Good evening everyone,

Now that the 2007 ORRC series is concluded, it's time to start looking ahead to 2008. With that in mind, the Maple Leaf Rally Club is proud to announce the Maple Leaf Winter Rally! Returning to its roots, the rally will run overnight on February 16/17 2008 in the Bancroft area.

Most of the details are yet to be worked out, but expect a great overnight rally on great roads. While average speeds will be somewhat reduced from past years, this rally is sure to still be a driving challenge. In addition, there will be an element of navigation involved to keep the navigators busy. While not as difficult as a navex rally, proficiency with maps will be a valuable asset.

More information is to come as details are finalized. We look forward to seeing everyone out there for a great Maple Leaf Winter Rally!

Ryan Huber
Coordinator

Wow, thanks Ryan, thats the 1st good news in 2008 to me!
Let me know more details and I will try to get the car ready for this event!

Keep us update

Ben

The Maple Leaf Rally Club is proud to announce a partnership with Sandvik Coromant to present this year's Maple Leaf Winter Rally



Sandvik Coromant is the world's leading manufacturer of cutting tools for the metalworking industry, with more than 25,000 products. In an industry where precision is extremely important, Sandvik and navigational rallying perfectly compliment each other.

For more information on Sandvik Coromant products, please visit http://www.coromant.sandvik.com/ca

Christina wrote on 02/01/8 at 18:20:31:


I'm guessing that I'm not supposed to take that the way it sounds?  

J/K ... I'm already signed up for this one as a competitor!  If I find any insomniacs, I'll send them your way.

If any competitors can bring someone with them to help out at checkpoints through the rally, I'll give them a discount on their entry. We're coming up about 4 bodies short to cover all the controls I want to use, so if you have a friend who'd like to see what the insides of a rally look like and doesn't mind sleep deprivation, please bring them along! Fire me an email, ryan.huber @ sympatico.ca Thanks!

Two thumbs up Ryan. Great route, great instructions, great conditions.

Thanks to all the workers and all the competitors too. One can't exist without the other.

From the now infamous car #13   ...

Thank you to everyone at MLRC and other clubs who helped out that night.  I know you were beating the bushes for everyone you could find to make it a good rally, and as competitors, we never felt the event was understaffed.  It takes a strange kind of person to staff CP's in the middle of the night, and we appreciate it.  

Getting slotted back into the rally right before Old Hastings was perfect.  I wouldn't have wanted to miss that.

Great route Ryan!  Opal (who baked the brownies) and I loved the roads.  

To Garth and the two chaps with the Jeep who tried so hard to winch us out... thanks!  And for letting my Navie use your hood as a tripod and your Aux lights for lighting... that was really great.  

I want to give great kudos to the competitors.  Early in Leg B, you were having fun in the woods and in the wee hours of the morning, round a corner and see what you think are two idiots standing outside in the cold, beside a ML checkpoint board, waving a flashlight to get your attention to the board.  After you shake your head a few times, blink your eyes a few times, you came to the realization that it was not a hallucination but yep indeed it was two idiots standing outside in the cold, beside a ML checkpoint board with no vehicle in sight (see previous message for details on that) manning a checkpoint.  After you allowed this realization to sink in, brought your vehicle to a stop and made you way back to the "idiots"- the barrage of questions started, a)  are you really a checkpoint? b) where's your vehicle? c) are you okay d) can we help? and the flurry of answers while manning one flashlight, writing stickers, logging times and handing out stickers - a) yes we really are a checkpoint b) up the road about 100 feet in the ditch -you can't miss it, c) yes we are okay and the organizing group and workers know what's happened, d) thanks for offering but we are going to need something much bigger to get us out.  Doug and I really appreciated your concern about us and offers to help.  Thanks to Ryan for loaning his mom his ski pants, toque and gloves so she didn't freeze too badly doing the checkpoint.  Thanks to Mr. local Tow Truck driver for hauling us out of the ditch and the best part was that the van suffered really only minor cosmetic damage and we were off in plenty of time to run our next two (out of four that night) checkpoints.
Would we do it all again?  Yup for sure - the rally must go on!
Donna and Doug
aka "the two idiots"