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2010 Rallye Perce Neige was a rally of unexpectations. Unexpectations isn’t a word, but I just used it and you knew what I meant. So now YOU just had an unexpectation. You just learned a new nonword. You unexpected that. Ok, let’s get back on stage.

Here’s why the rally was so unexpectatious.

Podium. Here’s How it looked after stage 7.

Antoine L'ESTAGE/RICHARD 47:46
URLICHICH/HEADLAND + 0:01:58
RICHARD/OCKWELL +0:02:03

This looked like a somewhat predictable leaderboard with L’Estage, Crazy Leo, and Richard in the top 3. However after this stage it got crazy. Richard was reported parked on stage by several people on Twitter using #cdnrally hash tag. Early reports said his issue was mechanical and the speculation was that he blew his motor. Next, Antoine L’Estage lost several minutes stuck in a ditch until Henderson pulled him out. Their off bumped Crazy Leo into the lead which then blew Twitter up with “GO LEO” comments. Soon after, Leo had mechanical problems on stage 13 which allowed the snake in the weeds, ACP, to climb from 16th up the leader board to 2nd place. By stage 14, the final stage, ACP was reported to go off which bumped Mathieu L’Estage (Antoine’s brother) and Henderson into 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

1. Bruno Carré/Joyal 2:26:17
2. Mathieu L'Estage/Napert +0:03:22
Craig Henderson/Murphy +0:10:24

WorldRallySport.com landed the first post-win interview with overall winer Bruno Carre. Check it out here:

These podium changes are what rally is all about in my opinion. Unexpectations. Yes, of course it’s a shame when mechanical issues and offs happen, but it’s all part of the sport! It made for such an exciting event. I can’t remember the last time there was such a buzz in the service park because of the leader board shake ups!

There were other unexpectations too. Like everytime I saw someone wearing a snowmobile jacket, stone-washed jeans & sporting a mullet, I was expecting to hear a Minnesota or Yooper accent. (I’m from the midwest, I can stereotype) But what came out of their mouth was French. That blew my mind about 13 times before I got used to it.

Another unexpectation is what a difference the tires made. Some teams had “tractionized” tires which gave loads of grip on the ice. Snow tires are tractionized by running them on a roller filled with pins for a period of time which creates micro-abrasions throughout the treadblocks. This creates a gummy tire which can stick to the ice. The drawback to this is they burn up very, very quickly and can be quite squirmish and unstable on sealed surfaces.

Zedril Rallysport unfortunately didn’t have the tractionized tires. They were holding 2nd in G2 until stage 4 where the DUBÉ/LAVIGNE 1990 VW Golf passed them. From stage 4 to 13 all was well until the Zedril’s Lancer came to a ‘Left 4 Over Crest’ and went over a snowbank losing minutes. This dropped the #708 Zedrils from 16th to 22nd, but despite the off were able to stay in 3rd in G2 on stage 13. The 95 VW Golf of hotshoe NICHOLS/SCHENK took home the G2 overall win by 5 minutes.

WorldRallySport.com caught up with the Zedril’s during the 2nd service. Give the interview a listen here:

If you haven’t been to this rally, you need to go next year. The locals are awesome, scenery is epic, and the stage roads are some of the best I’ve driven in North America.