Roundel Jun 12 Feat.qxd:RoundFeat

5/9/12

7:45 AM

Page 74hsu
MYOU MINI!
AFTER WINNING THE ALCAN WINTER RALLYIN A BMW X3, ONE DRIVER DECIDES TO TRY IT
AGAIN—IN A FRONT-DRIVE MINI CLUBMAN.
Rally navigators are used to getting calls for unusual motorsports
events, so when longtime friend Gary Webb, one of my stage-rally andendurance TSD (time-speed-distance) rally friends from the 1980s, calls to
ask if I am interested in doing the Alcan Winter Rally, I know it is going to
be an interesting time. Visions of trekking through the frozen tundra in a
BMW X3, Webb’s winning ride in 2004, reassuringly come to mind.
But then he explains. This time, it seems, he wants more of a challenge. “Let me get this straight,” I say. “You want to drive 5,000 miles…
in a two-wheel-drive Mini Cooper… through the Arctic… in winter?!”
Memories of previous rally exploits in vintage British cars—mostly
disastrous—come flooding back. But Webb’s Mini Cooper Clubman is new,
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHSBY MARC GOLDFARB

and it’s not exactly as mini as the first ones. And the portion of its design
pedigree that really matters is now more Bavarian than British. But I am
only slightly reassured; the Alcan Winter Rally has never been won by
anything without four driving wheels, though it does have a class for
two-wheel-drive vehicles. And I know that Webb is intent on a win.

74

JUNE 2012 | ROUNDEL | WWW.BMWCCA.ORG

I

arrive in Seattle in February, two days before
the start of the event, to go over the car, install
my navigational gear, an Alfa Elite rally computer—building Alfa gear is my day job—and
get a little seat time with Webb before we start
this odyssey. We had run the challenging Thunderbird Rally in 2011 in a front-drive 1982 Toyota, matching times with the AWD Subarus andultimately winning the historic class—as well as
placing third overall—so I am confident thatwith Webb’s experience in the Arctic, we havethe capability to do well, assuming the cooperation of Mother Nature—and a bit of luck.
Seattle’s Steve Perret has done a great job ofprepping the Mini; it’s equipped with underbody protection, rally lighting, and a roof rackholding a spare tire and our emergency fuel supply. Endurance, experience, and planning are
the primary determinants in the victory overphysics and nature in the Arctic, so I am a bit
concerned when I discover that this extra fuelsupply consists of a single 2.5-gallon gas can.
However, a quick fuel-load calculation basedon a day of practice shows that we shouldn’t
even need that; our Clubman isn’t the turbocharged Cooper S or the insane John Cooper
Works model, it’s the base-model Mini Cooper
Clubman, with its normally aspirated engine,

front-wheel drive, and cutesy—but ultimately
very convenient—suicide doors on the codriver’s side. This thing has an impressive rangeof nearly 400 miles on a tank, which turns out
to be more than sufficient for this event.
Thursday morning, the start of the 2012
Alcan Winter Rally, dawns clear. Unlike thestage rallies that I’ve run in previous years,
there are no crowds or media, just a lone control worker and his clock—and we’re off. As
Car #1, in recognition of Webb’s previous success in the Alcan Winter Rally, we’re first on
the road—and the first to discover that the firstsign noted in the route book is missing.
This sets the tone for the rest of the event.
At the end of the odometer-calibration section, we earn our first Good Rally Karmapoints by helping Ohio Knox and Larry Bost
from Albuquerque, New Mexico, get the timing sorted out in their BMW X5. This is going
to be a long event, and I’ll take any potential
positive energy that I can get. There is only somuch that duct tape, baling wire, and WD-40
can do for you—plus we may need these guys
to break through the snowdrifts up north.
As the first car into the first TSD section,
we should have a clear road ahead—inexchange for being the team that gets toencounter wildlife first, and wake up the checkpoint workers. The first section in Washington State is straightforward, and we expect
most teams to do well. But within half a minute,
we are passed by another Mini, Car #14. Dave
Rose and Ross Trusler of Suffern, New York,
have decided to ignore the TSD calculations
in favor of touring. We encounter them laterin the section, parked in the middle of a onelane bridge leading to the twisty uphill section
where we know we will find several timing
controls ready to penalize the tardy.
One of the challenges of this event is that
there is no time-allowance policy, so if you getbehind time, you have to make it up. Webb andI have discussed this possibility, but we don’t
really lose too much time to the sight-seeing
Mini; the first TSD concludes without further
incident and lunchtime finds us crossing into
British Columbia, explaining to the attractive
border guard what we and the 25 other cars
equipped with spare tires and gas cans on theirroofs plan to do in the Arctic. This lengthy discussion ends with a brief geographical description of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, andshe dismisses us with a slightly confused look,apparently convinced that we are not a threat tonational security north of the 49th Parallel.

