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Iarrive in Seattle in February, two days beforethe start of the event, to go over the car, installmy navigational gear, an Alfa Elite rally com-

puter—building Alfa gear is my day job—andget a little seat time with Webb before we startthis odyssey. We had run the challenging Thun-derbird Rally in 2011 in a front-drive 1982 Toy-ota, matching times with the AWD Subarus andultimately winning the historic class—as well asplacing third overall—so I am confident thatwith Webb’s experience in the Arctic, we havethe capability to do well, assuming the cooper-ation of Mother Nature—and a bit of luck.

Seattle’s Steve Perret has done a great job ofprepping the Mini; it’s equipped with under-body protection, rally lighting, and a roof rackholding a spare tire and our emergency fuel sup-ply. Endurance, experience, and planning arethe primary determinants in the victory overphysics and nature in the Arctic, so I am a bitconcerned when I discover that this extra fuelsupply consists of a single 2.5-gallon gas can.However, a quick fuel-load calculation basedon a day of practice shows that we shouldn’teven need that; our Clubman isn’t the turbo-charged Cooper S or the insane John CooperWorks model, it’s the base-model Mini CooperClubman, with its normally aspirated engine,

front-wheel drive, and cutesy—but ultimatelyvery convenient—suicide doors on the co-driver’s side. This thing has an impressive rangeof nearly 400 miles on a tank, which turns outto be more than sufficient for this event.

Thursday morning, the start of the 2012Alcan Winter Rally, dawns clear. Unlike thestage rallies that I’ve run in previous years,there are no crowds or media, just a lone con-trol worker and his clock—and we’re off. AsCar #1, in recognition of Webb’s previous suc-cess in the Alcan Winter Rally, we’re first onthe road—and the first to discover that the firstsign noted in the route book is missing.

This sets the tone for the rest of the event. At the end of the odometer-calibration sec-

tion, we earn our first Good Rally Karmapoints by helping Ohio Knox and Larry Bostfrom Albuquerque, New Mexico, get the tim-ing sorted out in their BMW X5. This is goingto be a long event, and I’ll take any potentialpositive energy that I can get. There is only somuch that duct tape, baling wire, and WD-40can do for you—plus we may need these guysto break through the snowdrifts up north.

As the first car into the first TSD section,we should have a clear road ahead—inexchange for being the team that gets to

encounter wildlife first, and wake up the check-point workers. The first section in Washing-ton State is straightforward, and we expectmost teams to do well. But within half a minute,we are passed by another Mini, Car #14. DaveRose and Ross Trusler of Suffern, New York,have decided to ignore the TSD calculationsin favor of touring. We encounter them laterin the section, parked in the middle of a one-lane bridge leading to the twisty uphill sectionwhere we know we will find several timingcontrols ready to penalize the tardy.

One of the challenges of this event is thatthere is no time-allowance policy, so if you getbehind time, you have to make it up. Webb andI have discussed this possibility, but we don’treally lose too much time to the sight-seeingMini; the first TSD concludes without furtherincident and lunchtime finds us crossing intoBritish Columbia, explaining to the attractiveborder guard what we and the 25 other carsequipped with spare tires and gas cans on theirroofs plan to do in the Arctic. This lengthy dis-cussion ends with a brief geographical descrip-tion of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, andshe dismisses us with a slightly confused look,apparently convinced that we are not a threat tonational security north of the 49th Parallel.

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AFTER WINNING THE ALCAN WINTER RALLY IN A BMW X3, ONE DRIVER DECIDES TO TRY IT AGAIN—IN A FRONT-DRIVE MINI CLUBMAN.

Rally navigators are used to getting calls for unusual motorsports

events, so when longtime friend Gary Webb, one of my stage-rally and

endurance TSD (time-speed-distance) rally friends from the 1980s, calls to

ask if I am interested in doing the Alcan Winter Rally, I know it is going to

be an interesting time. Visions of trekking through the frozen tundra in a

BMW X3, Webb’s winning ride in 2004, reassuringly come to mind.

But then he explains. This time, it seems, he wants more of a chal-

lenge. “Let me get this straight,” I say. “You want to drive 5,000 miles…

in a two-wheel-drive Mini Cooper… through the Arctic… in winter?!”

