With the Thynne and Brooke stages south of Merritt cancelled due to
poor conditions, the organizers added two morning runs down the Helmer
stage. Normally known to be the "tire guru", ACP’s run for a win
effectively ended before the first stage as he hadn’t brought any
winter snow tires to this event. He was forced to tiptoe through the
deep snow and ice on SS8 and SS9 in a car that was still having centre differential problems, losing around 6 minutes to the
leaders. Meanwhile, Western drivers, Norm LeBlanc and Scott Trinder
were excelling in the snow and battling for top times.  After
descending from the mountainous Helmer stages, the roads took on a
different character, changing to a fast-drying gravel surface.  ACP
took the bull by the horns and won all five gravel stages to claw his
way back up the order.  With a return to Helmer for the last two stages
of the event, however, he couldn’t catch Norm LeBlanc’s P4 class car, and had to push
to stay ahead of Trinder.  Gord Olsen was another to feel more
comfortable on the gravel stages, posting top-three stage times in his
Subaru.

In 2WD, Aaron Neumann and Colin Armstrong were having another one of
their classic battles. Armstrong had pulled Neumann out of the ditch
earlier in the day, and was ahead by nearly a minute going into the
final two stages. With darkness closing in, however, Armstrong forgot
his auxiliary lights and lost large chunks of time through the final
stage.  Aaron Neumann arrived in final MTC to discover he was now
leading the class by six seconds.  We caught up to him as he was in service, trying to
find out the results and whether he could take a self-imposed penalty
to drop himself back down below Armstrong. Having already checked into
the final MTC, however, we’re not sure he was able to take any action.
Both of them are great sportsman though, and embody what the sport of
rallying is all about.

There’s just a month to go before the season finale at the Tall Pines
Rally, and L’Estage now has a sizable points cushion to fall back on.
However, ACP is not totally out of the picture yet, and if something
happens to Antoine in Bancroft, the championship may turn out to be a
nail-biter!  Stay tuned to FOC in the lead up to Tall Pines.  We’ll
have our full crew there providing live updates once again.

Report by Warwick Patterson

Pacific Forest Rally event coverage is brought to you by Rocket Rally. 

Thanks also go out to Last Ditch Racing, Easy Rider Racing, and Rallysport.ca for their support.

Large dumps of snow on the Thynne and Brooke stages during this morning’s recce made it nearly impassable except for a few cars.  There was a mini-pile up at the bottom of one section, causing Grochowski/Junnila and the Zedril’s to go into the ditch.  They were unable to be extracted before the start of today’s stages and will have to join the second regional rally tomorrow.  Also due the lack of recce and on-going tricky conditions, the Thynne and Brooke stages look to be cancelled tomorrow in favour of two additional runs on Helmer.

Tonight’s action kicked off with a turnaround stage up the Nicola Valley, where Andrew Comrie-Picard took the stage win on the way up the hill.  Antoine L’Estage answered right back with two wins on Nicola and the first running of Princeton Cutoff.  ACP was suffering from failing centre differential hydraulics, however, leaving him fighting an unpredictable car.  Antoine also was worried about his car at first, thinking that it was running a little slower than usual.  He said the boost was running low, but his times were okay.

With three runnings of the cliff-edge Princeton Cutoff (aka Princeton Dropoff) stage tonight, the cars were bound to take a beating.  Many drivers commented on the hard impacts and big hits taken on the stage, and were seen peering under their cars for damage at the next time control. Dwayne Jackman in his first Canadian event had dual front suspension failure on Princeton, but was able to bring it back into town.

Norm Leblanc, Gord Olsen, and Scott Trinder are all in a battle behind the two leaders.  After an absence from Western rallying, Trinder is putting in a good drive and is currently 4th behind Norm LeBlanc.  Gord Olsen is still getting comfortable with the new car (Pat Richard’s previous Open Class WRX).

"These are some of the tightest stages we’ve had this car on," said Olsen, "It’s coming along and the car feels good."

With just the two short in-town stages remaining to be scored tonight, L’Estage leads ACP by around 46 seconds (the currently online scoring at 12:45am has an error).  Tomorrow is the big day, however, and everything can change, especially with the tricky mix of conditions and the long Helmer stages.

Report by Warwick Patterson