Finding rusted wrecks key to snagging glory
Hanging in the balance was money for our favourite charity. Oh, and our jobs!
KAMLOOPS, B.C.— Soaring mountains, raging rivers, spawning salmon, wandering bears, rusting cars — British Columbia has them all. And we were looking only for the rusting cars.
“Over there! Over there!” I’d shove my finger past Emily Atkins’s nose to point into an overgrown field where another hulk lay dead, but she’d shake her head.
“Nope,” she’d say. “The trees aren’t right.”
Emily, in the passenger seat for now, had the day’s route book open at photographs of abandoned cars. We had to name the correct order in which the route took us past the vehicles in the photos. Another field, another scattering of cars, never quite right, until suddenly: “That’s the one!”
Emily saw it to the right and I scuffed the Mazda to a halt alongside. It was a gutted Datsun 510, and there were bonus points for naming the make. Emily’s brother once drove that very same model of Datsun across the country to Alberta, and, for all she knew, it could have been that car.
There was no time for whimsy, though. All four wheels of the little crossover spun briefly against the gravel as we powered away, eyes scouring the scenery for blighted wrecks.
The Mazda Adventure Rally is not a race. It’s a three-day treasure hunt over 1,000 kilometres of wonderful roads where nine media teams compete to win donations to their chosen charities. For Mazda, it’s an opportunity to showcase a new vehicle; for us, it’s a chance to beat that vehicle into submission.
September’s running of the rally was the third time for the event, after pushing MX-5s around the Smoky Mountains last year, and CX-9s and CX-5s around Colorado and Utah the year before. Wheels fielded a team in each of those rallies, but never made the podium and so never brought home any charity cash.
This year, the Wheels editor assigned Emily and myself to the event and made sure we knew the stakes.
“I expect you and Emily to win,” he wrote, and then later added: “Win or be fired. Your choice.”
Emily and I landed in Vancouver filled with optimism, knowing nothing of what to expect.
It didn’t start well. All the rally’s CX-3s were parked somewhere in the garage and we dashed back and forth pushing the emergency button on our key fob. Horns honked all around as team after team found their car, while ours lurked silent on the floor above. It took 20 minutes to discover it and leave the airport.
The route took us to Whistler, B.C., a couple of hours away. At the end of the first day, we squeaked into a tie for first place with three other teams.
The second day was the greatest challenge, but also the most rewarding. By the time we ended the day in Kamloops, B.C., we were tied for second place, just two points behind the leaders but only one point ahead of fourth place. I wrote to the Wheels editor to relay the good news, and he replied kindly.
“I have faith in the two of you,” he wrote. “Also remember: your jobs are on the line. WIN, OR ELSE.”
That night, I slept fitfully, looking in all my fields of dreams for rusted hulks. It wasn’t much better the next morning, when a fresh batch of photos showed more abandoned vehicles to be placed in order.
At the Logan Lake visitor centre we needed to find the correct size of the enormous tire on display from one of the copper mine’s huge haulage trucks, and the helpful sign told us the answer. It also told us the tires cost almost $25,000 each and would last only half a year. Who knew?
But that was the question that would haunt us. We drove down to Merritt, B.C., spotted more vehicles and identified some lakes, but, in the end, we lost first place by two points out of almost 200.
Our mistake? We’d written down the tire size exactly as it told us on the sign, as “3700 R57” without checking the tire itself, which gave the size as “37.00 R57.” That period makes all the difference.
The leaders, from AutoFocus.ca, held onto their lead and won $10,000 for Kids’ Help Phone. We stayed in second place and won $2,000 for the Star’s Santa Claus Fund. And we edged out The Globe and Mail, which won $1,000 for the Rick Hansen Foundation.
“Way to go,” wrote the editor when we told him the result. “Your jobs are safe — till next year.”