WWW.BMWCCA.ORG | ROUNDEL | JUNE 201275

Roundel Jun 12 Feat.qxd:RoundFeat

5/9/12A

six-hour transit brings us to Soda Creekleg, our only competitive TSD sectionof the afternoon. In this leg, the surface
begins on semi-frozen mud and rapidly turns
to a snow-covered ice surface that should findthe Mini at a bit of a disadvantage to the higherperformance vehicles. This is our first inklingof what lies ahead: ice, mud, darkness, andbrisk speeds. Thirty minutes and a few penalty
points later, we find ourselves on the way to
our hotel in Quesnel, BC, to eat, drink andregale our new friends with our adventures ofthe day. Scores are posted at about 10:00 p.m.,
and we find ourselves in a dead heat for thelead with Alcan veterans Paul Eklund and R.
Dale Kraushaar, pilots of Car #2, a Subaru
Forester. Both teams have just six seconds inpenalties. These guys are good; remember theThunderbird Rally where we finished third
overall? They finished first.
Overnight, Mother Nature brings us a winter preview by dusting the cars with snow, andwe find ourselves beginning the second day at
the first ice-racing venue, Gold Pan Speedway
in Quesnel, a 3/8-mile oval, normally dirt.
However, the unseasonably warm temperatures have made the track unusable, so we transit to the nearby Parkland School, where theelementary students have been given recess tomeet the contestants and follow the course of76

JUNE 2012 | ROUNDEL | WWW.BMWCCA.ORG

7:45 AM

Page 76

our upcoming journey. The children love thediminutive Mini Clubman, especially theyounger students, who can actually reach theroof; they happily clean the snow off prior to
our departure for the first TSD of the day. They
especially like our mascot, Javi, a plush-toy
javelina that adorns the dash; it’s Javi, Webb
insists, who is actually doing the navigating—at least when we zero the controls.
The day’s first TSD section is complicatedby the hard-packed snow surface, which is covered by last night’s fresh snow. It’s still fallingrather steadily, making visibility—not to mention traction—an issue for us as we negotiate
the challenging uphill switchbacks on the appropriately named TSD section: It’s called 11%
Grade. As we negotiate this course, I start towonder how this section will treat some of ourless experienced competitors; we are finding ita challenge to maintain the brisk average speeds,
so the novices will probably fare even worse.
Toward the end of the section, we are surprised
to be passed by Car #2. While it’s quite a feat ofdriving prowess by Eklund, it must be a tense
moment in the Subaru when they realize thatthey are a full minute off in their timing calculations. We can relax a bit, at least for the time
being; with a TSD rally won by mere secondsof error, being off a full minute would clearly
eliminate them from further competition.