Memories of previous rally exploits in vintage British cars—mostly

disastrous—come flooding back. But Webb’s Mini Cooper Clubman is new,

and it’s not exactly as mini as the first ones. And the portion of its design

pedigree that really matters is now more Bavarian than British. But I am

only slightly reassured; the Alcan Winter Rally has never been won by

anything without four driving wheels, though it does have a class for

two-wheel-drive vehicles. And I know that Webb is intent on a win.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARC GOLDFARB

YOU MINI!Mush

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A six-hour transit brings us to Soda Creekleg, our only competitive TSD sectionof the afternoon. In this leg, the surface

begins on semi-frozen mud and rapidly turnsto a snow-covered ice surface that should findthe Mini at a bit of a disadvantage to the higher-performance vehicles. This is our first inklingof what lies ahead: ice, mud, darkness, andbrisk speeds. Thirty minutes and a few penaltypoints later, we find ourselves on the way toour hotel in Quesnel, BC, to eat, drink andregale our new friends with our adventures ofthe day. Scores are posted at about 10:00 p.m.,and we find ourselves in a dead heat for thelead with Alcan veterans Paul Eklund and R.Dale Kraushaar, pilots of Car #2, a SubaruForester. Both teams have just six seconds inpenalties. These guys are good; remember theThunderbird Rally where we finished thirdoverall? They finished first.

Overnight, Mother Nature brings us a win-ter preview by dusting the cars with snow, andwe find ourselves beginning the second day atthe first ice-racing venue, Gold Pan Speedwayin Quesnel, a 3/8-mile oval, normally dirt.However, the unseasonably warm tempera-tures have made the track unusable, so we tran-sit to the nearby Parkland School, where theelementary students have been given recess tomeet the contestants and follow the course of

our upcoming journey. The children love thediminutive Mini Clubman, especially theyounger students, who can actually reach theroof; they happily clean the snow off prior toour departure for the first TSD of the day. Theyespecially like our mascot, Javi, a plush-toyjavelina that adorns the dash; it’s Javi, Webbinsists, who is actually doing the navigating—at least when we zero the controls.

The day’s first TSD section is complicatedby the hard-packed snow surface, which is cov-ered by last night’s fresh snow. It’s still fallingrather steadily, making visibility—not to men-tion traction—an issue for us as we negotiatethe challenging uphill switchbacks on the appro-priately named TSD section: It’s called 11%Grade. As we negotiate this course, I start towonder how this section will treat some of ourless experienced competitors; we are finding ita challenge to maintain the brisk average speeds,so the novices will probably fare even worse.Toward the end of the section, we are surprisedto be passed by Car #2. While it’s quite a feat ofdriving prowess by Eklund, it must be a tensemoment in the Subaru when they realize thatthey are a full minute off in their timing calcu-lations. We can relax a bit, at least for the timebeing; with a TSD rally won by mere secondsof error, being off a full minute would clearlyeliminate them from further competition.

But our relaxation is short-lived, as we hearover the radio that a control worker has goneoff the road, and that one of the main high-ways has also closed due to an unrelated acci-dent. Our efforts for this morning have all beenfor naught, as today’s TSD sections are subse-quently cancelled. Car #2 has been blessed bythe Rally Gods, and we are back to trading sec-onds with them. After a brief lunch in PrinceGeorge, we head west on the Yellowhead High-way for an afternoon transit of snow, snow, andmore snow. We arrive in New Hazelton, BC,by early evening for the overnight break.

Saturday, Day Three, is a long transit day. A light snow greets us for our trek up the Cassiar “highway”—the term given to justabout anything up here that gets plowed in thewinter, regardless of surface width or compo-sition. Halfway up the Cassiar, we pass throughthe section of the road that Mother Nature violently recycled during a wildfire during thesummer of 2011. Our Cassiar journey enablessome close interactions with a variety of thelocal fauna, with the myopic caribou particu-larly interested in our Mini Cooper—until theyrealize that it is too small to be a potential caribou love interest.

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weather forecasts, rally organizers decide thatit would be prudent for us to return to Daw-son City before Mother Nature closes the roadwe have just traveled. The majority of the teamsmake it back to Dawson for the night, with afew intrepid adventurers remaining in EaglePlains, hoping to make a trip to Inuvik the nextday. An additional TSD section is added by theorganizers in Dawson City to make up for themissing extreme checkpoint at Tuktoyaktuk,and the teams began their southward journeyback to Whitehorse the next morning.

Day Six is a mostly harmless transit—“mostly harmless” in the Douglas Adamssense— to Whitehorse from Dawson,

meaning that there is only deep snow, windrows,snowdrifts, wildlife, and the occasional white-out from passing massive oncoming snowplowsmarking our trip, and we make it back to White-horse with minimum drama. We plug in theMini—preparation for the Alcan includesinstalling block and battery heaters to ensurethat your car starts in the morning—and retirefor the night.

Day Seven dawns clear with a brisk windand temperatures hovering around 0ºF. Thisisn’t particularly cold, so it is odd that the Minirefuses to start. However, we quickly get a jumpfrom a competitor, and we’re on our way.Today’s TSD sections will be an exact repeatof Sunday’s, with two in-and-out dead-end sec-tions. Just prior to the start, we learn that twoof seven cars are still at Eagle Plains, hopingthat the Dempster Highway will open and theywill have a shot at reaching the Arctic Circle.The other cars that stayed overnight at Eagle

Plains are heading south to rejoin the event inTok, Alaska. So only seventeen cars begintoday’s TSD section.

