All-Japan Rally
Championship
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Canadian Rally Championship |
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Canadian Rally Championship |
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RALLYE INT. DE CHARLEVOIX - NOT A LUCKY DAY FOR SUBARU!
Rallye Int. de Charlevoix
Canadian Rally Championship round 8 October 23-27, 2002 LA MALBAIE, QUE. (Oct. 27/2002) - Eleven-time U.S. driving champion John Buffum won Canada's premier car rally on Sunday, taking victory on the Rallye International de Charlevoix in Quebec for the second time in four years. Rally favourite, and 3-time winner of this event, Tom McGeer, was not in contention from Day 1, when he was forced to deal with uncharacteristic transmission problems. The most successful American rally driver ever, Buffum dominated the three-day event in the Charlervoix-Saguenay region east of Quebec City. Driving a Hyundai Tiberon, he led all the way from the opening stage on Friday. "I'm 100 per cent for the year," joked Buffum, who is semi-retired as a driver, runs Hyundai's rally program in the U.S. and gets behind the wheel himself only occasionally. The U.S. rally championship wrapped up last week, allowing him to come to Charlevoix. It is his only rally of the season. 
Conditions were tricky throughout the event. Teams faced a mixture of snow, slush and mud on the forest gravel roads to the north of La Malbaie. The snow was so deep in places that two stages had to be cancelled on Saturday. Pat Richard had a new face to Canadian rallying in the co-driver's seat this time, British native Alyson Marlow. Alyson has been co-driving for Richard in the British based Peugot 206 super 1600 series this year. Patrick and Alyson were one of the favorites going into this event, however they were sidelined early on by a broken ball joint after an off -road excursion brought on by spectators standing on the road. Just one kilometer into the first stage, Richard set-up his car to negotiate a fast right hand bend when he came upon some enthusiastic spectators standing on his line. Losing his concentration he slid wide, and bounced off a rock in the ditch. Attempting to continue, he didn't realize his left front wheel has suffered a terminal ball joint failure and his rally would come to a disappointing end. With Buffum and Comrie-Picard comfortably ahead of the rest, the main drama on the final leg of competition was a tight battle for third between Toronto-area drivers Peter Thomson and Tom McGeer, both in Subaru Impreza WRXs. McGeer, who began the day trailing by just over a minute after 3rd gear broke in his transmission, caught and passed Thomson, who suffered a flat tire. But Thomson responded by setting fastest time on both of the last two stages. McGeer then battled back to pass Thomson, only to suffer the same fate: a flat tire, which cost him 5 mins. when he attempted to change it on the stage and the car fell off the jack. On Day 3, McGeer again fought back to within 7 seconds of Thomson, only to have his transmission get stuck in second gear. He eventually fell a minute-and-a-quarter back. McGeer, a five-time Canadian champion, and the previous winner of this event, said he was "lucky to make it to the finish." From the second stage of the event, on day one, his usually unbreakable 6-speed dogbox (transmission) began to suffer a debilitating failure. By the mid-way point of the first day, it was clear that a tooth in the 3rd gear synchro had broken off and was now floating around inside the gearbox. With this type of transmission it is not possible to either repair or change the transmission, as it is build by Prodrive to WRC standards. McGeer has had this gearbox in the car for 3 years without a single failure until this point. He knew he needed to finish here to keep alive his hopes for taking a second straight North American Rally Cup, which combines Canadian and U.S. results. For the remainder of the event, as he nursed the ailing gearbox which was losing gears every few stages, he just had to keep his fingers crossed that it would last until the end. And so it did. He finished the event in 4th overall, after a spirited drive on day 3, with only 2 gears working, almost taking back 3rd place from Thomson. On the final stage however, the tranny finally stuck in 2nd gear, and he was forced to concede the podium spot and nurse the car to the finish. The hard-luck story of the day was that of two-time Quebec Cup champion Jon Nichols, of Lachine. He was comfortably in fifth place at the conclusion of the last special stage, but his Impreza WRX broke on the transit back to the official finish at La Malbaie, meaning he did not figure in the results. Hyundai Elantra driver Antoine L'Estage, of L'Acadie, Que., inherited fifth place after Nichols' misfortune. Nichols was the most notable retirement of the final day. Fifteen cars, out of 30 that started, finished the event. Thomson and Comrie-Picard are now locked in a tight battle for second place overall in the Canadian championship, already won by Vancouver's Pat Richard in his Subaru WRX (Group N). Charlevoix is the longest and most grueling round of the Canadian Subaru Rally Championship, presented by Yokohama, and is a candidate for future inclusion in the World Rally Championship. Official observers from the Paris-based Federation Internationale de l'Automobile were on hand to review the event. The final round of the championship will take place on November 23rd in Bancroft Ontario, at the Rally of the Tall Pines. |
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