THUNDER BAY – LIVING – On June 16th Dave Myers and Dave Clark, two care enthusiasts who are making their way across Canada by car, will reach Thunder Bay. This is no car ordinary trip! The Canada 5000 Rally Against Alzheimer’s is a massive project centered around a 5000-mile drive across Canada in a vintage Volvo 122S.
The Canada 5000 is part history project – recounting the famous Shell 4000 Rally races that ran across Canada in the 1960s. It’s part road trip – following various routes of the original Shell 4000 Rally, but stretching it out to 5000 miles across eight Canadian provinces. It’s part car rebuild – we’ll be driving a 1967 Volvo 122S, so we’ll be taking a non-running 48-year-old Swedish sedan and bringing it back to life so that it can make this journey. It’s part writing project – Dave Clark will be documenting the whole experience and interviewing the drivers and co-drivers who ran the original race. It’s part fundraiser – Dave Myers and Dave Clark will also be raising awareness and money to fight Alzheimer’s Disease.
The trip will pay homage to the Shell 4000 Rally which was considered to be the longest and most challenging rallies of the 1960s. Professional drivers and manufacturer-sponsored teams navigated 4000 miles across Canada every spring from 1961 to 1968 and again in 1971. The 2015 Rally will be following the routes of several of the original races from coast to coast – Vancouver to Halifax. To be historically accurate, Clark and Myers will be running the race in a Volvo 122S, the same model of car that won the rally twice and was always a top runner.
“Aside from the experience this rally provides us as automotive enthusiasts; it is also about raising awareness of Alzheimer’s disease and money to fight it. We are raising funds through donations and sponsorships, with all of the proceeds going to the Alzheimer Society” says Dave Myers whose mother Marilyn was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in her early 60s. It progressed quickly. Today, at 75, she is no longer the strong, amazing woman she once was and should have continued to be. ““I believe Alzheimer’s and dementia represent a silent epidemic that will become a health and social crisis in the near future if it isn’t already.”
To find out more about the trip, how to donate and where the Myers and Clark are people can follow them through the Storm TeleMatics Rally Tracker on their website www.canada5000.ca or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TravelDriveRace.