ipd Sponsors Canada 5000 Rally Against Alzheimers
We are proud to partner with Dave and Dave in their efforts to bring awareness to Alzheimers and make the journey across Canada in their 1967 122 Volvo. We will be following, with great interest, their progress and will update this blog as they pursue this endeavor. Check back often.
Rally Update
May 13, 2015
Preparations for the Canada 5000 Rally Against Alzheimer's are coming along very nicely, with exactly 30 days before we depart Vancouver! Here's a quick update on where we are.
The Car
What car event would be complete without the last minute thrash to get the car done? Certainly not Canada 5000! At the outset, this was intended to be part car project; we knew going in that we had to completely refurbish Dave C's 1967 Volvo 122S. We've tackled the front and rear suspension thanks to our friends and sponsors at ipd. We're putting the final touches on the rear brakes and then the car will be back on four wheels again!
Our original engine was a little bit tired, so we decided to swap in a freshly rebuilt B18 that was originally in a Volvo 123GT. The engine has been bored out and will provide us with a nice little boost in power compared to the stock engine. We'll also be fitting it with some sparkling new SU carbs from ZTherapy. We're excited to get it dropped in and running in the next few days.
While Dave C. has been overseeing the mechanical side of the rebuild, Dave M. has been focusing on the bodywork. He's preparing all the panels for paint and we've chosen to go back to the original colour called Ice Blue, which was a fairly rare colour.
Will the car be done in time? Check back next week to see how we're getting along!
The Route
Mapping out the route of a rally that ran 50 years ago can be a bit of a challenge, as many of the roads have changed or no longer exist. One of those roads is a segment through BC on the 1967 route, which was abandoned in the 1970s after it was bypassed by the construction of a better highway. The bridges on it fell apart and for many years was impassable. In recent years, the road was taken over by a pipeline company who rebuilt the bridges for their own use. We've been in contact with the company and they have agreed to let us use this section of the original route!
April 23, 2015
Dave Clark’s ’67 Volvo Amazon
Last summer, I came up with a slightly crazy idea – to drive coast to coast across Canada following the original routes of the Shell 4000, a trans-Canada rally that ran from 1961 to 1968. My goal was to pay tribute to the rally, which was one of the longest and most challenging rallies of the era. I couldn’t do the trip justice without completing the route in a car that actually won the event and a few weeks after coming up with the idea I was picking up a ’67 Volvo Amazon.
Choosing a Volvo just made sense. In 1965, 10 Volvos entered the rally. One rolled 500 miles outside of Vancouver, with 3500 miles still left to go. But all of them, including the car that rolled, finished the rally. The most amazing fact is that not one of them changed a single part in the event. Not even the one that rolled over.
I also have a personal connection to old Volvos. My father-in-law Carlo used to own and race both a 122 and a 142. He was a mechanic at the Edmonton Volvo specialist called Carl’s Place. The owner of the shop, Carl, was friends with ipd owner Richard Gordon and every time an ipd order came in, it was like Christmas morning, Carlo remembers. When I told Carlo that I had just bought a 122, this first thing he asked me was if I had ordered an ipd catalogue yet!
Soon enough, I made a massive order of ipd suspension, brake and drivetrain parts. I must admit, when they showed up, it definitely felt like Christmas morning and I’m very excited to be putting so many high-quality ipd parts on my car.
I’ll start the rally alongside my co-driver, David Myers, on June 12 in Vancouver. We’ve decided to splice a few different Shell 4000 routes together and we’ll stretch the rally out to 5000 miles, ending in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
We’re both very excited for the adventure this will take us on, traversing across Canada along some of the craziest and worst roads the country has to offer. But we wanted it to be more than that too. David’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in her 60s and that’s why we’ve dedicated the rally to raising money and awareness for the disease and named the event the Canada 5000 Rally Against Alzheimer’s.
We’re working very closely with Alzheimer’s Societies across Canada. We are very excited to raise money but we also want people to be able to recognize the 10 warning signs of Alzheimer’s and dementia. (link: http://www.alzheimer.ca/en/About-dementia/Alzheimer-s-disease/10-warning-signs)
We’d like to thank ipd for their incredible support in this project and invite you to follow our progress on the rally by visiting www.canada5000.com (broken link.)
