Twenty-four teams from around the world participated in the rally, with the three-member team of Gary Webb, Greg Hightower, and Russ Kraushaar winning the overall Time-Speed-Distance (TSD) rally in a Subaru Impreza RS, according to the Alcan 5000 Web site.

In the February edition, Parts & People related the story of Team Mitsubishi from the Portland area and its efforts to organize and participate in this rally for the first time. With two Mitsubishi Outlanders supplied by Mitsubishi Motors, the three-member teams placed well in their categories. Team Mitsubishi Organizer Jeff Zurschmeide, a Portland automotive journalist, said the teams prepared well for the journey and performed admirably during TSD sections of the road rally.

Car 1 of the Team Mitsubishi (April Smith/Marcus Song/Kevin Poirier) placed second of five in the Unlimited SUV Class (fourth overall), while Car 2 (with Zurschmeide, Gary Bockman, and Matt Tabor) placed third out of nine in the Stock Odometer Class.

With its start in Washington, the rally route headed north to British Columbia, and Zurschmeide said they were soon in freezing temperatures. The rally wound through the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territory, the Arctic Circle, the end of most northern road in Canada at Tuktoyatuk, then through Alberta before climaxing in Jasper.

Zurschmeide described the amazing sunrises and sunsets the teams encountered, as well as caribou, moose, and bison in abundance along the way.

"It was an experience of a lifetime," he said. "Northern B.C. and the Yukon Territory are exceptionally beautiful. The land is strewn with lakes and rivers, heavily forested, and features hills and mountains of all kinds--from old hills worn smooth by wind to craggy mountains that seem to have burst out of the earth."

A different terrain was found in remote areas of the rally, Zurschmeide said. "From Inuvik to Tuk, you drive down the frozen McKenzie River to the Beaufort Sea (part of the Arctic Ocean). If you've never driven on an ice road before, like me, you might expect the ice to be reasonably smooth. It isn't. Tidal forces and freezing expansion makes the ice road a pretty bumpy ride with little traction control," he said.

"When you get to Tuk, you're in tundra country--no trees to speak of, and they get these funny formations called pingoes. These are made of dirt and ice, and when the ice freezes, it (pushes) up to these 150-foot-tall volcano-like hills," Zurschmeide said in his daily rally blog.

While most weather conditions were not severe, he said, the temperature did hit 16 degrees below zero Fahrenheit at one point.

Zurschmeide said the Hankook tires supplied for the trip performed exceptionally well and gripped the road under all road conditions, as did the Mitsubishi Outlanders. "The Outlanders were sure-footed and the engine power was great. They helped make us competitive in our respective classes."

Each of the two Outlanders had but one minor crash during the entire rally, Zurschmeide said. "Our vehicle bounced off a guard rail on a one-lane bridge and Car 1 spun out into a snow bank."