Category Archives: Events

Spring Thaw Entry List Posted

As promised, the accepted entries for the 2011 Spring Thaw Classic Car Adventure, April 29-May 1, have been posted HERE!

Congratulations to everyone who made it in – and thank you to everyone who entered! As in previous years, we will be running a waitlist in case of last minute cancellations. If you’re still interested in entering the Spring Thaw, feel free to send an application for consideration to the waitlist.

Spring Thaw: Deadline EXTENDED

In a tizzy because you’ve forgotten to go to the post office today? Panicked because you’ve just realized the Spring Thaw application deadline is THIS Monday, December 20th?

Fear not!

We’ve heard from quite a few people this week who have been busy/distracted/procrastinating on their applications and so we’ve decided to be nice and extend the application deadline to Friday, December 31st. (Merry Christmas!).  That said, please make every effort to send us your PDF application form via email by Monday, December 20th while we await your hard copy.

Thank you to everyone who has already sent in their application – it has been another great response this year with lots of hilarious and entertaining “page 2” stories. If you know of someone who is slacking on sending in their entry, please motivate them appropriately!

Thanks again,
Warwick & Dave

Totem Rally 2010

Eric Horst (WA) & Stephen Mats Mats (WA) carve through the snow on their way to 2nd place Historic, 5th Overall. Photo: Tony Latham

Snow is a four letter word. It was also the dominant factor that shaped the 2010 running of the Totem Rally. With 17 crews gathering from BC, Alberta, Oregon, Washington, The Yukon and Arizona, everyone involved knew the competition was going to be tough.  Organized by the West Coast Rally Association, the event started in Cache Creek, BC on Saturday morning with an overnight stop in 100 Mile House before returning to Cache Creek on Sunday. Up to 20 cm of fresh snow in the area added to the challenge.

While most crews arrived with modern all-wheel-drive Subarus or BMWs, a select group choose a different path, the Historic class. Open to cars 25 years old or older, the Historic class honours the 50-plus year history of the event by encouraging owners to actively use their cars over 800 kms of the best back roads BC has to offer.

Gary Webb (AZ) and John Kisela (WA) won Historic Class in their Toyota Celica GT. Photo: Tony Latham

Top placed historic for 2010 was the 1983 Toyota Celica GT of Gary Webb and John Kisela, only seven points clear of Eric Horst and Stephen Mats Mats in their 1983 Audi Quattro. Both teams finished top-5 overall. Full results can be found at www.rallybc.com.

Words & Photos by Tony Latham

Next up on the TSD rally schedule is the legendary Thunderbird Rally, February 12-13, 2011. Classic Car Adventures will be sponsoring the Historic Class which encompasses cars from 1985 and earlier and we’d like to encourage you to come and take part. Bolt up a set of snow tires to your classic Volvo, BMW, Saab, Mini, Beatle, or whatever you’ve got in the garage, and join us for a great adventure!

Spring Thaw Entries Open, plus 2011 Calendar Announced

It’s Big Announcement Day at Classic Car Adventures! Entries for the 2011 Spring Thaw Classic Car Adventure are now officially OPEN! We can hear the stampede to the post office starting already, but fear not – the application process has changed from previous years and it is no longer a race requiring the postal service to get your entry here first. Instead, there is now a soon-to-be infamous “page two” on the entry form where you will be able to convince, bribe, or otherwise tell us why you should be one of the 60 entrants in the 2011 Spring Thaw. Have fun with it – make us laugh, make us cry, make us cringe – we look forward to reading them all! If you don’t feel like writing, you could always make a video or sing us a song! Don’t take too long, however, as entries are due by December 20th. Note, the entry fee now includes selected meals including Saturday night dinner. Find out all the details and download the entry form on the Spring Thaw Info page.

Secondly, we are thrilled to announce a full year’s worth of events in 2011, including a luxury vintage event, an adventurous backroads exploration, a Fall Freeze event, plus we are bringing the adventures to Ontario!  The calendar at-a-glance is below, and you can see more details for each event on the Full Calendar page. We can’t wait to be back on the roads with you all!

