Battered Gophers hang NCAA banner, lose two more skaters

As celebrations go, the University of Minnesota hockey team made the most of its banner-hanging party by scoring a hat trick of hat tricks in a 12-1 romp against Alabama-Huntsville. But coach Don Lucia would just as soon try to find an alternative means of celebrating.
It was OK to hang their NCAA championship banner in the Mariucci Arena rafters, and doing it before the home opener against Alabama-Huntsville might have been just fine, too.
“It was a thrill, but to be honest with you, I’m ready to move on,” said coach Don Lucia. “It was great, but it was last year, and now we’ve got a new season to worry about. They wanted to have a long ceremony, and present the championship rings at center ice, but I cut the ceremony down to about five minutes. We gave the rings to the guys Saturday night in a private thing.
“As it was, the guys you’d most want to be at something like this were the seniors who led the way, like Johnny Pohl, Jordan Leopold, Adam Hauser, and Jeff Taffe [who signed an NHL contract with Phoenix after his junior year]. But those guys are all gone. Our freshmen kind of said they didn’t feel like they should even be there.”
There were several reasons beyond the new year that could cause Lucia to be happy to do away with such ceremonies. For one, defending that title got a lot tougher in the face of players dropping off the lineup with injuries. An example was Grant Potulny, the gritty captain who scored the game-winning goal when Minnesota beat Maine 5-4 in overtime in the NCAA final. He wasn’t on the ice with his teammates, he was able to be up at the top of the stands officially raising the banner – because he’s not allowed to put any weight on a broken leg until mid-January. He slid into the boards in the opener against Ohio State at Xcel Energy Center.
Down on the ice, the Gophers treated their fans to a hat trick of hat tricks. Troy Riddle, Thomas Vanek and Jon Waibel each scored three goals for Minnesota. But even that had its drawbacks. When Waibel, who scored the first two goals of the game, scored his third, with 2:13 to go in the second period, he leaped up and punched the plexiglass in glee.
“And he broke his hand,” said Lucia.
Waibel joined Potulny, winger Barry Tallackson, who is out for a month with a separated shoulder, and Jerrid Reinholz, who was soon to join the list when he caught an elbow the next night and suffered a broken jaw.
“I’ve never had so many guys out with these kinds of injuries – a broken leg? A broken hand? A broken jaw?” said Lucia.
“Actually, I don’t think Alabama-Huntsville is that bad. We beat them the next night 4-2, and I think that was more indicative of the two teams.”
The Gophers had to score late to break a 2-2 tie in that one, although they volleyed 56 shots at the Huntsville net.
“One thing that’s good about the injuries is that some guys are getting more ice time than they would have otherwise,” said Lucia. “They’ll get a lot more experience, and we’ll find out how good they are. And when the injured guys start coming back, we should be just that much stronger. But in the meantime, Denver may run away with the WCHA race.”
Tallackson should be back from his separated shoulder by mid-December, Waibel as soon as he can get his hand inside a glove and grip the stick, Reinholz was facing four weeks, pushing his return to December, and Potulny will probably be out until mid-January.
“Obviously, we miss Potulny on the ice and in the locker room, because he is one of our more vocal leaders,” said Lucia.
Some of the younger Gophers are more than fulfilling their roles. Vanek leads the team in points, while Gino Guyer has been spectacular, whether getting points or not. Guyer was centering Greenway of Coleraine linemate Andy Sertich and former Eden Prairie state Mike Erickson on Friday against Hunstville, and the line threatened constantly, but figured only in the 12th goal, by Keith Ballard with Guyer assisting.
“In the Saturday game, I moved Dan Welch up with Guyer and Sertich,” said Lucia. “They didn’t score, but Welch got 11 shots in the game.”
Maybe the coach will have to restrict the scoring, or at least keep exuberant scorers away from the plexiglass. Because keeping his players on the ice might be of critical importance in case these Gophers start thinking about hanging another banner.

