Revelstoke Mountain Rally

Supercharged madness is sliding up a skinny two-lane, switch-backed mountain road, and it only took about 15 minutes for 13 VCA members at Revelstoke, British Columbia (BC).

My wife Deana and I own and operate Anahim Lake Trading General Store. I received an e-mail notifying us that the Viper Club of America was meeting for a weekend mountain rally in Revelstoke. It was time to try out my new ‘01 supercharged Viper GTS in competition against other Vipers. Having various muscle cars parked in my garage along with a few turbo cars, I know the Viper is King. Not just a superfast streetcar (10.5@139 mph on stock tires), the Viper also takes corners extremely well and stops quickly with StopTech lightweight slotted rotors clamped by ceramic pads.

A mountain rally against other Vipers sounded like a “learning experience” in more ways than one. Deana and I had been looking into upgrading our store with a scanner system. We knew that there were stores in the towns of Blue River and Edgewater with the exact scanner systems we had been investigating. Since both towns were only a few hundred miles out of our way to Revelstoke, it made good business sense to indulge a little of my “car craziness.”

Slightly north of Mt. Waddington is a plateau surrounded by four mountain ranges called the West Chilcotin. Eight hundred pristine lakes, the fourth highest waterfall in the world and the steepest 16 miles of highway in North America surround my lakeside log house at Nimpo Lake, BC. Leaving this view to drive to the scenic Monashee Mountains was like going to visit the neighbors — all of BC is beautiful. I loaded our suitcases into the back of my GTS and headed east along the “Highway of Death” (Hwy 20) to Blue River Store — first stop of our trip across the province.

We spoke with the owners of the store, got their recommendation on the scanner system and got back “on the road again.” Spending the day in the driver’s seat is one of my favorite pastimes. We arrived at the log entryway of the Hillcrest Hotel, a Coast Resort, about 6:30 p.m. The VCA had arranged a discount for our room rates and parking security for our cars.

Arriving in the lounge at seven, we were welcomed by 18 VCA members including our hosts, Douglas French and his wife Deb from Calgary. Many people were already eating so we quickly found seats and ordered dinner. Dinner was excellent and Deana enjoyed a glass of pricey red wine with Debbie. Being our first event since joining the VCA, we spent the evening meeting Viper Club members from all over Western Canada. All the people were great and we had a good time in the lounge, but it had been a long day of driving so about midnight I asked the waitress for our bill. “I’m sorry but it’s already been taken care of,” she told me. I found Doug French and asked him what happened to my bill and he said, “Oh, I took care of it.” Wow, “Thanks, Doug and Debbie.” The party moved to the hotel’s balconies and a few member rooms that were adjoining. The itinerary called for all participating Vipers to be lined up at the park gate, with their park passes on, before 8 a.m. the next morning. I figured that meant “parking lot by 7:15 a.m.”

I was the last member to start his Viper at 7:15 a.m. Most others had cleaned their windows and were ready to go. I didn’t realize that Viper owners could party all night and be in such great shape so early in the morning … must be the crisp mountain air? All the Vipers were lined up and leaving the hotel’s parking lot by 7:30 a.m. Fred Kappler’s ‘99 black GTS, Don Campbell’s sapphire ’01 R/T10 and Ron Nichols’ black GTS were all equipped with Paxton superchargers and wives. Although sapphire Vipers are quite rare (only 239 were built), there were three sapphire cars in the parking lot, mine included. A Mercedes SLR55 was also hidden amongst the Viper lineup.

When the park ticket booths opened at 7:50 a.m. all 13 Vipers were lined up in both lanes. After purchasing our park pass we moved down the road a block or so to the pipe gate and lined up there. A safety car and the coffee SUV headed through the gate to take their stations along the road and at the finish line. Radio contact let the starters know when our safeties were in place. The most aggressive drivers lined up at the front to leave first, and the less aggressive drivers left later. As this was my first ever Viper competition and first rally, I decided that my supercharged Viper probably would do best in the middle so that’s where I lined up. Every minute another Viper left the starting line on their way to the top of the 13 mile-long, narrow two-lane road. Fourteen of the corners were switchbacks. The rally speed limit was 50 mph, and a radar gun was used to check speeds. Anything past 50 mph was an instant lose. I found out later that the radar gun was used to “promote honesty” for the speed limit. The elevation change over this course is just less than 6,000 vertical feet. The scenery is awesome as the parkway road travels through two different types of forest and various sub-alpine meadows, full of wildflowers — not that any of our competitors slowed to look.

Once we were lined up, I got out of my car and walked closer to the starting line to see others’ launch techniques. Although I’d never competed in a rally before, I’d raced drag strips for decades and always had that “bad boy” street driving style. You can read that to mean I had collected my share of tickets. I was taking this seriously. Watching as Lee Conrad and his wife pulled up to the starting line, I began to see that things were not as serious as I’d thought. Lee scratched third gear rubber before the first corner. A third gear shift is about 96 mph so he’d already disqualified himself. It was obvious that he was having a blast in his stock ’06 copperhead Viper. That’s what Vipers are all about — enjoying life. Later, a few members mentioned that it must have been Lee driving as his wife is even faster.

