Having finished the 2002 RIQ in dead last place in our Honda CRX rally car, I wanted to see what it would be like to tackle the event in our updated 2.5L Subaru Impreza all wheel drive car.

Having put in a fair performance at the 2002 Maine Forest Winter Club Rally in early December, and then having some winter instruction at Team O’Neil in New Hampshire, we felt we were ready.

We attended Team O’Neil as a team(driver/co-driver) as we had asked Tim for instruction so would could better make pace notes. Tim obliged and asked Marc Goldfarb, an accomplished and experienced co-driver, to instruct us as well.

We wanted some more experience on how to perform recce and make our notes as RIQ 2003 would be our first opportunity to do so. The driving experience for me in the snow was humiliating and humbling, but that was good. The pace noting experience was invaluable.

There was one day of recce, and we were advised that teams could run each stage twice. We were up earlier than needed after a good night’s rest. Some of the stages were nearly closed due to recent snow and many recce vehicles got stuck. We performed recce in co-driver Dave Getchell’s Subaru Impreza RS, affectionately named, “Nigel.”

We completed the day and felt good about out notes. We felt they were consistent across all stages, and we had both come to a common language to use when describing the stage to each other.