Badger women, new coach survive toughest 4-game stretch

He stood behind the bench as the University of Wisconsin womenÂ’s hockey team skated up and down the rink, and there was something familiar about the look, the way he tilted his head back, thinking. His arms were folded as he gazed out on the ice, watching players skate up and down the rink. Mostly, he was undemonstrative.
That may be what was misleading. He wasnÂ’t bouncing back and forth on the bench, patting this player on the back, suggesting something to that player and quite frequently running the palm of his hand over his face, as if to clear away an imaginary cobweb that had somehow attached itself to his face.
But it was Badger Bob JohnsonÂ’s kid, nonetheless.
He was disappointed that the Badgers had been swept by Minnesota, on the new Kathleen Ridder Arena ice sheet. The powerful Gophers had beaten Wisconsin 3-1 and 2-1, tough losses both. And they came one week after Wisconsin had lost and tied Minnesota-Duluth at Kohl Center in Madison.
“Our biggest problem through out first few games is that while we’re playing well, we’re just not scoring goals,” said Johnson.
That may be, but it also must be pointed out that the Badgers had just finished four straight games against the No. 1 “team” in the nation. When the Badgers lost 5-2 to UMD, it was a 2-2 game until the high-powered and top-ranked Bulldogs erupted for five third-period goals to put it away. The next night, Wisconsin held on for a 3-3 tie.
Then, off to Minnesota for the 3-1 and 2-1 losses.
However, right after that weekend, the national polls came out and showed UMD and Minnesota ranked dead even in a tie for the No. 1 rank in the nation. Both of them remained undefeated, with a combined 15-0-1 record, and remain cofavorites to win the WCHA title.
Johnson may be a rookie coach, and his competitiveness may have left him frustrated at the BadgersÂ’ lack of success in the four games, and at their opening 0-3-1 WCHA record, but two factors must be considered: 1. Wisconsin, which remains 3-0 in nonconference games, didnÂ’t get blown out in any of the four games; and, 2. The Badgers wonÂ’t ever face four consecutive games of that caliber, and, tough as it was to make it through, it could be the perfect overload training for the rest of the season.
Wisconsin, however, is ranked No. 5 in the nation with a 4-3-1 record. But thatÂ’s not good enough for Mark Johnson, who comes by his competitiveness with good reason.
Older fans will remember him wearing a Wisconsin jersey, and while he spent most of his time stickhandling through opponents and generally tormenting them, he will be most remembered for standing at the top of the faceoff circle, with Mike Eaves over at the other one, while Steve Alley snuck around by the net, and Craig Norwich or John Taft fed the puck in from the points. As a unit, they made the University of Wisconsin power play a formidible force. Johnson went on to star for Team USA in the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, and had a brilliant career in the National Hockey League. But Badger fans will remember him best for his days at Wisconsin.
Johnson was freshman of the year in the WCHA in 1976-77, when the Badgers won the WCHA league, playoff and NCAA titles, while Eaves, a year older, was All-America. Wisconsin returned to the NCAA tournament in 1978 but lost in the semifinals as Johnson (39-31—70) and Eaves (25-45—70) tied as the league’s leading scorer. And in 1979, Johnson was all-WCHA, WCHA most valuable player, and All-America.
Johnson served as assistant to Jeff Sauer with the menÂ’s team, and was a finalist for that job when Sauer stepped down before this season. The choice went to, of all people, Mike Eaves. Johnson was let down, obviously, but he was able to serve as an assistant coach with a USA Hockey select team last summer.
“I realized I wanted to coach, so I came home and looked over my options, and applied for the women’s job,” said Johnson.
His impact on the always-tenacious Badger womenÂ’s team is immediately evident. Under pressure, the Badger players never simply threw the puck and hoped it would get out of the defensive zone. Instead, they repeatedly moved the puck up and chipped it past the points to clear the zone.
“After these two weekends, I’ll know what we have to work on, and our players will know what they have to do to succeed against teams of that caliber,” said Johnson. “Some of the players are a little frustrated, but I think we learned a lot.
“Duluth has five or six top players who are very good. They’re smart, they move, and they execute very well. Minnesota is the same. When they put that line out with Natalie Darwitz and Krissy Wendell, it’s pretty impossible to stop them all through the game.
“In cases like those, we need to move the puck much quicker,” Johnson added. “Teams like that make things happen a lot quicker, and we’ve got to be able to move up to that pace.”
The Badgers had an added problem because they were short two of their most experienced defensemen against Minnesota. Carla MacLeod is out after breaking her leg in the Duluth series, and Sis Paulsen had to sit out a disciplinary penalty for a bit of a brawl against the Bulldogs.
“As it was, our ‘D’ got a little bit tired,” said Johnson.
That may have been true, but the Badgers have an experienced outfit, led by junior center Meghan Hunter and senior defenseman Kerry Weiland. Last season, Weiland was named first-team All-America and Hunter was placed on the second team.
Junior Steph Millar and senior Kendra Antony, and senior goaltender Jackie MacMillan, who is considered perhaps the best goaltender in the nation, give Wisconsin a solid nucleus. Senior Michelle Sikich, junior Jocelyn Cookson and an all-freshman line with Nikki Burish centering Sharon Cole and Grace Hutchins give the Badgers a varied attack.
At Minnesota, WendellÂ’s power-play goal staked the Gophers to a 1-0 lead, and Melissa Coulombe made it 2-0. But Jackie Friesen, a sophomore winger Johnson had placed on the firs line with Hunter and Steph Millar, scored with 5:41 remaining in the third period to cut the deficit to 2-1. LaToya ClarkeÂ’s power-play goal with 2:54 left clinched it for Minnesota, which outshot Wisconsin 27-20.
The next night, the Badgers came closer, despite being outplayed by a wider gap. MacMillan was brilliant, with 40 saves, while the Badgers forced Jody Horak to block only 12 shots. Nevertheless, it was MinnesotaÂ’s U.S. Olympians who did the damage, with Natalie Darwitz scoring her seventh goal of the season in the first period, and setting up Krissy WendellÂ’s 11th goal in the second for a 2-0 lead at 4:44. Nikki Burish, on that all-rookie line, got one back at 5:17 of the second period, and MacMillan held the Badgers close enough to scare the mighty Gophers the rest of the way.
“Some of our players are a little frustrated, but we’re getting some chances,” Johnson said.
If Johnson lives up to expectations, the Badgers will remain a threat for post-season play throughout, and nobody will be surprised if the Wisconsin power play starts to score some goals.

