Team Chinook Rally

The day after

2011-01-11T05:44:00.000-08:00

Hi
Today we are cleaning up the truck and getting it ready for the long trip back to BA. Tomorrow we travel to Chilecito through the Andes on dirt tracks and some tarmac. We will be traveling in the convoy for about 10 to 12 hours. Two more nights in the bivouac and then we are booked in hotels til we come home. Can't wait to have a hot shower every day and a bed to sleep in.

Thank you again for all your support it means a lot to us!!

The people here have been wonderful and it will be sad to leave them. We are wishing Darren Skilton and his driver Sue Mead all the best and hoping they cross the finish in BA.

And so it ends ...

2011-01-10T14:01:00.001-08:00

Glenna:
It is with great sadness I tell you that we won't be on the start line tomorrow.

Conor did an amazing job and everyone here is talking about his rise through the ranks. Unfortunately mechanical problems occurred and could not be fixed in time to finish the stage before the start tomorrow.

We appreciate all your support and are sorry that we will not be on the podium on Jan 16, 2011.

Thank you!

And you thought the race team was having an adventure....

2011-01-10T09:46:00.000-08:00

From the assistance team:
Getting to the bivouac last night was an adventure. When we were within 5 km traffic stopped dead. We needed to get our service area set up so we put the dodge into 4 wheel drive and went off road.
Once we reached the road to the bivouac we were faced with on coming traffic in both lanes including ours. So we barreled down the middle of the road as our Dodge is 4 times the size of their cars. They move pretty quickly. It helped that Troy was yelling like a crazy person for them to get out of the way.

The Dakar Spirit

2011-01-10T09:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday when the guys were stuck in stage 2 with radiator problems an Argentinian team stopped and gave them their extra radiator and all the water they could spare. While our team couldn't use the radiator - it was too small - it's the thought, and spirit of the Dakar, that counts

Blog - Toronto Star

2011-01-10T05:13:00.000-08:00

http://thestar.blogs.com/autoracing/2011/01/toronto-driver-going-strong-in-dakar-rally.html

Marc Coma of Spain rides his KTM motorcycle during the seventh stage of the third South American edition of the Dakar Rally 2011 from Arica to Antofagasta Jan. 9, 2011. (REUTERS/Eric Gaillard)

In Saturday’s Toronto Star Wheels section, I wrote a feature on Georgetown’s Lawrence Hacking, who – in 2001 – became the first Canadian to finish the dangerous and grueling Paris-Dakar Rally.

The Dakar, as it’s now known, is as grueling as ever but perhaps not as dangerous because the threat of terrorism was removed three years ago when the race was moved from Africa to South America.

In the article, Hacking – who did the Dakar on a motorcycle – said he hoped someday to become the first Canadian to finish the contest on four wheels.

The news today is that a fellow from Toronto driving for the Toronto-based Team Chinook is in the process of beating him to it.

Conor Malone and co-driver Tom Frank have passed the half-way point of the 15-day event that began on New Year’s day in Buenos Aires. They are still very much in contention to finish the rally; on average, fewer than half the 500-plus starters make it to the end.

On Sunday, Malone and Frank started the day in 70th place in the cars class (89 were still in contention at that point) but were soon running 87th and two hours behind because of a leaking radiator that they managed to fix at the first check point.

Later, during a special stage through sand dunes, many of the cars got lost and missed a check point and had to double back, leaving Team Chinook in 70th place again at end of day.

Overall, Marc Coma of Spain was leading the motorbike division, Tomas Maffei of Argentina was ahead in quads (four-wheel motorbikes), perennial world rally champion Carlos Sainz of Spain was in front in cars and Firdaus Kapirov of Russia was leading in trucks.

While the top professionals, supported by multi-million-dollar sponsorships, contend for victories at the Dakar, the majority of the more than 500 entries are made up of non-professionals whose prime motivation is simply to get through it.

Several years ago Malone, an electrician in the construction industry, and his Toronto friend, Glenna Chestnutt, who works in insurance, decided to enter the Dakar. That they had next to no experience was of little consequence; they were both in their mid-40s, they had a dream and they were going to go for it.

And if they could raise money for a couple of charities, Prostate Cancer Canada (Malone lost his father to the disease) and the Minimally Invasive Surgery program at Toronto East General Hospital, so much the better.

Since then, they’ve secured sponsorships, launched a website, embarked on public relations campaigns to draw attention to their adventure and made arrangements to produce a documentary film and to publish a book on their participation in the rally.