I got back into my Viper and waited for my turn. I asked Deana if she wanted to get out of the car and wait with the starting people. She said, “We’ll see.” It had been almost two months since I’d driven our ‘98 red GTS under a tractor-trailer during a rain storm. This was the first time Deana had gotten into the new Viper. She wasn’t exactly comfortable as this Viper had nearly 200 hp more than the red one and was ten times as loud. We’d survived the head-on collision with a semi truck. I figured that proved we were invulnerable — a Viper can smash into a semi and win. Deana wasn’t so sure.

It was my turn at the starting line and Deana was still in the car. She was staring off into the distance. I wasn’t about to interrupt her trance since it was our turn! I blasted off in first, smoking the tires to 50 mph, then shifted into second and merely held the speed all the way to the first corner. I downshifted and went into the corner too fast causing us to go into a high-degree, four-wheel drift past the apex. It was a perfect turn for a drifting competition, but not so great for rallying. The passenger seat was quiet and that was a good thing. Entering the next corner, I downshifted into first, using a slightly slower entry speed and started to throttle at the apex causing a complete loss of traction for the rear tires. We exited the corner sideways, again not bad for a drift competition. Still no screaming or other bad sounds from the passenger seat area so I concentrated on my driving. The next corner and every corner after that were perfection. Second gear proved easiest to enter the corner and control the throttle coming out of the corners. Flooring it after the corner exit, I would fishtail to 50 mph just for the pure joy of the screaming tires and smell of burning rubber. I’d figured out the speed the Pilot Sports and Eibach Springs liked for the corners and I was attaining a five-degree slippage all through the exits. The rest of the rally was pure JOY. All too soon I crossed the finish line and it was over. Deana looked okay. I couldn’t see any “haunted look” or shaking so I pulled into the parking lot and asked her how she’d fared.

“I think I wore out the carpet where the passenger side brake pedal is supposed to be.” She was smiling. Yeah, I thought she was okay. Getting out of the car I started to shiver. I was aware of the high altitude, but still hadn’t expected the crisp mountain air to be so cold. There was a wildflower meadow at the parking lot so many of us got to view the scenery we’d missed on the way up.

After everyone showed up we headed down the mountain and a few of us were going to a car wash we’d passed on our way to the park. Noon was the time for meeting at Three Valley Gap for lunch. We washed and dried our cars while many locals and tourists stopped to enjoy our cars and take pictures.

We drove the 10 minutes to our lunch destination west of Revelstoke at Three Valley Gap. It was a beautiful winding mountain highway, but there was some tourist traffic. Special parking in the employee’s lot had been arranged by Douglas so we all parked there behind the restaurant. After an exceptional cheeseburger our group wandered through the gift shops. Once everyone had finished lunch, we all wandered through the ghost town. Three Valley Gap is unique as most of the buildings — including a two-story hotel — have been moved to the site. Each building was similar to a museum with antiques sitting behind Plexiglas™ walls. The saloon and hotel had period-dressed employees. We watched the “old cowboy singer” perform in the saloon for a while. There was an antique car museum and the largest Canadian Railway roundhouse complete with a train museum. The various railcars, cabooses and polished steam locomotive were definitely worth the tour.

We met back at our Vipers around 3 p.m. A “quick” scenic drive to the Mica Damn was slated for us. We followed the guys with the Escort Passport SRX radar detectors. There was no traffic on Highway 23 heading north and eventually we found ourselves in two groups — the “fast guys” and the “we’ll check the road for you” group that we never seemed to catch up to. Using radios, we found out that our road checkers didn’t see any traffic at all. The rest of us did see some wonderful scenery during our jaunt. We stopped at a couple of scenic pull-offs. The highway was a well-developed wide two-laner with some passing lanes. Since it follows a valley there were many corners and elevation changes.

About 5 p.m. we all headed back to the Hillcrest Hotel. After our short but spirited drive everyone looked fresh to me, but Deana said we needed refreshing anyway.

At 7 p.m. more than 30 people did a good job filling the hotel’s banquet room and we started the evening with a short chat from the VCA officers. We were served prime rib and went right into the rally awards. Ernie and Dawn Sedola received first place with a time of 14:27, Deana and I placed second, with Louie and Sharon Giestorfer coming in third. A lot of door prizes were handed out and Deana won a pink Dodge Girl T-shirt. After dinner most of us retired to the lounge to carry on where we’d left off the night before. It was another good night where we made many new friends.

Sunday morning we met for breakfast buffet in the restaurant, then we loaded up most of the Vipers and left the parking lot headed south on Highway 23 to enjoy lunch at Nakusp. Another scenic drive took us along the man-made Arrow Lakes with a free ferry from Shelter Bay to Galena Bay. After our outdoor lunch, many of our friends went back north heading home to Calgary and Edmonton. Deana and I headed south to Edgewater to check another store scanner system on our way home. We traveled with a half dozen Vipers heading towards Vancouver and Kelowna areas until the second ferry, where they continued along 23 heading south and we turned off to Edgewater.

This was a fantastic weekend. No tickets, no breakdowns, no accidents, with friendly competition, 30 new friends, free food, awesome scenery and we even got business done … it can’t get any better than it did this weekend. Of course that’s the reason we have car clubs!