TorontoTim

Thanks all for the kind words and thanks, Sue, for the Badfrog memories. It was truly our honour to know what he thought about our adventure. There were more than a few tears along the way when we thought of him.

Ok, that's pretty much the full story of Jan and my adventure taking our TR4 on the 2014 Alcan 5000. It really was an adventure and we'll never forget it. Reposting the story here and re-reading Jan's contributions makes it feel like it was just yesterday rather than almost 10 years ago! I really did immediately drive the TR back to Toronto which was another 4,000+ miles in 7 days. Trust me when I say, nowhere's far in a TR! To fully wrap up, I want to share the epilogue that we wrote after completing the rally. Finally, we want to dedicate our finish in this wonderful ral

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday, Bob!!

Day 9 (Valdez > Anchorage, Alaska and the FINISH!; ~310 miles/500 km): We drove the last day top-down in celebration of making our way from Kirkland, Washington through British Columbia, Yukon and to Anchorage, Alaska in an almost 53-year-old sports car. It was only a few degrees above freezing (in August!) but it was a great way to travel. There were two TSD sections to cover on route and we dropped less than 20 seconds, but it wasn’t quite enough to move up from 14th. However, having missed two whole days of competition, we were pretty happy with that result – imagine the possibil

Day 8 photos from the Denali Highway...

Day 8 (Fairbanks > Valdez, Alaska; ~600 miles/965 km): After all the excitement, drama and life-affirming happenings over the past couple of days, it was oddly normal to be back rallying with everyone else. The day started with a shortish TSD just outside of town which took us to Cripple Creek. We felt we did pretty well and probably only dropped a few seconds here and there. Then it was off on a 2-hour transit to the Denali Highway – a 135-mile remote, summer-only road. Over 100 miles of this is gravel/dirt – some of it fast and smooth, other parts pot-holed and rough. We spe

Day 7 (Dawson > Fairbanks, Alaska; ~380 miles/610 km): We left Dawson in heavy mist, took the ferry across the Yukon River and climbed up onto the Top of the World Highway through thick cloud, bursting out above it into brilliant sunshine. It is a stunning, mostly dirt road only open in the summer and through the most northerly Canada/USA border crossing. Having no competitive sections allowed us the freedom to relax and just enjoy the drive – and to stop in Chicken, Alaska, perhaps the oddest of all the unusual places we visited on the rally. It was a long drive, although not high

Day 6 (Whitehorse > Dawson City, Yukon; ~400 miles/645 km): 8:48am the TR started!!! We were back in the rally!!! Having lost a day, we had to choose whether to run direct to Fairbanks, Alaska to rejoin the rally and attempt the run to the Arctic Circle the following day, or follow the original rally route (a day behind the field) through Dawson City and over the Top of the World Highway and rejoin the field on their second night in Fairbanks. We were sorry to lose the Arctic, but Dawson had always been a highlight of the trip for us, so we chose to go that way. What a great dr

While I leave you all on a minor cliff-hanger about what happened next (no spoilers from those who know the answer!!!), let me answer John's question by saying that I actually HAVE done the Alcan again. I entered the winter version of the rally in 2016 in the same 1980 Audi Quattro that we competed against in 2014. I was navigating that time and we easily won the Historic class. The rally followed the same general route but included a run up to Yellow Knife in North West Territories where it was seriously cold!! We drove over frozen lakes (including a time trial on one) and crossed a fr

Day 5 (Whitehorse, Yukon; 0 miles/0 km): As the rest of the rally left Whitehorse and headed to Dawson City, I removed the head to reveal cylinders 3 & 4 full of water – head gasket blown. But everything else seemed ok. While I was working on it in the hotel parking lot, a guy wandered over and asked if he could help. This is how people are in Yukon. And his lucky number is 5. Because of these things he - Dennis, “Mr. Pain” - drove us all over town introducing us to travel agents, mechanics, engineering shops and Air North at the airport. As a result, and with the help of TRR Fo

You can't beat it, Roger...

Day 4 (Watson Lake > Whitehorse, Yukon; 560 miles/900 km): This was the tough day. It started well enough with a TSD section made up of a couple of loops around Watson Lake followed by a run out to Skagway in Alaska and back to Whitehorse. We cruised past the gas station after just 20 miles; we still had a 3rd of a tank and there was gas listed at the Continental Divide Lodge 70 miles up the road. Sounds like a big place, right? Like it would always be open. Nope. Next gas another 75 miles. And we seemed to be getting through gas faster than usual. Fortunately, Joanna and Seth

A few more photos from Stewart BC. A very remote place right up against the south end of the Alaskan border, known mostly for Heli-skiing and one of our favourite places on the rally...

Day 3 (Stewart, BC > Watson Lake, Yukon; ~550 miles/885 km) Day 3 and we were starting to get into the routine: Up early, fuss around having coffee, some kind of hurried breakfast while worrying too much about the start time only to find that we then had to hang around for over half an hour because we had rushed far too much… Ah, such are the stresses of rallying. All of which led to me making three wrong decisions in the first 2 minutes of the day as we kicked off with a TSD section. Fortunately, Jan (novice navigator, remember) totally had her act together and mostly pulled u