Totem 1997)
Satch Carlson
Friday October 3, 1997 4:34pm
Wow, Nor'Wester was great! That was the rally that first stoked my fires
back in the late Triassic, along with POR. . . the BEST procedure would
have been to run POR and Nor'Wester BOTH, since they were a week apart,
and in fact this was my original plan. . . but as I said before, the
vagarie$ of the rally bidne$$ prevented $uch an ambitiou$ a$$ault.
Anyway: While it has become sort of a pro-forma exercise for winners to
wax enthusiastic about the events they have won (and for some, alas, to
trash those they have not), you know me well enough to believe me when I
enthuse about DRIVING events. While it is not true that any good TSD can
be won without a great navigator, it is too often true that the driver's
ability, once at an acceptable level, is of little real importance. Ah!
But! Not so in POR, The Road Not Taken, several Canadian gravelfests,
and CERTAINLY not this year's Nor'Wester! I tell you, Rallymaster Roy
Ward---who I think has justly earned the mantle "Rally Roy" passed on
from the late Roy Donison---delivered the roads he promised (though
there was NOT, as advertised, a true rival to the Telegraph Creek Road.
. . which Rally Roy has obviously blocked from his memory).
Here's how good Nor'Wester was: I was talking to a fellow loon about
what a great time we had, Squidboy and me---although I admit I had a
better time than he, since I got the wheel---and nattered on and on, and
then after I hung up I had to call him back again: I had neglected to
mention our finishing position! When you forget that you won an event
in your retelling of the adventure, it must have been some ride indeed!
A two-day affair, Nor'Wester featured a morning hillclimb in Idaho that
went up, up, up a series of switchbacks to cross a mountain ridge, and
of course we were late late late. . . how steep and twisty was it? Well,
to get back on time, we had to pass a two-wheel-drive car nominally a
minute ahead of us! Then we got into a forest of switchbacks so I could
practice my drifting technique with the BMW 325iX. . . oooooooo! Most
fun I've had since the Pro Rally days!
This is the same sort of exercise that drew us to Press On Regardless
once they reverted to their TSD format four years ago. Last year's POR
turned into a wonderfully slippery rainy mud run on the second day last
year, and I remember sliding through a left-right up-hill off-camber
bend, glancing out my window to see the hidden control, and laughing
with glee: We may not have zeroed THAT one, Ferlin, but if we didn't,
nobody else did, either!
Winning anything in the Pacific Northwest is always a challenge, because
John Fouse and Dennis Wende have a nasty habit of showing up and
trouncing the competition (they've been BC Rally Champions for so long
the titles ought to be retired). Though Squidboy and I managed to edge
them in Nor'Wester, we figured they would prevail a week later in the
Totem Rally, sort of a summer rerun of Thunderbird, because me 'n' the
Squid split up: He navvied for Ben Bradley in Ben's Mazda GTX, while I
turned the wheel of the iX over to Oakley Woman and tried to remember
how to run a TimeWise. Wooohaaaw! Totem started by throwing the kids in
the deep end of the pool, an uphill gravel climb that organizers
promised would make us late, and did it ever! The iX gears were exactly
in the wrong place; Fouse's Subaru had the same problem, plus balky
first-gear synchros---yes, first gear was a must!---plus turbo lag. . .
while Ben Bradley whipped up the hill like the Pro Rally driver he
really is! The pair went on to win Totem with an ease that belied the
difficulty of the terrain.
The only team to GAIN time on that first hill were Martin Wilson and
John Rapson in their vintage Porsche 911, with Martin running BowlZat
for the entire distance, racking up a 12 early at the midpoint control
and managing to keep it to a second or to early at the top. . .
Me 'n' the Oakley Woman, alas, were forced to drop out of the event
after a tulip that I called as "sweep right after cattle guard" turned
out to be DOWNHILL 90 RIGHT TIGHTENS after cattleguard. . . or so it
seemed as we were leaving the road to land firmly in the ditch at about
35 MPH (which wedges things quite firm indeed). After a certain amount
of excavation involving the BMW jack and pointed sticks, we were
extricated by a couple of local hunters in a 4X4 pickup who grudgingly
consented to at least TRY to pull on our tow strap, after muttering
about how that thing'll never come out o' there unless it had four wheel
drive. . .
"It does," said Oakley Woman.
"Huh? What kind o' car is that?!"
"It's a BMW---"
"A BMW?! WHO'D BRING A BMW ON A THING LIKE THIS? WHAT ARE YA, RICH ER
SOMETHIN'?!"
There ensued some discussion of the punosity of the tow strap---"It's
just gonna snap, so stay outta the way; it'll take yer head off!"---but
finally the pickup was attached, gave a yank, and the iX, freed from its
pit, roared backwards up onto terra firma.
Incredibly. . . the damage was limited to a torn rear CV joint boot, a
dented PIAA chrome ring, some under-the-car dentage that reminds me I
want more skid pans, and a series of slight adjustments of the ProtoFab
skid plate itself. . . the installation of which was the smartest thing
I ever did with the iX.
Come to think of it, given the way I play with this car, it may be the
ONLY smart thing I've ever done. . . .
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