News

June 17/2006

Martin and Christa finished the Mountain Trials Stage Rally in fourth place overall, first place Novice, and second in Open Class.  Despite some minor issues that resulted in the car running on three cylinders for more than 3 stages, the car ran extremely well.  This was the team's best finish ever, totally blowing away the conservative goals set for the car with a two-day old engine swap and untried suspension.

Martin commented: "On our third stage of the day, the car started lacking in power near the finish.  It took us several stages later to discover the cause, a disconnected coil plug on the #4 cylinder, so the car was only running on three cylinders on some of the crucial uphill and twisty Princeton Cutoff stages.  We definitely had huge turbo lag low down and no power in general."

Despite the setback, the team was only seven seconds off a third-place podium finish.  Indicating the tightness of the battle, less than two minutes separated 2nd and 6th place.  This year's event saw nearly a 50% attrition rate with nine of the nineteen cars not finishing.  "This was a surprisingly uneventful rally for us and a great finish, given our plan was simply to finish" said Martin.

With Mountain Trials completed, the rally season takes a couple-month long summer break.  The team's next stage rally event will be the Pacific Forest Rally in October.

February 19/2006

Team M45 completed its best ever Thunderbird Rally.  A final score of 28 was good enough for 6th overall, and 2nd in class. The team plans to focus on stage rally this year but plans to make as many TSD events as possible.

November 20/2005

In a great concluding event to the 2005 season, Team M45 finished the Totem Rally with a 1st in class and 3rd overall finish, its best showing at a Totem event.  Compared to the 2004 Totem, this year's event returned to being a true winter event, with fog and ice and deep snow.  The pivotal moment for most teams was the night regularity on the first day where thick fog and snow-covered roads made most other teams fall back and incur penalties.  Team M45 pushed hard to keep on time during this regularity, catching the car ahead, who had dropped back over a minute.  The next day's regularities saw snow and ruts and very entertaining driving.  As a testament to the team's achievement, the top 7 cars were all in the unlimited class, except for Team M45 in calculator class and 3rd overall.

October 30/2005

Team M45 completed the Midnight TSD rally held on Vancouver Island with a 1st in class and 3rd overall finish, solidifying the team's hold on the class championship.  This was also an opportunity to test and shakedown out the newly-installed HotBits gravel specification suspension and spherical bearing strut tops installed by Martin only a week before.  The difference over the previous stock suspension was enormous, with the HotBits smoothing out the bumps as the speeds increased, yet keeping tenacious grip on the slippery roads.  Turn-in was also improved dramatically.

September 17/2005

In its first ever Alberta rally, Team M45 finished a respectable 8th place overall and 2nd in P3 class in the Bighorn rally held in Edson.  The rally was an opportunity for the team to polish its pacenote and in-car communication skills.  The route was extremely fast, with longer straights and wider roads compared to BC rallies.  With lots of blind crests and corners, accurate pacenotes were essential for keeping up the speed while keeping safe.  Except for a minor harmless spin near the end of the day, the team had no major issues.

With the improvement in the team's skills, the car is showing that its stock suspension is no longer up to task to the speed that the team is able to carry, so an upgrade is called for.  Similarly, the power levels in the car are no longer sufficient, and this winter may see and upgrade there as well.

July 23/2005

In a gruelling night event filled with tough road conditions, Team M45 competed in and finished the Gold Digger TSD first in the calculator class.  After all the other competitors in the class dropped out through mechanical and off-road excursions, it was a matter of simply surviving until the finish.

June 17/2005

After being unable to compete at the Rocky Mountain Rally in Alberta due to scheduling conflicts, Team M45 finished an extremely strong 10th of 25 overall, 2nd in P3 class, and 2nd novice in the Mountain Trials 2005 Stage Rally.  Sporting a new set of Silverstone tires that provided incredible traction in the wet, slippery, and occasional very rough conditions, the Impreza ran flawlessly.  After a somewhat lackluster performance in the first two stages due to tough hillclimb conditions, the team steadily moved up the leaderboard throughout the day.  At one stage they were able to catch up and pass the car ahead of them.  Said Martin, "It took one or two stages to fully get back into the swing of things, but we started hitting our stride with the pace notes and I was able to commit further and not lift unnecessarily."

Further information on the Mountain Trials 2005 Rally can be found at the RallyBC.com site here.