But our relaxation is short-lived, as we hearover the radio that a control worker has gone
off the road, and that one of the main highways has also closed due to an unrelated accident. Our efforts for this morning have all been
for naught, as today’s TSD sections are subsequently cancelled. Car #2 has been blessed by
the Rally Gods, and we are back to trading seconds with them. After a brief lunch in Prince
George, we head west on the Yellowhead Highway for an afternoon transit of snow, snow, andmore snow. We arrive in New Hazelton, BC,by early evening for the overnight break.
Saturday, Day Three, is a long transit day.
A light snow greets us for our trek up the
Cassiar “highway”—the term given to justabout anything up here that gets plowed in thewinter, regardless of surface width or composition. Halfway up the Cassiar, we pass throughthe section of the road that Mother Nature
violently recycled during a wildfire during thesummer of 2011. Our Cassiar journey enables
some close interactions with a variety of thelocal fauna, with the myopic caribou particularly interested in our Mini Cooper—until theyrealize that it is too small to be a potential
caribou love interest.

Roundel Jun 12 Feat.qxd:RoundFeat

5/9/12

The grated ice-and-gravel hardpack of the
Cassiar provides surprisingly good grip for the
studded Nokian snow tires. Unlike my part of
the world, where the ice on the highways occasionally melts between winter storms, roadmaintenance in the Great White North consists of plowing off the snow and gouging deeplines in the ice with a special serrated grader
blade, providing recesses that retain the subsequently applied gravel or ash. About thirteen hours from our morning start, we crossinto the Yukon Territory and end our day at
the Yukon Inn in Whitehorse.
As we pack our gear the morning of Day Four,
we notice a police cruiser sitting in the parking lot
with his lights flashing. Some of the teams havecome out to find that the array of five-gallon fueljugs on their roofs was just too tempting to someof the locals who live in this land of $6 gas. Apparently the tiny 2.5-gallon gas can on our roof was
too small to be worth taking.

The effects of marathon driving are beginning to be felt, especially by the novice
teams. We start the day with clear skiesand “moderate” temperatures, according to
the local news station, of -10ºF. About a quarter of the field opt to take the 200-point penalty
for skipping the day’s TSD sections; instead,they rest, address mechanical issues, or justmake sure they are adequately prepared before
heading up the Klondike Highway to Dawson
City, about 300 miles north. From there wewill follow the Dempster Highway into theNorthwest Territories, heading for the Arctic
Circle and beyond, where emergency medical
assistance is rare and mechanical assistance78

JUNE 2012 | ROUNDEL | WWW.BMWCCA.ORG

7:45 AM

Page 78

consists of waiting until Spring.
But we are here to compete, so there will beno skipping any TSD sections in favor of rest
and relaxation for us. It’s Sunday morning, andwhile Whitehorse is the largest city in the area,
the day’s TSD sections are on two dead-end
roads that probably won’t separate the scores
too much. We run the first section, beginning in
downtown Whitehorse, without incident, andfinish the second section on time as well, justcatching three teams of dogsled mushers usingthat section of the dead-end road to warm up
their enthusiastically barking “engines” prior
to heading out onto the tundra.
Our morning competition completed, we
begin our transit to Dawson City, passing
through towns like Carmacks, with their bilingual street signs—English and Tutchone—andthe ever-present images of eagles and ravens,
totems two significant First Nations clans. In
Dawson City, the rallyists gather in the pub at
the Dawson Inn, where the attire of the barmaid/waitress/cook—same person, Dawson isa really small town—reminds us of its frontier
history. Some of the participants go on a pub
crawl to another bar, which appears to be staffedby the sister of our server; however, we retire
early, in preparation for the trek northward.
Dawson City is the point in the rally where
preparation usually pays off. Overnight temperatures dip to -20ºF, and a light snow greets ourarrival at the junction of the Dempster Highway.
Teams that had not previously driven the Dempster learn early that fresh snow isn’t required tomake this road a challenge, because at this temperature, the snow doesn’t glaze over the way it
does to the south; just a light breeze is necessary

