Vince's Stuff: Mini-Ride Navigation Rally

The trusty STi

Last weekend, Josée and I participated in a navigation rally up North called the Mini-Ride (we were again joined by Jules in the back seat). It is organized by current Canadian rally Champion J-S Besner and it featured a new timing system that is almost entirely dependant on an app on the crew's smart phone. This allowed for much more accurate timing. One big difference was that when you passed a checkpoint, you are immediately informed by the app how early or late you are. At the first two checkpoints, we took big penalties (one early, one late), so I already knew we were not in the running for a podium... I was right about that, as the winning duo took fewer penalty seconds in the whole rally than we did in either of those first two stages. Anyway, we were there to have fun, and we did. It's very different driving on twisty country roads, paved or unpaved, in the day time. Even though there were bery few leaves still on the trees, the scenery was beautiful and we enjoyed a sunny day. In the end, we were listed as 11th over all on the score sheet, but there was a huge penalty for a missed checkpoint which I think was a mistake. I told the scoring official and I don't know if he changed it. If he did, we would be about 7th, but way, way behind the winners. The car performed flawlessly. I had a flat tire the following day which may be due to some of the bumps on the gravel roads, although I will never really know. Fortunately, I had two spare tires in my basement of the same make, model and size.

We drove through strange weather and even saw a rainbow

Our official post-rally photo (thanks J!)

The STi was still in one piece after the rally

There were fewer WRX's than usual, this one was very similar to ours

Three generations of Impreza, a Fiesta ST and a Jeep

The weather has been unseasonably warm in the past few days, and there are still many motorcycles and cool cars on the road. I think people are driving them while they can, because winter will be here soon enough!

There is apparently a less boring-looking version of the CR-V

Integras are rare now. This one had a poor colour match but was otherwise clean.

A rust-free Saab 9-5 is a rare sight too

The new AMG GT63, quite a nice car

RS6 in all black is still a winning combination

First spot of a Lotus Emira "in the wild", thanks to Alex for the pic

This car is still around, and I still want it... white, manual, no rear lip and metric wheels

Side profile of the GT63

New M2 on Laurier street

Nice spec for the SQ8

I'm enjoying driving the STi around town, especially now that I've discovered how much smoother it is in "Intelligent" mode, which dulls the throttle response and reduces peak turbo boost