May 1 / 2005

Team M45 finished the overnight Heart of Darkness TSD rally with a 5th overall and 1st in class finish, though being the only car in the Calculator class!  After a bit of drama where the team got uncharacteristically off-route, they were relieved to find out that no time penalties had been assessed.

February 22 / 2005

In its first event for the 2005 BC TSD season, Team M45 finished the 2-day Thunderbird rally with a 2nd in class finish.  This improves on the team's previous 3rd place finish in the 2004 T-Bird.  The weather conditions this year were easier than last year, with less snow and ice, causing the overall competitor scores to drop to amazingly low levels.  Martin and Christa collected four trophies each at the event as well: 1st in class for the 2004 BC regional, 2nd overall for the 2004 BC regional, 2nd for the 2004 PCC, and 2nd for the Thunderbird rally.

November 25 / 2004

Team M45 finished the Totem rally in 9th place and first in calculator class.  This great finish helped us to clinch first place in the BC TSD championship for both driver and navigator.  We also finished second in the overall championship by four points, having been involved in a close chase for the championship with Ren and RJ Carroll.  Weather conditions were good, perhaps too good, for us to mount a challenge against the unlimited cars.  However, we also scored our lowest penalty ever, 28 seconds -- less than one second per checkpoint!  We also take second place in the Pacific Coast Challenge (PCC).

November 7 / 2004

The in-car video footage from Pacific Forest Rally 2004 has been posted in the gallery.

October 31 / 2004

Team M45 finished the Midnight Rally on Vancouver island in first place overall.  This is the team's very first overall victory and it looks forward to closing out the competition season at Totem on the 13th and 14th of November.

October 16 / 2004

Team M45 is pleased to announce that it successfully completed the Pacific Forest Rally, its first-ever performance rally event. The team took 2nd in the Production 3 class and 13th of 23 in the regional competition. Of 33 cars entered, only 22 finished. Read Martin's story here.

October 15 / 2004

Team M45 is currently in Merritt, BC, in order to compete in the Pacific Forest Rally tomorrow. We spent most of today recce'ing the route and making pace notes. Later in the day was scrutineering, parc expose, and the drivers meeting. Our most recent photos can be found in the Pacific Forest Rally 2004 Gallery.

October 5 / 2004

Team M45 competed in the Night on Bald Mountain Rally in Cle Elum, Washington over the past weekend. After making the long trek down, the team finished in a respectable 2nd in class and 7th overall out of 23 entries. This was an excellent opportunity to shakedown the car, which performed extremely well. We also picked up a front and rear skidplate for the car from Paul Eklund of Primitive Enterprises, who was gracious enough to carry it all the way up for us.

September 22 / 2004

The Team M45 Impreza is now undergoing some final preparation and repair work at our sponsor, 2G Racing in Duncan, BC. The work planned includes brake work and repair of a torn rear CV boot; fabrication of the front tow point, rear bulkhead, and codriver footrest; and installation of a free-flow exhaust system. It will also be an opportunity for Vancouver Island sponsors to view the car and for 2GR to work for the first time on the Impreza.

Since the last news update, the interior has been reinstalled in the car, and it again has working electrics such as a horn, CD player, ham radio, and odometer. The door panels have been cut to clear the cage door bars. Much of the asphalt soundproofing has been chipped from the floor panels and the panels and other exposed metal has been primed and painted. The electrical harnesses, fusebox, and connectors, having been relocated by the cage, are now reinstalled. The fire extinguisher is now relocated just in front of the codriver seat.

At the MINI rally we were fortunate to have Paul Westwick take the time to inspect the car for logbook issuance and to produce a list of outstanding items. No major issues were found, and the team is very confident that the remaining items will be dealt with before PFR as they are relatively minor; for example, adding a compliant first aid kit.

Our next event will be the Night on Bald Mountain TSD rally in Cle Elum, WA. It is part of the Pacific Coast Challenge and will likely be the last opportunity to shakedown the car before PFR.

September 11 / 2004

Team M45 is planning to attend the Vancouver MINI Cooper Club rally on September 19. Martin will be checkpointing with the Impreza, and Christa will be riding in one of the designated media cars navigating for Dana McLoughlin from Driving Television on Global (www.drivingtelevision.com)!

September 7 / 2004

Our sponsorship drive is underway for 2005 and the remainder of the 2004 season. If you're interested in receiving a copy of our proposal, please contact us.

Car preparation tasks for this week are around the fabrication and mounting of the seat brackets for the new Sparco Pro2000 fiberglass racing seats.

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