There was someone asking about this, so I'll write it up here, rather than hijack the other thread.

Nick Narini and I decided to have a go at the WINTR TSD series this year, organised by Frank Beyer and Steve McKelvie, both out of the states. We used my car and I drove, while Nick navigated using his Alfa we mounted in the car.

We did the Son of Snodrift as the first event - entirely skippable. Low CAS and rules that weren't adequately explained for newcomers. Finished 37th. Whoops.

Went to Rallye Des Neiges, Canada's oldest rally, located outside of Bromont, Quebec. We were looking for redemption and found it, finishing 5th. Great event, absolutely plan to do it again. One downside is that we discovered Nick's stomach doesn't like rally from the right seat. He was amazing though, kept it all down, and got us to the end with a score of 5.5.

Came to MLWR with high hopes. We'd both done well here before, but never run as a team. Nick was on Gravol, and not much sleep. Nick seemed less sick during the event but apparently wasn't feeling well at all, and was nodding off later in the night. Despite a couple timing issues, he kept me on the route and more or less on time for a sixth overall and second in intermediate. We also had some wiring issues prior to the event so ran with fewer lights (just two aux) and almost had no computer. Discovered I don't need more than two lights, so may sell the light pod.

Our last event (and the last of the WINTR series) was the Vermont Winter Challenge, run by John Buffum. With entries of performance drivers Paul Choiniere and Tim Penasack we expected banzai CAS targets, and even talked about switching seats, but Nick was gracious and so we ran with me driving and him navigating.

Buffum organises the event into three legs (called sections) made up of many sections (what they call legs). The event is scored to the 1/100th of a minute, and the first section is a very challenging TSD, the second section a map reading section and the final section a drivex style event. Nick was using the patch, which worked well.

We got the directions early, and Nick immediately started working on the maps section to match up and figure out mileages.

Our start time hit, and we were off. So was our Alfa. Something was up when we saw that the speedo on the alfa wasn't matching up with the stock speedo in the car. While Nick worked to try to recalibrate it, we made the best efforts we could to figure out the navigational side with no real odo (Mine is in kms, not miles, and the alfa was not reading correctly). Also, many things that appear to be roads in Vermont are actually unsigned driveways or unsigned dead ends. We found a few of those. We came into what for us would be the final control of the event from the wrong direction, just as they were packing up. Turned out to be Buffum, who gave us good directions to get to the rest stop, so we could continue on after the break. We missed a couple of checkpoints on that one, though took comfort in the fact a lot of people were getting lost. Easily the most challenging TSD event either of us had done.

The second leg started out well, but the alfa was still not reading, so between instructions, Nick still tried to get it calibrated. Every time we got a different factor, and it was out by too much to be explained away by wheelspin and lockup (grip was mostly very good). Again, with no reliable odo, we struggled to make the right decisions on which roads to take and lost time getting lost, before finally bailing and heading to the rest point, again missing a couple of checkpoints.

It was here we nearly bailed on the event altogether. We talked for most of the break about whether we should continue, and finally agreed we should try, since the final part was more drivex style, with basic tulip instructions. Nick had converted every instruction to kms on the drive to the second rest after getting lost, so we opted to ignore the alfa and just run the basic way of me aiming for 10% over the CAS and hope for the best.

The roads had incredible grip, mostly like sandpaper. There were occasionally two icy tracks, but plenty of room and grip outside those tracks on which to drive. We even got the tires squealing in one tight corner. Everything was going well until one of these unmarked dead ends ate up a pile of time, and from there on we got more and more lost... but found our way to all of the controls, hitting the finish with every sticker! Speeds were totally achievable, before getting lost we kept arriving early, and even after getting lost, the actual CAS was fine, but of course time lost made it difficult to catch up.

Again, we finished dead last, but unlike Michigan, this one is certainly worth doing. A team that is successful at that rally has something to be very proud of, as it was easily way more challenging than any other event. Even if our Odo had been working and we had accurate measurement to instructions, so much information was left out in the instructions, we still would have struggled. I hope to go back again next year.

We finished up fourth in the WINTR driver's standings and fifth in the Navigator's rankings, which sounds a lot better than last in both, which is also true. It was a good time, and I absolutely suggest anyone into WINTR TSDs give it a try. It'll be good to try again next year, with a year of experience under our belt.

Hi,

There are actually six events, New York Finger Lakes, which apparently was great, and Ohio Winter Rally, which conflicted with Rallye Perce Neige.

Next year, I'd like to do New York, Vermont, Maple Leaf and Rallye Des Neiges

DC