The Supplementary Regulations Document (aka: the rules, or ‘everything you need to know’) has been posted. Classic car enthusiasts who are interested in entering the 2019 Hagerty Spring Thaw would be well advised to read it in full. Details can be found on the Hagerty Spring Thaw information page.
The details for the 2018 Sea to Sky Thanksgiving Run are up!
https://classiccaradventures.com//bc-events/thanksgiving-day-sea-to-sky-run/
On each of our classic car adventures, it’s not uncommon to see cars being worked on in the parking lot. Most cars get a quick check over at the end of the day to confirm things are alright, and others get a little deeper into their tool box. Our Spring events seem to have more parking lot fettling than our fall events, but the Rush to Gold Bridge sure tries to upset the scales!
When John & Marci’s Intermeccania arrived to our Friday night hotel, I was expecting that they would need a quick inspection of our roadside oil pan repair. Instead, they required a full front end inspection to see how much damage hitting a deer at 70kph had done! I guess bad luck comes in multiples, and John might be looking over his shoulder the rest of the weekend. Fortunately, with the exception of some scratches and new fur accents, the car was relatively unscathed.
Paul and Tony were burning the midnight oil adjusting the valves on the Saab 96, it seems that while most were within .005” from the factory specs, one valve was almost 0.25” out of spec. Hmmm…that is going to need some careful attention this weekend! Helen and Chase discovered their front wheel bearing was a little loose…about 8 full turns of the adjusting nut loose, but fortunately that was caught right before leaving on Saturday Morning.
Perhaps the most fun, however, was the Lancia Beta. After filling up with fuel Robert returned to the hotel to discover it didn’t want to run, and certainly wanted to backfire out the exhaust sounding like a 30-6 hunting rifle! Usually a CCA event books out the entire hotel, and morning tuning sessions aren’t a problem…but this time we were all rather apologetic while the Lancia (and a failed condensor) were sorted out.
With everyone finally running, it was off to the town of Hedley via a favourite of ours, Old Hedley Road. Despite the 60 km/h speed limit, the fresh pavement and twisting curves make for a wonderful driving experience, and the perfect start to a day of motoring.
In the town of Hedley, the gravel route turned off onto Hedley-Nickel Plate road, and immediately started a steep switch back climb up the mountain. Given the challenges of yesterday’s gravel road, I was surprised to find out that, once again, every car on the event had chosen to do the gravel route. We were rewarded with a freshly graded climb, and stunning views of the switch back route once you arrive at the top.
Originally a pack-mule route, the road has seen little changes on the climb over the decades, but remains surprisingly smooth given the grade. The road eventually pops out a the Nickel Plate Gold mine, before becoming a gravel highway to the top of Apex Mountain. Along the way you pass historic cemeteries and the foundations from ghost towns, if you know where to look.
Apex Mountain is one of B.C.’s hidden skiing gems, and the route book suggested exploring the site to check out the ski hills. In the summer you can drive all the way to the top, where some guests found historic fire equipment. With exploration and views complete, we began the paved ascent down into the Valley, where we hit another CCA favourite paved road. Green Mountain road has all the twists and turns to entertain, and is sufficiently off the beaten path to give you the impression you’re the only one who’s driven it this week. As we got closer to B.C.’s wine country, the group split. Half of us took the gravel to Keremeos, while the other half went to explore some winery’s in Oliver. Eventually, after an afternoon of travels, we met up at our overnight location of Hope B.C.
293 Wallace was our dinner host for the evening, intending to be a culinary surprise for our guests from the Organizer. The tables were turned, however, as the guests conspired to host an impromptu birthday celebration for the organizer! The Rush to Gold Bridge, you see, was originally “Dave’s Birthday Touring Adventure”. Long before it became an official CCA event, the idea was to simply get out on my birthday weekend and enjoy a car challenge with friends. Over the course of a few years, the idea for the event morphed into what has become the Rush to Gold Bridge. With the addition of “Happy Birthday”, and two birthday cakes, our planned four course meal became a five course meal featuring an extra dessert course for the entire group!
Eventually we retired to bed, stomachs full and minds full of anticipation for our final day of driving, and more favourite roads to end the event.
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Whew! It’s been quite the adventure today…and it’s still not over. The day began in wonderful sunshine, and we’ve enjoyed the entire run right up to the town of Sicamous. The challenge, for those of us dining in Sicamous, is that we’re supposed to be in Revelstoke!
A highway closure has all but four cars camped out, enjoying dinner, and waiting for the highway to open. I did promise an awesome parking lot party when we arrived in Revelstoke, and we’ve instead just turned it into an awesome party in the Super 8 Parking lot in Sicamous!
Photos, and stories are short today…but with good friends to hang out with, we’re far beyond simply making the best of it.
UPDATE:
Download the app for iOS:
Rallista by It Haz Fire LLC https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rallista/id1380338355?mt=8
Join the Silver Summit:
Add an event with the car icon. Authorization code is: 627324
Known issues or things to watch:
1. After tapping Join Event with the authorization code the app might appear to do nothing. Exit the pop-up, go to the map, then back to the main page.
2. Offline map download starts once you go to the map page. It might take a few minutes, especially on cellular.
3. On this long of an event battery usage may be an issue. Feel free to provide feedback.
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Since enjoying his first event with Classic Car Adventures, Jacob Fielding, (of Silver Summit entry fame) has been working on a rally instruction based app which is almost ready to launch!