to create windrows: foot-deep, bumper-smashing snowdrifts across the road that can unsettle
a normal car. They will cause our Mini to get air,or worse. Car #16, a Toyota Yaris, has learned
that lesson early this morning, just outside ofDawson. Their sudden detour off the roadrequired assistance, fortunately supplied by alocal and his big diesel pickup truck.
The Dempster is the first road where someof the teams are challenged by their fuel consumption. In previous years, it was possible tofuel up at the intersection at beginning of theDempster, about 25 miles from Dawson; however, that gas station is no longer open, and the
majority of the teams need to tap into theirrooftop fuel supplies. We arrive at Eagle Plains,
about twenty miles south of the Arctic circle,
with about a quarter tank remaining in the
Mini. Eagle Plains is the only fuel opportunity
between Dawson and Inuvik, our goal for theday; it has several multi-thousand-gallon tanksof gasoline and diesel, a garage bay, a restaurant, and a hotel. It is prepared to be a survival
station, where winter truckers to Inuvik—andthe petroleum industry to the north—can stayfor an indefinite period of time when Mother
Nature gets really annoyed.
Apparently she’s more than a little irked
already. When we arrive at Eagle Plains, we
discover that the winds north of the Arctic Circle
have been whipped up to near-hurricane force,
obliterating any evidence of the road and trapping several tractor-trailers somewhere northof us. Our arrival is greeted by flashing red
lights—and a gate across the road prohibiting
any further northward progress. After discussions with the road crews, and a review of theweather forecasts, rally organizers decide that
it would be prudent for us to return to Dawson City before Mother Nature closes the roadwe have just traveled. The majority of the teams
make it back to Dawson for the night, with a
few intrepid adventurers remaining in Eagle
Plains, hoping to make a trip to Inuvik the nextday. An additional TSD section is added by theorganizers in Dawson City to make up for the
missing extreme checkpoint at Tuktoyaktuk,and the teams began their southward journeyback to Whitehorse the next morning.

D

ay Six is a mostly harmless transit—“mostly harmless” in the Douglas Adams
sense— to Whitehorse from Dawson,
meaning that there is only deep snow, windrows,
snowdrifts, wildlife, and the occasional whiteout from passing massive oncoming snowplows
marking our trip, and we make it back to Whitehorse with minimum drama. We plug in the
Mini—preparation for the Alcan includes
installing block and battery heaters to ensurethat your car starts in the morning—and retire
for the night.
Day Seven dawns clear with a brisk wind
and temperatures hovering around 0ºF. This
isn’t particularly cold, so it is odd that the Mini
refuses to start. However, we quickly get a jumpfrom a competitor, and we’re on our way.
Today’s TSD sections will be an exact repeatof Sunday’s, with two in-and-out dead-end sections. Just prior to the start, we learn that twoof seven cars are still at Eagle Plains, hopingthat the Dempster Highway will open and they
will have a shot at reaching the Arctic Circle.
The other cars that stayed overnight at Eagle

Plains are heading south to rejoin the event inTok, Alaska. So only seventeen cars begin
today’s TSD section.
While Sunday’s running of this section was
uneventful, beginning a TSD in a downtown
area during the weekday rush hours present
some challenges that probably weren’t anticipated by the organizers. (Remember, there areno time allowances in this rally.) But once we
get out of town, the remainder of the section
goes smoothly, and shortly after noon we findourselves on the way to the U.S. border. Afteran uneventful crossing, we roll into Tok,
Alaska, around dinnertime.
On the morning of Day Eight, our Mini
doesn’t seem to like the cold. Even after being
plugged in all night on the battery heater, she
refuses to start—for the second time. It’s a mystery: Nothing was left on overnight, but there’s
not enough energy in the Mini battery to turnover the engine at -10ºF. Another jump startgets us on our way; after a short TSD section,
we are on our way to Valdez, where we understand they have had about 37 feet of snow
already this season. This should make tomorrow’s TSD section—not to mention the scheduled ice-racing event—very interesting!
But we arrive at Valdez to find that theextreme amount of snow this winter has madeit impossible to maintain the ice-racing courseon the lake. Instead, the organizer has arranged
a 0.4-mile road stage on a snow-covered, hardpacked ice road near town.