While Sunday’s running of this section wasuneventful, beginning a TSD in a downtownarea during the weekday rush hours presentsome challenges that probably weren’t antici-pated by the organizers. (Remember, there areno time allowances in this rally.) But once weget out of town, the remainder of the sectiongoes smoothly, and shortly after noon we findourselves on the way to the U.S. border. Afteran uneventful crossing, we roll into Tok,Alaska, around dinnertime.

On the morning of Day Eight, our Minidoesn’t seem to like the cold. Even after beingplugged in all night on the battery heater, sherefuses to start—for the second time. It’s a mys-tery: Nothing was left on overnight, but there’snot enough energy in the Mini battery to turnover the engine at -10ºF. Another jump startgets us on our way; after a short TSD section,we are on our way to Valdez, where we under-stand they have had about 37 feet of snowalready this season. This should make tomor-row’s TSD section—not to mention the sched-uled ice-racing event—very interesting!

But we arrive at Valdez to find that theextreme amount of snow this winter has madeit impossible to maintain the ice-racing courseon the lake. Instead, the organizer has arrangeda 0.4-mile road stage on a snow-covered, hard-packed ice road near town.

We empty the contents of the Mini into thehotel room in Valdez and get ready for thestage. The driver and co-driver of each car areto take two runs each, and the winner in eachcategory will not get any penalty. There areonly half a dozen instructions each way, witha hand-brake hairpin turn halfway in—and Irealize that this will be the first time that I’verun a stage by myself. Even on the few occa-sions that I sit on the side of the car with a brakepedal, I’ve had a co-driver beside me. Nor-mally, I’m the co-driver; I rewrite the notes andmemorize them. But now I have to drive.

Webb hands me his helmet. I recognize it;it is the same helmet that he wore when wecompeted in the New Brunswick Lobster stagerally in the 1980s, complete with SCCA logo,blood type, date of last tetanus shot, and birthdate on the back. The rubber padding hasdecomposed long ago, and bits of it flake out ofthe helmet every time I pick it up. I opt to wearone of our team hats as a balaclava.

The normally aspirated front-drive Mini,combined with a hand-brake turn in the mid-dle of the stage, pretty much ensures that weare not going to set any records here. The rulesassess a maximum penalty of ten points forthis competition, but with scores separated byonly a couple of points, this can easily affectthe results of the entire event. As expected,Eklund in Car #2 sets the fastest time of theday—and takes no penalty points. However,in doing so, he suffers a catastrophic failure of

The grated ice-and-gravel hardpack of theCassiar provides surprisingly good grip for thestudded Nokian snow tires. Unlike my part ofthe world, where the ice on the highways occa-sionally melts between winter storms, roadmaintenance in the Great White North con-sists of plowing off the snow and gouging deeplines in the ice with a special serrated graderblade, providing recesses that retain the sub-sequently applied gravel or ash. About thir-teen hours from our morning start, we crossinto the Yukon Territory and end our day atthe Yukon Inn in Whitehorse.

As we pack our gear the morning of Day Four,we notice a police cruiser sitting in the parking lotwith his lights flashing. Some of the teams havecome out to find that the array of five-gallon fueljugs on their roofs was just too tempting to someof the locals who live in this land of $6 gas. Appar-ently the tiny 2.5-gallon gas can on our roof wastoo small to be worth taking.

T he effects of marathon driving are begin-ning to be felt, especially by the noviceteams. We start the day with clear skies

and “moderate” temperatures, according tothe local news station, of -10ºF. About a quar-ter of the field opt to take the 200-point penaltyfor skipping the day’s TSD sections; instead,they rest, address mechanical issues, or justmake sure they are adequately prepared beforeheading up the Klondike Highway to DawsonCity, about 300 miles north. From there wewill follow the Dempster Highway into theNorthwest Territories, heading for the ArcticCircle and beyond, where emergency medicalassistance is rare and mechanical assistance

consists of waiting until Spring. But we are here to compete, so there will be

no skipping any TSD sections in favor of restand relaxation for us. It’s Sunday morning, andwhile Whitehorse is the largest city in the area,the day’s TSD sections are on two dead-endroads that probably won’t separate the scorestoo much. We run the first section, beginning indowntown Whitehorse, without incident, andfinish the second section on time as well, justcatching three teams of dogsled mushers usingthat section of the dead-end road to warm uptheir enthusiastically barking “engines” priorto heading out onto the tundra.