Traditionally, we here at CCA like to think that paper route books are ‘better’, we do understand the value of an App that you can carry with you on your phone. Think of it as a route book with additional features such as an odometer and tracker.
The Rallista App is being released as a test for the 2018 Hagerty Silver Summit, and will include a download link to get the route book for our event loaded into your iphone. We’ll update this page on Thursday morning with links to download the app, and instructions to get the route book.
We will warn you, however, that Classic Car Adventures had one requirement if we were going to be involved in a “digital” route book application – the turns had to match the printed route book exactly. Those of you who have been on one of Dave’s events know what this means…the joy of deciding if Dave really meant left when he said right will remain in the digital route book as well!
…we couldn’t remove all the adventure.
Check this space Thursday Morning for Links to the App downloads.
In the meantime, if you’ve ever wondered what happens if you combine an engineer with a love for coffee, check out Jacob’s other project…Brew Guide.IO
We awoke this morning to sunshine, and the promise of fantastic road ahead. The driver’s meeting covered the usual items; yellow-cards, lunch options, and (new for 2017 it seems) the alternate route which had been prepared for the washed-out highway. Our original plan was to take the group along a CCA favourite, highway 8 from Merritt to Spences Bridge, but a highway closure necessitated a re-route.
Our new route would take us first along Highway 5A, before turning north on highway 97C towards Logan Lake. Here, we turned left and enjoyed a section of yesterday’s route in reverse, this time running down the hill into Ashcroft instead of up it. Our group of 95 cars basically dined together, in one of two places. Half of the group descended upon Cache Creek, where we enjoyed Herbies Drive-in…a famous burger joint which has been in operation since the 1950’s. The other half of the group continued on to Clinton, where I suspect the restaurant of choice was the Cariboo Lodge, famous for it’s country fare. I had just settled into my Herbie’s Milkshake when the first text arrived…
“Flooding on highway 97”, it read from living near by, “barely got my truck through” was the next text. A phone call quickly followed, and I pulled Warwick and Andrew in for a speakerphone conversation and a roads consult. Between the three of us, (Andrew Snucins, Warwick, and I) we quickly determined that my route book was no longer going to work, that two of the main options for getting to our evening hotel were closed, and an emergency plan would need to take place.
Warwick and I went car to car and table to table in Cache Creek to give the best information we could on the “new route option”. I suggest that in quotes, as at this stage it consisted of “drive the route book to this town, and then google your way to this other town.” While we gave Cache Creek lunch guests these vague directions, Andrew was dispatched to Clinton to provide the same for those folks. The group would still be following the route book for a good 2-3 hour loop, which would buy me time to determine a solution.
While the classic cars headed North, my co-driver Greg and I headed back to Kamloops to find a spot the cars would cross on their way to Kelowna. Greg drove, while I scoured road reports, closure reports and the maps to try and give our guests the best option possible. We parked on the road-side, created the best “CCA STOP” sign we could muster with the supplies we had, and I hand-wrote two copies of the new route instructions.
As each car came into our impromptu checkpoint, we handed the sheet over and asked them to take a photo of the notes on their cellphones. Directions were confirmed as understood, and guests were waved off with a laugh and hopes they’d find the hotel without too much trouble.
Despite three major route re-routes, pulling off in a somewhat-questionable checkpoint location, and having to drive off with only a small cellphone photo of the route instructions…every one of our guests, to a tee, was smiling and laughing and having a great time. Flooded roads, questionable new directions and roadside re-routing just didn’t seem to matter. Sometimes “getting there” is the adventure, and today our guests were living it…and loving it.
Our previous loop through highway 24 from Green Lake to Little Fort had proven to be a favourite of the weekend. Little traffic, phenomenal curves, exceptional elevation changes. By the time cars rolled into the re-route checkpoint they’d had a wonderful sunny drive. Our re-route allowed them to skip some of Highway 1 and Highway 97, and instead sent them south on the twisty Salmon River Road. If you’re going to re-route your entire event, you can do a whole lot worse than a twisty road which would make a great trip on it’s own!
All 95 cars made it to Kelowna for dinner, and while certainly exhausted from the day, everyone was clearly enjoying themselves. Behind me at dinner was a prize and give-away table literally stuffed and overflowing with gifts. Thanks to Dave Koszegi, Ted Wilkinson and RWM&Co, almost every car will be heading home with a new automotive related item in the trunk tomorrow.
The day may have been an organizing challenge, but as one guest suggested to me at dinner; I don’t even have to worry about a route for next year, we’ve barely used this one that was printed in the route book!
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Gathering in Squamish this morning, the air was filled with anticipation, the joy of seeing old friends again and the excitement for the start of the 2017 Hagerty Spring Thaw. Usually the organizers are greeting our guests, enjoying a coffee and checking out the wonderful cars that appear in the parking lot. This year, however, I’ve been told I was looking slightly more stressed…typing away on my laptop.
You may think the weather, slightly raining in Squamish was to blame, but no. I was on the phone and laptop checking weather reports, avalanche reports and road closure reports. Our main road for the day, Duffy Lake Road, was closed the night before by an Avalanche. By 7:30am it was open, and avalanche dangers were lowered from high to moderate. Perhaps the event could travel as planned? At 7:45am, however, the text messages started coming in. “Mud slide closes highway 99”, “Have you heard…Duffy’s closed.” Where I would normally spend the morning greeting and catching up with guests, instead I was typing out new instructions to replace almost the entire day in the route book.