We empty the contents of the Mini into thehotel room in Valdez and get ready for thestage. The driver and co-driver of each car are
to take two runs each, and the winner in eachcategory will not get any penalty. There are
only half a dozen instructions each way, witha hand-brake hairpin turn halfway in—and I
realize that this will be the first time that I’ve
run a stage by myself. Even on the few occasions that I sit on the side of the car with a brake
pedal, I’ve had a co-driver beside me. Normally, I’m the co-driver; I rewrite the notes andmemorize them. But now I have to drive.
Webb hands me his helmet. I recognize it;
it is the same helmet that he wore when wecompeted in the New Brunswick Lobster stage
rally in the 1980s, complete with SCCA logo,
blood type, date of last tetanus shot, and birthdate on the back. The rubber padding has
decomposed long ago, and bits of it flake out of
the helmet every time I pick it up. I opt to wear
one of our team hats as a balaclava.
The normally aspirated front-drive Mini,
combined with a hand-brake turn in the middle of the stage, pretty much ensures that weare not going to set any records here. The rules
assess a maximum penalty of ten points forthis competition, but with scores separated byonly a couple of points, this can easily affectthe results of the entire event. As expected,
Eklund in Car #2 sets the fastest time of theday—and takes no penalty points. However,in doing so, he suffers a catastrophic failure of

WWW.BMWCCA.ORG | ROUNDEL | JUNE 201279

Roundel Jun 12 Feat.qxd:RoundFeat

5/9/12the newly rebuilt Subaru engine: Car #2 ends
its rally in Valdez.
They are not alone in their misery. Car #21
suffers a transmission failure that finishes theirevent, and Colin Stenhouse—Car #9—manages to run out of road before running out of
turn, and parks his Audi A4 upside-down on
the stage. But in true rally form, he gets on theradio and requests that he be permitted torestart the stage after righting the car with a
bit of help from spectators and the sweep truck.
A bit of duct tape and cardboard, and Car #9
continues the event.
he final morning dawns with 29ºF temperatures that feel downright balmy after
our recent sub-zero adventures. Day Nine
calls for two TSD sections: one in Valdez, followed by a “short” 230-mile transit to the final
TSD in Wasilla. But even with the warmer temperatures, the Mini refuses to start. Fortunately,
Webb had wisely purchased a booster batteryT

7:45 AM

Page 80

pack the day before, and we are on our way without difficulty. (Analysis after the event showsthat we had made an error in mounting the battery heater, causing a portion of the battery’s caseto melt and buckle some of the plates.)
We are being particularly careful today, as
our proximity to populated areas allows theorganizers to recruit additional workers fromlocal sports-car clubs—and place additional
timing controls. The humongous twelve-footsnowbanks near Valdez offer many excellent
hiding places, and we’ll need to be careful. A
couple of timing locations offer us real challenges in keeping on time, and there is one
tricky course-following instruction that wecatch, but we complete the TSD without any
major gaffes, and soon we are on our way to
Wasilla and the final challenge.

The transit to Wasilla through Thompson
Canyon Pass is snowy and difficult, with frequent whiteout conditions; these are not helpedby the tractor-trailer that has chosen this particular day to transport a small house on a lowboy trailer through the pass. But we make it tothe beginning of the final TSD section on time.
Now close enough to taste victory, we suffer cockpit paranoia throughout the final leg,our heads spinning around Exorcist-style aswe scan the roadside for timing crews. All iswell, however, and we finish the Wasilla TSD
knowing that we can finally relax: After ninedays and thousands of miles of snow-covered
icy roads, we have clinched the win for the
Mini Clubman—the first two-wheel-drive car
ever to win the Alcan Winter Rally.
Of course, now we have to get home from
Anchorage—but that’s definitely the easy part. 

Though Gary Webb
reached Tuktoyaktuk
in 2004, the 2012
Alcan Winter Rally
was stopped short of
the Arctic Circle bydrifting snow.
80

JUNE 2012 | ROUNDEL | WWW.BMWCCA.ORG