Canadian Rally Comes to Calgary

The Rocky Mountain Rally is the second stop in the Canadian Rally Championship. Based in Calgary, Alberta, the rally is also the first gravel event of the season. Rain started falling yesterday, and is forecast throughout the weekend making conditions muddy and slick.

On hand and looking for top honours are reigning Canadian Rally Champions Antoine L’Estage and Nathalie Richard. The pair won here last year, and Antoine also won in 2006, co-driven by Mark Williams. After a win at the Rallye Perce Neige, the pair currently lead the Canadian championship.

Pat Richard and Alan Ockwell are back for the second event as the Subaru Rally Team Canada. At the season opener, the pair finished third in what was their first outing together. Rocky Mountain Rally marks the debut for the new 2008 Subaru STI rally car. The team availed themselves of a test session today on the roads outside Calgary to fine tune the performance of the car. Pat Richard won this event in 2004 and is looking to repeat that performance and take top honours again this weekend.

Andrew Comrie-Picard and co-driver Marc Goldfarb are also contenders for the win.  While the pair have never won this event, they have been consistent finishers in the US and presently lead the overall points standings in the Rally America series. ACP and Goldfarb finished second overall at the Canadian season opener in Maniwaki, Quebec. Rocky Mountain Rally is also the home rally for Comrie-Picard.

While these three are certainly favoured to fill the podium, other crews will be battling the conditions in hopes for a strong finish. Westerner Gord Olsen will be running his Impreza WRX. Warren Currie will be on hand in his Subaru as well, running in the P4 class. Crazy Leo Urlichich has made the tow to Calgary to contest the event as well in his open class Subaru. There are two Mitsubishi EVOs in the hands of the Losier family, one driven by Rejean Losier, and the other by Simon Losier. The contingency program announced by Mitsubishi for this year has drawn out many cars built by the marque.

Group 2 sports a very deep field, led by Eric Grochowski and Leanne Junnila in a 1996 VW Golf. Colin Armstrong and Jason Thain will be starting one position behind, in their 1991 VW Golf GTI. In P3, Jan and Jody Zedril hope to continue a long and strong record of results, having campaigned many events in both Canada and the USA in their Mitsubishi Lancer.  They will face new P3 competition in the form of the all-female team of Jen Horsey and Elise Racette in their similar Lancer.

After a crash at last weekends Oregon Trail Rally, Norm Leblanc and Keith Morrison have withdrawn their entry. Andrew Miller and Alex Kihurani are having difficulty with their  four wheel drive VW Golf. The car seems to be experiencing ECU problems and will not start. The crew hope to have the issues resolved in time to start the rally tomorrow.

The Rocky Mountain Rally features almost 200 kms of competitive stages spread over two days of action. The rally starts on Friday at 1:00pm out of town before returning to Calgary for a Super Special at Race City. Friday will also include the infamous Powderface stage known for tight corners and big exposures. The event continues on Saturday with eight stages and finishes just after 6pm. Weather forecasts suggest there may be as much as 50mm of rain falling overnight. If true, this will make things very treacherous for the teams. Temperatures are staying above freezing though, so the snow that has stuck this event in the past will hopefully stay away.