Alcan 5000

www.alcan5000.com

A friend of mine is co-driving in this this year, but when I saw one of her blog pics, I thought of this forum: one of the entries is a Dakar Yellow '95 M3.

(pics of the car and team info here: www.gotorgans.com )

I had joked about doing this event in my 300K+ mile TDi next year. Looking at this car, that doesn't seem so far fetched...

ah...one of my bucket list races.

It's a helluva trip -- highly recommended. I ran it in 2008. This year it looks like things aren't going terribly well, unfortunately. Two ice slaloms (really, autocrosses) haven't happened, a Mini had an off (though it may be running still??), a checkpoint crew also had an off and rolled his car (up onto its side, thankfully not all the way over), and there were apparently two non-Alcan-5000-related traffic deaths that closed roads, affecting the route. To top it off, I just learned that the Dempster Highway is closed due to blizzard conditions, so, basically, no one will get to go up to Tuktoyaktuk (map: http://g.co/maps/8cqfb). IMHO, the best part of the trip was going from Dawson City, up the Dempster to Inuvik, then to Tuk, then back to Dawson City. Amazing, amazing terrain.

Regarding going in a 300k car. Well, I don't know how a diesel would fare in the cold, but we took an '85 Saab 900 Turbo with ~265k on the clock. Had no issues (it's pretty well-maintained).

EDIT: Some more links to follow:

http://dolmageadventures.com/author/daviddolmage/

Also @AlcanMINI on Twitter

diesels would do well.. if you ran it on kero and never shut it down. Might need to run a waterline/loop back to the tank to keep the fuel from gelling

procainestart wrote: Regarding going in a 300k car. Well, I don't know how a diesel would fare in the cold,

Given that most of the vehicles that run up there are diesel trucks, I'm not sure of your thinking here...

I know the guy with the MINI who hit the tree (he's from the Northeast and I've done other MINI events with him). He's had some bad luck in events like this. A few years ago he rolled his convertible MINI into a snowbank - with the top down - during one of the arctic runs the MINI people do every year.

Except for semis, most vehicles I saw up there were gas-powered cars. But I stand corrected that driving a diesel up there would be present extra challenges.

Inverted Mini ragtop: