Made it to Tuk and back down

This will be short and you will only find pix on myspace (link quality is too low) We made the drive up the smooth, wide flat frozen MacKenzie River and across the Beaufort Sea to the town of Tuktoyaktuk (about 105 miles on the ice highway from Inuvik. Beautiful morning and sunrise (about 9am up here) in Tuk and mild temps (about 10 degrees). Kala drove up in the darkness as I continue to grow ill. The Alcan plague, and upper respiratory infection. She did quite well, with just one big tank slapper fishtail after a decreasing radius corner and an over-correction that put us into a snowbank and took just a minute to inch our way back out with the Forester's All Wheel Drive. I would take the wheel for the drive back. We did hit 121 mph for about a 3 mile stretch, but that was all she could do with those big roof racks on. ...



Kala negotiated the entire length of the Dempster back to Eagle Plains where I had soup and stayed in. Apparently others, like Jeff Zurschmeide had MANY of the local "eagle claw" drinks along with Kala and there was much bleary eyes upon our departure. We are back in Whitehorse and have a TSD and a slalom tomorrow. I am still not well, but hope to get better. Fur Rondy is in town and great ice sculptures and dog races and alike. Wish
I could go out and see them.



It is 3:30am and Kala is not back yet, so could be another bleary eye day for her.

Pictures Day 4

Remember, MORE PIX on our MY SPACE page: www.myspace.com/arcticchallengers

Ice slalom, prepping the tires

Primitive Wins the ICE SLALOM

Well, after a sketchy Big Lake TSD this morning, and certainly groggy from the bar last night, we hit our stride and won both runs on the ice slalom outside of Whitehorse and put about 7 seconds on Car 1 and 6 on Car 2 and helped improve our position there. As long as we did not pooch the TSD, we should be looking pretty good after points go up tonight.

I did a 119.1 and a 120.1 on the ice race and the other teams did about 121 followed by 125 or 126 as the conditions deteriorated (ice gets POLISHED). Gord tied me on the first run and I beat him by several seconds on the 2nd runs.

The FORESTER XT was freakin' awesome and the Cooper WeatherMaster tires kicked ass on all others! (again and as usual). Anyone not running COOPER TIRES on the ice is just a fool. They rock!!!

Kala set solid backup times (first time racing on the ice in 4 years for her).

So we made it up the Alcan to DAWSON today and are WAY UP NORTH, with a bit more to go, but the weather is unseasonably MILD and we saw 40 degrees on the transit, but it is gonna be about 10 degrees tonight... Still bikini and t-shirt weather. Tomorrow it is up the DEMPSTER and Inuvik.... Can't see the lunar eclipse, just a bit too cloudy...

Pe

Scores Day 2

Well, they are in. We had 30 more points today, while the computer car leaders did 17 points. No too bad and we lead the Class 3 handily, but have 51 or so total compared to the 19 and 23 and 27 of the lead cars.... aaaarrrgh. No ICE SLALOM kept us from gaining up to 10 points on them (big talk)...
The good news is that on the LAST LEG, we got a 3 and the 2 leaders (Car 1 and our team mates in car 2) got a 2 so we have figured out how to match their scores... And remember, they have some fancy computers and I have Kala. Hence we should be able to kick their ass.... Kala blushed and wants me to delete this part....

Pix are up on our MYSPACE PAGE: www.myspca.com/arcticchallengers.com and see other links to hear reports from other teams.... Maybe more scores also at: www.alcan5000.com at SOME POINT....

Pe

Saw a MOOSE up close and personal

At mile 11.9 of the Fraiser Stage (stage 2) a young moose ran down the dark hillside and jumped from a snowy bank onto the road about 150 feet in front of our car going 34mph. I saw him and hoped he would clear the road quickly, but like a moose, he hit the icy road and fell with all 4 legs seeming splaying out in different directions as he slid. But he quickly got up and continued and we were able to drive around him....