TSD rally in the Laurentians

As I mentioned in my previous post, I participated in a TSD rally with my reliable co-driver Josée last weekend. The event, called "La Grosse Ride", began in Lachute and ended several hours and over 300 km later in Mont Tremblant.

As has been the case with every other TSD I have done with the Saabaru and Josée, the rally was really fun. The roads were sometimes very tricky, but the grip on the compacted snow was surprisingly good. When you drive around in the city or on the highway, you are not really "driving" your car that much. On these events, you really have to focus on the actual driving, the roads, the grip level, what the car is doing, the bumps, the snow banks... it is absorbing and just plain fun if you like spirited driving. As for our performance, I tried to focus on not arriving early at checkpoints and I think that the times I was late was not due to any fault of Josée, but because I simply wasn't keeping up with the average speeds. I am pretty conservative and like to maintain a nice safety margin.

The majority of the cars in the rally were Subarus and the event kicked off at one of Quebec's premier Subaru shops, Lachute Performance. I haven't taken a shop tour yet, but the cars parked around the place were generally of the turbo Subaru variety and the setup of the shop seems very professional.

We did not have too much trouble staying on course during the event. We missed a couple of turns, but realized our mistakes very quickly and didn't lose too much time. We didn't see anyone stuck in the snow anywhere, although most of the field started behind us since we were 6th on the road. The car performed flawlessly, although I somehow again lost the driver-side side skirt! We didn't hit anything, so I don't know how I lost it. This would mean another trip to the scrap yard... Also, at one point, the exhaust made a sort of pop/burp noise, and I noticed afterward that the check engine light had gone out... for the first time ever since I've owned this car! I don't know if it happened then, but that's when I noticed it. It's still off now, 5 days later.

The toughest part of an event like that is the drive home. We finished the rally at 2:15 am and I left Tremblant around 2:45, just as it started to snow quite heavily. I took it easy on the way home and planned to stop if needed for a power nap. In the end, the snow kept me concentrated on the road and I drove non-stop. I went to bed around 4:20 am... very late for me.

The results just came our and I see that we finished right where we usually finish, in 8th place out of 25 cars and last of the 4 expert class teams (you're supposed to register in expert class if you have done more than 3 events). I don't know what we have to do to finish higher... we still had a few early arrivals. There is another event in 9 days, so we'll see if we can improve. If not, we're still having a great time trying!

The Saabaru, washed and ready for action

Cool old Legacy Turbo in front of the shop

We had a prime parking spot

I'm sure this cool grey STi was not stock

The trusty car after the event, as it started to snow

Josée and I and our traditional after-rally photo