Most important, they contracted with a U.S. company, Colorado Sand Cars, to build their Corvette engine-powered Chevrolet vehicle. When Chestnutt, who originally intended to co-drive and navigate during the Dakar, was injured in a ski accident last year, she stepped back from the rally car to drive the support truck and her place was taken by the car’s builder, Tom Frank. One of his employees at Colorado Sand Cars, Troy Dees, replaced Frank as chief mechanic.

As the saying goes, so far, so good. They have gone from the start in Buenos Aires to the west coast of Chile and now are on their way back to the Argentine capital. Keep your fingers crossed.

Hacking has been following their race and is cheering them on to make it to the finish.

In an email to me last night, Hacking said: "To get as far as they have is an incredible accomplishment. If they finish, which looks possible, it will be very good for everyone who is thinking of doing the Dakar.

"I really hope everything stays together to the end. It has been a tough go for them with at least one night spent in the desert and lots of repairs done, according to their twitter posts."

And that’s a key. To follow their progress, and to cheer them on, go to www.teamchinook.com where there is everything you would ever want to know about them, including links to their Twitter account.

It looks like we are on Mars ...

2011-01-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

from Glenna:

854 km today through Chilean mountains for the assist truck.
The landscape ranges from colorful canyons with farms at the bottom to flat sand silt and rocks for miles. It looks like we are on Mars. 100's of kilometers without any foliage. We hope to see the race truck shortly after we arrive at the bivova.

There are not as many people at the side of the road as there were in Argentina. But we still some in the middle of nowhere!

Smiling, signing autographs and holding babies ...

2011-01-07T14:05:00.000-08:00

Glenna reports that Team Chinook members feel like celebrities (and so they should!)

"Everywhere we go people want their pics taken with us or want our autographs. At the entrance to camp people were passing their babies to us to hold while they took our pictures.

We were told there were no rooms left in the area but we found the Picasso motel just outside the Bivouac. Just had my first hot shower in 7 days!! Luxurious!!

Conor and Tom are doing great. They are 75th! So far. After spending the night in the desert they are looking forward to the rest day tomorrow. The lights took a beating so Troy will be spending tomorrow working on them.

Great fans - coasting downhill -sleeping in the dunes

2011-01-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

From Glenna:

The people in Argentina were amazing fans. Everywhere we stopped we were mobbed and asked to be in photos - and we are just the assistance team. Conor has lost track of how many autographs he's signed!!

Jan 5 drama: It was the assistance team's turn to have some drama. We tried to make a 602 km stage with a 450 km tank of gas and 5 gallons in reserve. Luckily we ran out of gas at 4800 meters altitude. Troy removed the air filter and we put the car in neutral and coasted down on 32 km worth of gas!
Conor drove very well today and showed up at camp just after us. For the first time they got more than 3 hours of sleep! They started the toughest stage so far well rested this morning (Jan 6)! We are just waiting at the bottom of "the hill" for them.

Jan 6 - after the toughest stage by far so far, Team Chinook race vehicle team is sleeping in the dunes between waypoint 11 and 13. They will head out at first light on Jan 7 to finish the stage and make it to the starting line for stage 6!

A brutal day after a brutal night - still going!

2011-01-05T05:12:00.000-08:00

At 3 am the truck rolled in. After a number of great sections where they passed a number of seasoned Dakar driver they were plagued by fuel problems. Then the alternator went at the end. At one point in the rally they need a tow and 15 trucks went by with none of them stopping finally the locals came to the rescue and got them going.
Troy sold his soul to get us an alternator from Robby Gordon's crew. Working til 6 am he got the truck back in top form.

At 7:33 am Tom and Conor hit the road in the pouring rain! It will be a long drive through the mountains and then a short but tough special ending up in Chile.

We leave after the race vehicle are gone. It will be a 9 hour drive through the mountains with no stops. We hope our gas holds up. Were counting on coasting down the mountains.

Read the Garage Blog article- Jan 4

2011-01-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

The Garage Blog: http://thegarageblog.com/garage/team-chinook-still-on-the-road-at-dakar/

Men hate to ask for directions?

2011-01-03T14:39:00.001-08:00

The ever dedicated assistance team spent 3 hours tracking down Peltor connectors in Cordoba so Tom and Conor can communicate during the rally.

... This being important because Tom needs to tell Conor where to go (literally and figuratively). Conor had forgotten the connectors - is this because he didn't want Tom to give him directions - you know how men are...

