BELLEVUE -- Glenn Wallace has many concerns about his daunting drive through a remote corner of North America in his turbocharged Subaru.
One of which is an unexpected encounter with a wayward pedestrian called moose.
``I'm hoping none of it is in front of us,'' the 39-year-old native Australian said, seriously.
The long road will be one of mystery and adventure for Wallace and his team as they prepare for the Alcan Winter Rally, one of the most challenging road rallies on the continent.
The grueling rally, which starts in Kirkland on Wednesday morning and ends in Anchorage, Alaska, nine days later, will take man and machine on a 5,000-mile journey through extreme conditions on mostly snowplowed paved and gravel highways.
The rally's route is a scenic trip through the heart of British Columbia, Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories and finally, Alaska.
The northernmost point of the rally will find surviving teams in Tuktoyaktut, Northern Territories, which sits on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and lies hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle.
Wallace, a program manager from Redmond, will drive a 3,263-pound, 300-horsepower Subaru WRX STi, one of three Subaru Challenge Team entries in the expected 20-car factory field of Audis, Mazdas, Hondas, Mitsubishis, BMWs and a Hummer.
Wallace will join co-driver and navigator Greg Hightower, 41, a small-business owner from Bellevue, and support person Francesca Carozza, of Fountain Hills, Ariz., on their first Alcan attempt.
Wallace and Hightower have a combined 41 years of road-rally experience, mostly on Northwest terrain, but never on an extensive course quite like this one.
The Alcan rally, which is presented every four years, appeals to both of them for some obvious reasons.
The rally is by no means a high-speed race or an X-Games joyride, but a carefully calculated and well-structured ride through a freezer of majestic and unforgiving land.
It's part performance and part adventure.
``My wife wouldn't let me do the Dakar Rally in Africa, so this is the next closest marathon event,'' Wallace said. ``I've always been a fan of marathon rallies. ... Those really excite me because of the remoteness and the fact that I'm not fit enough to go and climb (Mount) Everest.
``For me, it's like a personal Everest.''
For Hightower, it's a thrill of a lifetime.
``It isn't the trophies and the competition that you'll remember, it's where you have been, whom you were with,'' he said. ``You drive 5,000 miles through the Arctic in February, and you will see things that you will never see anywhere else. This is the only way you can get these kinds of adventures and experiences.''
Six years ago, Hightower participated in a rally that encompassed the Canadian portion of the Alcan route. The trip was full of fun and phenomenon, including a front-row seat to view the Northern Lights. He wants another glimpse or two of the exhilarating Aurora Borealis.
``It's just the icing on the cake,'' Hightower said.
The ride itself is only a fraction of the full-course effort.
The event requires plenty of thought and preparation, not only for teammates, but also for the car itself. The supply list is long and detailed, an inventory that would make even Lewis and Clark proud. There are spare parts, extra studded tires and belts, the right synthetic oil and heaters, flares and snow shovels, clothing and other gear.
The team prepares for the worst, like temperatures that could reach 60 degrees below zero. Driving, navigation and cold weather survival skills are critical. Nasty storms and obstacles are part of the game. Visibility often is tested.
The Subaru from the Eastside will even have a high-mounted rear fog light on the roof, as if to say to supply trucks that share the highway, ``Small car here, same color as the snow, please don't hit us,'' Wallace said.
The deep freeze can affect many things, such as fan belts and electronics, and puts safety-conscious teams on their toes as they keep engine blocks and computers warm and functional.
Team and rally-event radio channels are essential. ``Buddy cars'' act as guardians as they accompany the field.
But perhaps the biggest concern for the team will be the coordination of driver and navigator and staying out of trouble -- from breakdowns and wrong turns, to snow-bank meetings and wildlife encounters.
``We want to get to the Arctic Circle and back, so it's important to keep the car on the road,'' Wallace said. ``My biggest fear is my own skills. It's very easy to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and that's how rallying works. If you drive that perfect rally, if you make the fewest mistakes, you will win.
``We're our own competition,'' he said. ``It's pretty much a mental endurance exercise. Can you stay focused, turn at the right place, stay exactly on the right speed, deal with the remoteness, deal with the situations that come up? People who do really well are people who recover from bad situations they find themselves in.''
The navigator, with computer assistance, will make sure the driver stays right on course -- at the coordinated time, speed and distance.
``The hardest part of (my job) is making sure the driver isn't losing focus,'' Hightower said.
The rally will require teams to cover several hundred miles each day, following mostly the Alcan and eventually the McKenzie Ice highways. The longest day will stretch 830 miles, from Fort St. John, British Columbia, to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Teams also will compete in four ice-slalom-racing stages.
The rally will be composed of slaloms, transit (fully grouped riding) and time-speed-distance (TSD) sections. More than 90 percent of the route is composed of touring sections with a reasonable elapsed time for each. Teams usually will maintain speed of 35-40 mph throughout most of the route.
Competition takes place in 25- to 75-mile TSD sections, with a one-point-per-second penalty for those teams that arrive at checkpoints early or late. Six to 10 checkpoints may be hidden in each section. Teams can expect to see two or three TSD challenges each day.
Beyond the scores and the performance, teams will experience one of the last frontiers, visiting Dawson City, Yukon Territory, and many of the other towns made notable during the Klondike gold rush.
More importantly, teams will work together and share the many stories, a fact not lost on Hightower.
``I will have driven to places few people have ever heard of, let alone been,'' he said.
Wallace eagerly awaits the trip, which also will factor in another 2,000 miles on the way back to Seattle.
He intends to return with everything intact.
``I'm accepting the fact that I will replace the windshield when I get back,'' he said.
ROOT THEM ON
Follow Wallace and Hightower's progress, see a map of the race course and read about the competitors at www.challengedriving.com