Big Changes for Big White
If you haven’t dug into the supplementary regulations, or heard any hint of what’s around the corner for Big White… well, here’s what we have planned for this year’s rally.
Great Partnerships Make it Happen.
We’re thrilled to welcome back Anthony’s Subaru to the Big White Winter Rally. Their support of the event brings several advantages and allows us to look after our volunteers a bit better than normal. Their involvement also allows us to keep our entry fees down, increasing the value for the teams coming out to the event!
More unique Stage Distance
One of the things we all care about the most are the stages… well, we’re planning to bring back the old, and add some new for this year’s event.
We’re bringing back the warm-up stage, Bullet, after a couple of years without it. This stage is a short run through a nice piece of forestry road near the bottom of the hill. It’ll wake you up before you dive into the longer, more challenging Black Forest stage. The beauty of Bullet is we revisit the stage between the two passes of Black Forest, which keeps the competitors on competitive stages instead of sitting at an in-control waiting for a stage to clear. Running this stage is a big demand on volunteer resources so if you want to help us make sure we can include the stage, help us fill the ranks of volunteer positions needed. To run Bullet and Black Forest means we need all the volunteers we can get! After that, the next stages are easy!
We’ve also made some changes to the Black Forest stage. We’ve moved the arrival control back from the start considerably. This will allow the teams to check in on level ground, and only drive in to the start line when they are ready to go. This should all but eliminate the issues cars have had in previous years checking in and getting to the start line. On the other end of the stage, we’ve moved the finish closer to the Big White road, adding another 2 km of challenging road! teams who have been to all of the Big White events will remember this section of road, and we’re looking forward to including it again this year.
Finally, we’ve found a new way to get home from the bottom of the Gem Lake stage. Few, if any, of our teams in the past few years have enjoyed the icy super-highway that we used for the last 7 km of the stage, so our plan is to cut the stage short and come back to the top of the stage using a new 28 Km long stage, Falcon Express. Of that 28 km, only the last 8 is shared with Gem Lake down and as the name suggests, 28km is the ‘short’ version of this stage!
In all, we’ve added 28 km of ‘new’ unique stage distance this year, and are running a total of 63km of unique stage. As always, our stage to transit ratio is one that is hard to beat, with 60% of the event distance being on stage!
You can download the 2014 BWWR Schedule to see what we’re up to and to plan your fuel and service needs.
Keeping You Warm
The kind and generous folks at the Inn at Big White have graciously allowed us to park the rally cars inside overnight on Saturday. We’ve also moved the drivers meeting to the parking garage so that we can have the meeting in the quiet, and warm. The official start will be from the front doors of the Inn at Big White, and you’ll head right out to the first stage from there. Make sure you have the right tires on and enough fuel in your car when you bring it into the parkade. This will be in the same location as technical inspection, so it will be really convenient for all of the teams! We also have plans for a warming tent at the bottom of the Gem Lake stage, thanks to the Canadian Forces!
This will definitely be an event not to be missed. If you’re on the edge… get your entry in now!