Wardrobe malfunction: Behind the Scenes Stage 1

2011-01-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

Or "The fireproof underware strike again..."
During the liaison section prior to the special timed stage Conor realized he forgot his balaclava so he called his assistance team to bring it to him. Even though it was 400 km out of their way they rushed to his aid! Unfortunately time got away from Conor and Tom and they remembered they were in a timed rally so they rushed to the start line. Our "MacGyver" Tom suggested to Conor that he pull his T-shirt over his face to pass the start line. This is the end of the story of why they were 40 minutes late for their first timed section of the rally.
With that 40 minute head start they gave everyone else, they went on to do very well!

A long night too on Jan 1

2011-01-02T12:58:00.000-08:00

From Glenna:
Troy and I got the camp-service area set up after a bit of a fight for space!

Tom called around 10pm we needed to find a radiator cap and two connectors for the peltor speaker system, they were 3 hours away. Troy got the radiator cap from the Hyundi team and the head electrician made the peltor connector.

At 1am conor and tom arrived. Unfortunately the connector didn't work and the VW team was now asleep. The good news - the rad cap fit. Troy stayed up til 4am working on the truck. Luckily he's a night owl and could sleep in the car the next day

wheels turning at the start of the Dakar 2011!

2011-01-01T14:00:00.001-08:00

At the starting line - some early images

2011-01-01T09:18:00.000-08:00

Just a couple photos from the starting line area, Team Chinook somewhere waiting ...

Here come the quads:

Conor interview in Globe and Mail

2011-01-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

Conor interview in Globe&Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/new-cars/motorsports/rally-round-the-flag-at-dakar/article1850968/

Dec29 Photos around the Scrutineering area

2010-12-30T16:15:00.000-08:00

More Dec 28 photos at pickup ....

2010-12-29T15:08:00.001-08:00

Dec 28 photos - race car and support car pickup

2010-12-29T15:04:00.000-08:00

What started off as an easy day...

2010-12-29T09:22:00.000-08:00

(by Glenna)
Tom, Conor and Troy left at 6 am to pick up the trucks and take them to the village. I stayed back to sort out communications and other details (the very glamorous job of getting the laundry done).

At noon I ran into Conor on the street. The alternator was dead so they had returned to the hotel to pick up the space. After Troy drove some competitors to the village, he parked the car in the underground at the hotel. Since I was to return it to the rental place he went to get it. An hour later we were still waiting for him as he only had to drive around the block we thought he must have been in an accident. It turns out the delay was just traffic. Pedestrians have no regard for stop signs. Red means go and so does green. On the 8 lane roads there are no lines ... why waste the paint? When there are lines no one pays attention.

A long day to the port ...

2010-12-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

After 5 hours we made it the "100 kms" to the port.

Conor, Troy and Tom left the hotel at 1230 to walk "5" blocks and pick up the rental car. Two and a half hours later they showed up at the hotel. The rental place was 55 blocks away...

Glenna stayed at the hotel to find directions. 3 hotel staff tried to find the location - we tried google maps. Finally a tourist mentioned she knew where it was a suburb of BA - the equivalent of Kingston being a suburb of Toronto. We set of with at least an idea of what city we were heading to ha ha.

Once we go to Zapata we stopped at a taxi stand. It took three of us to interpret the directions from the taxi driver (no one here speaks any English). With these sketchy directions we headed off. Luckily when we hit the highway we started to see Dakar vehicles heading toward us on the other side of the highway. We reverse followed them to the port another 30 km.

Finally we arrived just after 5. Only two people could get into the closed port so Tom and Conor headed in to see how the trucks faired on the stormy trip across the ocean.

Tomorrow we will be back here at 8 am to pick up the trucks and install the safety equipment. From there it will be off to scrutineering.

On the way to France

2010-10-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

It's official ... now Blood, Sweat and Tears, have been shed !
Friday we packed up the Dakar vehicles, the race truck and support truck, ( David, one of our shippers, conked himself on the Sea Container inspection lamp, causing a small gash, on his head, which bled profusely ), but apart from the accident, it was a big success. Although David was feeling much better after a few minutes, his co-workers insisted that he go to the hospital anyway, just to be sure. At one point, we were not sure that the vehicles would fit, but after removing the rear fenders, and hood, ( which both had significant overhang ), we got everything packed up nicely with 2" to spare on either side of the race truck. I had to climb out the window on both vehicles, as the container was too tight to allow the doors to open. One step closer to the start line !
New years day is day one of the race ... I can't wait !

