Vince's Stuff: Rallye de Charlevoix 2024

One of the Fiestas drifting in the Grand Fonds stage

I can't believe that I've been able to attend automotive events three weekends in a row this late in the season. Alex is really a good sport! A few weeks ago, we decided as a family to head to the Charlevoix region to watch some stages of the Rallye de Charlevoix, a big rally I first attended in the 1990's. The plan was to drive to Deschaillons Friday night, then leave early to check out some stages before lunch on Saturday. Alex found us a lovely hotel (Auberge des 3 canards) in La Malbaie, the town where the rally was based.

When we arrived, we were just in time for a long gravel stage called Grand Fonds. We were able to get a great spot with about 100 other spectators and we saw the cars drifting throught a wide 90-degree corner. Even without a zoom lens, I was able to get a couple of decent pictures (see above). The weather was cool, but it was mostly sunny and above zero. There were several casualties in this stage: an Evo 8 broke its rear suspension, a Focus broke its front suspension, and a WRX had a major incident and had clearly rolled. We saw the Focus' crew working on the car on the spot as we left the stage and somehow the Evo also managed to rejoin the rally.

Most of the cars were Subarus. There were a couple of WRC-style Ford Fiestas (both white, which was confusing) and a couple of other production-based Fiestas and Focus's (Foci?). There was a Toyota Yaris, a vintage Datsun 1200, a Porsche 911 and a 944. There were no AE86 Corollas as there have always been in the past, and only the one Mitsubishi. There was a BMW E36 hatchback, and a 128i driven by a guy we met the previous week at the navigation rally. There was a modern Mini, a Dodge SRT-4 and someone had shipped over a Rally4-class Peugeot 208 (like our rental car from the summer trip!).

After Grand Fonds, we headed to La Malbaie to get a supermarket lunch. Several rally cars drove by on the main road, which I always love to see. After lunch, we drove into Clermont for the stage that would take rally through a residential area. It's incredible that people go along with this and it's a bit surreal to see the cars barelling through a quiet little neighbourhood at breakneck speeds. I also enjoyed watching the cars launch from a standstill at the beginning of the stage. We were able to move around quite freely and see many different portions of the short stage.

After Clermont, we headed to our hotel. I went back out to get a pizza and I was still crossing paths with more cars from the rally. I love that the cars are just driving on the street between special stages. It's just so cool to see a full-blown, mud-covered rally car waiting in front of you at a red light... the Subaru in the photo below didn't have functional tail lights, which could have landed the driver in trouble with local authorities.

We benefitted from an extra hour of sleep due to the time change, and took our time leaving the hotel in the morning. Sadly, we took a bit too much time, because when we were driving to the spectator zone of the famed "La Pax" stage, we were told we could go no further when we were still 1.6 kilometers away... not even on foot. We ended up watching a single corner with about 50 other spectators, although it was a cool one, as it was a 90-degree bend following a high speed section, all on asphalt. I was surprised to see some cars that had been absent in Clermont... they must have fixed whatever issues they had. J.S. Besner, who organizes our navigation rallies and who was one of the favourites in his crazy ford Fiesta, lost 13 minutes on Saturday with an electronic issue. He was still quick on Sunday and managed to finish 7th over all. The car that won was the other Fiesta, driven by the 10-time(!) Canadian champion Antoine Lestage. Many cars did not finish, but that's how it goes in rallying. It was clearly a tough event.

After La Pax, we decided to head home. We wanted to visit Isle-aux-Coudres on the way home, but we miscalculated the ferry times and decided to skip it. Instead, we took a scenic drive on the 138 between Quebec City and Trois-Rivières and we were home by dinner.

Does watching a rally make me want to build a low-budget rally car, like a Yaris or an old Focus? Not really... there is simply no way to participate in performance rallies on a shoestring budget, as I manage to do with my Civic for track days. If I had a huge racing budget, however, I would be very interested.

All in all, it was a lovely weekend. The weather was nice and the region is very different from what we're used to. I hope we can make this trip into an annual event.