April 29-May 1, 2011 – Spring Thaw Classic Car Adventure
June 12, 2011  – Classic Rag Run (Magazine Swap/Food Bank Benefit)
August 5-7, 2011 – Rush to Gold Bridge
September 9-11 – Autumn Amble Vintage Tour (pre-’59 5-star tour)
September 16-18 – Fall Freeze Classic Car Adventure
September 23-25 – Muskoka Mille, Ontario, Canada
October 10, 2011 – Sea to Sky Thanksgiving Run (Food Bank Benefit)

Happy Motoring!

Goodwood Revival 2010 Videos

Photo: John Colley/Goodwood Revival

Ask anyone who has been to the Goodwood Revival, and you’ll likely hear glowing reviews and wonderful stories. It is certainly #1 on our “must see” list. The annual highlights show on UK television does a great job of showing the hard-fought race action mixed with the vintage atmosphere. I think its safe to say that the on-track racing is some of the most intense historic racing you’re bound to see anywhere. Insanely rare and expensive automobiles going wheel to wheel on one of the fastest circuits is a sight to behold.

Photo: John Colley/Goodwood Revival

We’ve found portions of ITV’s 45-minute show online, along with some other videos that capture the sights and sounds of this event. The full ITV show is available for download via several ‘torrent’ websites if you are so inclined.

Here’s the Tourist Trophy portion of the ITV show, featuring GT cars from the early sixties. Luckily this year’s event had a clean start, but Bobby Rahal’s off-track excursion in F1-designer Adrian Newey’s lightweight e-type will make you cringe! Incredible racing.

Starting life as a perimeter road around the WWII airfield, the track is hellishly fast and must be quite a thrill in a historic car. Not to mention, you need to have an immaculately prepared motor and car to withstand these revs and forces!  To get an idea of the speeds, ride along with Tony Dron as he battles with Anthony Reid in the St. Mary’s Trophy! Dron is in a Ford Zodiac and Reid in a Jag Mk1, drafting and sliding their way around the track. Sadly, it ends with Dron breaking a front hub and retiring. (Skip to 1:30min for the start.)

Again, try and find a copy or download of the ITV show, because the St. Mary’s race was immensely entertaining. Watching ex-F1 driver Martin Brundle in a little A35 duke it out with multi-time Le Mans winner, Tom Kristensen, in the bigger Austin Westminster is not to be missed!

Photo: Matt Sills/Goodwood Revival

Here’s an amateur video of the Whitsun Trophy race that really gives you a sense of the raw sound of the ground-pounding sportscars that the television coverage doesn’t capture.

Thanks to Motorsport Retro for pointing to the ITV TT segment.
Goodwood Photographs are from the Revival website.

Sea to Sky Thanksgiving Run 2010

Defying all weather forecasts, a surprise clear and sunny morning greeted 50 cars at Park Royal Monday morning for the second annual Sea to Sky Thanksgiving Run. As the sun crested the horizon to provide a bit of warmth, an eclectic mix of British, German, American and French machinery rumbled down the on-ramp to Taylor Way towards Britannia Beach. It is a heart-warming sight to see a huge gaggle of vintage metal keeling over through turns in unison!

Once again, we were amazed at all the new cars we had never seen before – Vancouver is proving itself to be a hotbed of low-key classic car enthusiasts. The BMW, Datsun, and VW crews were out in force, plus a few minis, a Renault R8 holding down the French side, and a great group of American landyachts and hotrods. Heads turned to watch a Rolls Royce and pre-war Talbot roll into the parking lot at Galileo Coffee too. The spotless Talbot was fresh off a 10-year restoration and Pebble Beach Concours appearance this summer. Personally, I’m impatient after 1-year of restoration on my Mini – I can’t imagine ten years!

Thanks again to everyone who came out and made it another special day behind the wheel. We are excited about the great community of enthusiasts that is getting to know each other! Thanks also to Lance and the staff at Galileo Coffee who we tend to overwhelm every year! We’ll leave you with images from the day. If you have photos you would like to share, please post a link in the discussion forum (you may need to host them on flickr or photobucket first if you don’t have hosting).

[Thanks to your generosity, we will be delivering a full car-load of food and cash for Squamish Helping Hands and Food Bank – thank you!]

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