Training in the Sand Dunes of Wyoming

2009-10-03T14:29:00.000-07:00

We have just returned from a week in Wyoming, where we practiced scaling and decending sand dunes, in the Dakar Truck. Wyoming is not the first place that comes to mind, when thinking of sand dunes, but as you can see from the many pics posted, on the photo page, there are some impressive dunes, some up to 150' high. Everything went well, and at the end, we dropped off the truck in Denver ( about 4 hours away ) for some service. The new ( 100 Gallon ) Fuel Tank is ready, and the suspension will need to be reworked to handle the added weight.

Summer Summary

2009-08-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

We have been attending street festivals, parades, charity runs and funraising benefit parties all summer, with barely time to blog, but we are headed into the home stretch now, since we have been officially accepted into the 2010 Dakar Rally. There are still so many things to do, we need a Freight Sponsor, someone to transport our race vehicle and support vehicle to Argentina.
This is vital, if anyone out there knows of a Freight company, interested in advertising to 220 Million TV viewers worldwide and 3 million race fans who show up to watch the race in person, then we would like to talk to them ! Thanks for your support and always dream big !

A February road-trip ... what could be better ?

2009-02-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

I have arrived home from a 8,000 km road-trip ( Denver CO. to Yuma AR. to Toronto ON ) with the Dakar vehicle. Yes, I did get some strange looks from passing vehicles and in almost every gas station was asked " Is that thing street legal ?" ... of course it is, all Dakar vehicles ( all rally vehicles everywhere, for that matter ) must be street legal. It was a good shakedown for the new vehicle and a fairly gentle break-in for the engine ( a corvette LS-3 ) also. I say fairly because I did spend a week climbing the sand dunes of Glamis CA. ( a few miles outside of Yuma AR. ) where the dunes are up to 300 feet high. It performed beautifully in the dunes and on the highway. Just 10 months to go now ... I can't wait 'til next January !

The Dakar ... there is nothing like it !

2009-01-17T12:17:00.000-08:00

We are back from Argentina, where we watched Dakar Rally Stages live and up close. Some of the time, on the connecting routes between stages, our rental car was surrounded by competitor’s bikes, cars, trucks & quads. It was on one of these connections near Mendoza that our rental car was bumped by a quad, no damage (at least nothing the rental company could find) but the impression that will stick with me, for the rest of my life, is the incredible excitement of the Argentine people who turned out by the tens of thousands to picnic and catch a glimpse of the dream. Over fifty thousand people with their campfires, lined the road from Mendoza in the dark, it was all very surreal.

Back from Argentina

2009-01-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

We arrived home yesterday, after following the Dakar through Argentina. It is an amazing country, where Steak, Wine and Beer are all about 1/3 of the price in Canada. Hotels are cheap also, but Gas prices are about the same as here. An amazing place for an inexpensive holiday.
We received our passes from the ASO, ( Dakar organizers ) once again this year, and were granted access to the vehicle scrutineering area, and behind the scenes preparations, where I met up with the winners of the Truck division last year ( Man on a Mission Team ) from Belgium & Holland ( they have been giving us advice through the forum ). Glenna also met Luc Alphond, Stephan Peterhansel and Robbie Gordon ( who we had met last year also ). We ran into Etienne Lavigne the director of the Dakar, ( he remembered us from our meeting in Mexico 2 years ago ) and wished us luck in our entry next year.
One of our main goals for this trip was to meet with "Rally Raid" and decide if we would use their services."Rally Raid" is an English company, which provides services to Dakar competitors, anything from building you a vehicle, to renting one for you, or just "in race" mechanical support. I wanted very much to meet with them, to see if I got a level of comfort, from a face to face and discuss having them providing mechanical & transportation services for our team mechanic next year, luckily we were able to meet up with Paul Round and the whole "Rally Raid" team in the Red Bull Lounge ( 3 days prior to the start ) and talked for several hours. Unfortunately on Day 1 of the race, one of the "Rally Raid" vehicles had an nasty accident, our thoughts & best wishes for a speedy recovery go out to them both.
We have some new photos on the website and new ones will be going up every few days over the comming weeks !

On the way to Argentina

2008-12-11T13:44:00.000-08:00

We have booked our flights & hotels in Buenos Aires. It seems unreal that in one year we will be on the starting line of the Dakar Rally !