Our morning competition completed, webegin our transit to Dawson City, passingthrough towns like Carmacks, with their bilin-gual street signs—English and Tutchone—andthe ever-present images of eagles and ravens,totems two significant First Nations clans. InDawson City, the rallyists gather in the pub atthe Dawson Inn, where the attire of the bar-maid/waitress/cook—same person, Dawson isa really small town—reminds us of its frontierhistory. Some of the participants go on a pubcrawl to another bar, which appears to be staffedby the sister of our server; however, we retireearly, in preparation for the trek northward.

Dawson City is the point in the rally wherepreparation usually pays off. Overnight temper-atures dip to -20ºF, and a light snow greets ourarrival at the junction of the Dempster Highway.Teams that had not previously driven the Demp-ster learn early that fresh snow isn’t required tomake this road a challenge, because at this tem-perature, the snow doesn’t glaze over the way itdoes to the south; just a light breeze is necessary

to create windrows: foot-deep, bumper-smash-ing snowdrifts across the road that can unsettlea normal car. They will cause our Mini to get air,or worse. Car #16, a Toyota Yaris, has learnedthat lesson early this morning, just outside ofDawson. Their sudden detour off the roadrequired assistance, fortunately supplied by alocal and his big diesel pickup truck.

The Dempster is the first road where someof the teams are challenged by their fuel con-sumption. In previous years, it was possible tofuel up at the intersection at beginning of theDempster, about 25 miles from Dawson; how-ever, that gas station is no longer open, and themajority of the teams need to tap into theirrooftop fuel supplies. We arrive at Eagle Plains,about twenty miles south of the Arctic circle,with about a quarter tank remaining in theMini. Eagle Plains is the only fuel opportunitybetween Dawson and Inuvik, our goal for theday; it has several multi-thousand-gallon tanksof gasoline and diesel, a garage bay, a restau-rant, and a hotel. It is prepared to be a survivalstation, where winter truckers to Inuvik—andthe petroleum industry to the north—can stayfor an indefinite period of time when MotherNature gets really annoyed.

Apparently she’s more than a little irkedalready. When we arrive at Eagle Plains, wediscover that the winds north of the Arctic Circlehave been whipped up to near-hurricane force,obliterating any evidence of the road and trap-ping several tractor-trailers somewhere northof us. Our arrival is greeted by flashing redlights—and a gate across the road prohibitingany further northward progress. After discus-sions with the road crews, and a review of the

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the newly rebuilt Subaru engine: Car #2 endsits rally in Valdez.

They are not alone in their misery. Car #21suffers a transmission failure that finishes theirevent, and Colin Stenhouse—Car #9—man-ages to run out of road before running out ofturn, and parks his Audi A4 upside-down onthe stage. But in true rally form, he gets on theradio and requests that he be permitted torestart the stage after righting the car with abit of help from spectators and the sweep truck.A bit of duct tape and cardboard, and Car #9continues the event.

T he final morning dawns with 29ºF tem-peratures that feel downright balmy afterour recent sub-zero adventures. Day Nine

calls for two TSD sections: one in Valdez, fol-lowed by a “short” 230-mile transit to the finalTSD in Wasilla. But even with the warmer tem-peratures, the Mini refuses to start. Fortunately,Webb had wisely purchased a booster battery

pack the day before, and we are on our way with-out difficulty. (Analysis after the event showsthat we had made an error in mounting the bat-tery heater, causing a portion of the battery’s caseto melt and buckle some of the plates.)

We are being particularly careful today, asour proximity to populated areas allows theorganizers to recruit additional workers fromlocal sports-car clubs—and place additionaltiming controls. The humongous twelve-footsnowbanks near Valdez offer many excellenthiding places, and we’ll need to be careful. Acouple of timing locations offer us real chal-lenges in keeping on time, and there is onetricky course-following instruction that wecatch, but we complete the TSD without anymajor gaffes, and soon we are on our way toWasilla and the final challenge.

The transit to Wasilla through ThompsonCanyon Pass is snowy and difficult, with fre-quent whiteout conditions; these are not helpedby the tractor-trailer that has chosen this par-ticular day to transport a small house on a low-boy trailer through the pass. But we make it tothe beginning of the final TSD section on time.

Now close enough to taste victory, we suf-fer cockpit paranoia throughout the final leg,our heads spinning around Exorcist-style aswe scan the roadside for timing crews. All iswell, however, and we finish the Wasilla TSDknowing that we can finally relax: After ninedays and thousands of miles of snow-coveredicy roads, we have clinched the win for theMini Clubman—the first two-wheel-drive carever to win the Alcan Winter Rally.

Of course, now we have to get home fromAnchorage—but that’s definitely the easy part. �

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Though Gary Webbreached Tuktoyaktuk

in 2004, the 2012Alcan Winter Rally

was stopped short ofthe Arctic Circle by

drifting snow.

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