Lighter, quicker Sejna explosive leader of young CC Tigers

In the course of a long, WCHA season, fans may miss a game, and so they may end up overlooking a great player on some team. If that team happens to be Colorado College, and the player overlooked happens to be Peter Sejna, no problem – just ask any coach in the league. Then stand back for a barrage of superlatives.
His own coach, Scott Owens, puts it best.
“He’s a top-three player in the country,” said Owens, “and I don’t even know who the other two are.”
Owens, of course, gets to see Sejna up close every day in practice, not just a couple times a season, when he dashes around, trapping defenders flat-footed with an amazing change of pace, then zipping into the open in a blur of speed. He could be the best player in any game, the one who causes opponents to be back on their heels, even if he didnÂ’t score any points. He does, however, score points.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Sejna is one of the best in the country,” said Scott Sandelin, coach at Minnesota-Duluth. “He’s so strong on his skates, and on his stick. He can stop on a dime and change direction. And he’s got an NHL shot.”
Sandelin had just seen Sejna on the ice sheet at the DECC, where the UMD Bulldogs held him to only one assist in a 4-4 tie, only to have Sejna come back and score two goals that made a difference in a 4-3 CC victory in the second game of the series. “He had an improbable angle on the goal line on one of those goals,” said Owens. “It’s nice to get something out of a play like that.”
That ran SejnaÂ’s total to seven goals and five assists after six games this season, including another two-goal performance in a 3-0 victory over Maine a week earlier.
Sandelin paid the highest possible praise to Sejna behind closed doors, when he was talking casually after the game to a friend who is also a player agent. He was only kidding, of course, when he assigned his friend one task: “See that he gets signed after this year, will you?”
But Sejna, only a junior, has shown no sign of going away. But he would rather talk about his teammates than himself.
“This was a huge three points for us, because UMD is hard to play against in this building,” Sejna said. “I think we’re younger this year, but our young guys are learning fast, and our older guys are getting used to the younger ones. Tom Preissing and Joe Cullen are playing really well.”
Preissing, a dominating defenseman, scored a hat trick in the season opener, a 6-4 victory over Mass-Lowell, and has scored six goals to match his best season output, both as a sophomore and junior. Cullen is the latest of the Cullen brothers from Moorhead, Minn., including Matt, who starred at St. Cloud State and is now with the NHL’s Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and Mark, who was a senior star at CC last season, and Joe centers the second Tiger line. One of the young guys -–freshman Aaron Slattengren – centers Sejna and senior Noah Clarke on the first line.
“Slattengren is playing great,” said Sejna. “He showed what he can do when he played at Omaha and played very well.”
Sejna said he renewed his commitment this past summer, when he decided to stay home in Liptovsky Mikulas, Slovakia.
“I always had worked out at home until last year,” said Sejna. “Last summer I stayed in the U.S. and worked. But I didn’t think I played good enough last season. I think I was too strong last year. I weighed 215, but our line just wasn’t clicking, and I got less points last year.
“I decided what I had to do this last summer. I always have to be faster, and I stayed back home in Slovakia and just worked out all summer, with my brother Milan, who plays in the Central Hockey League for Indianapolis. I came to school at 195 pounds, and I feel better. And the puck is going in a little easier.”
The Tigers have been in the thick of WCHA contention for the last decade, and Owen, who is in his fourth year since taking over for Don Lucia, knows it might take a little time for this team to hit full stride, because he’s playing six freshmen on regular status. The Tigers do have the appearance of being “Minnesota West,” because three of his four centermen are freshmen from Minnesota – Slattengren from Proctor, Marty Sertich from Roseville, and Trevor Frischmon from Blaine, as are defensemen Weston Tardy from Duluth and Mark Stuart from Rochester. That’s in addition to juniors Colin Stuart, a winger from Rochester, and defenseman Andrew Canzanello from Rochester, and seniors Cullen, from Moorhead, and Preissing, from Rosemount. That’s nine Minnesotans out of 18 skaters.
But there is no mistaking who the offensive sparkplug is.
“No question, Sejna is carrying us in the early going,” said Owens. “He came back sleeker and in better shape this year, and he’s taken the bull by the horns. He’s truly improved every area of his game – mental, team, and individual. He’s on a mission. When the game is on the line, he scores big goals.”

(John Gilbert has covered the WCHA since the mid-1960s at the Duluth News-Tribune, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Murphy McGinnis Newspapers. Back home in Duluth, he has just published his first book, “Return to Gold Country,” chronicling last season’s University of Minnesota NCAA championship run. He can be reached by email at jgilbert@duluth.com, and you can visit his website at jgilbert.duluth.com.)

Aviator gives Lincoln a “Mini Me” version of Navigator

The Lincoln Navigator was a hit when it first was unveiled. A large, imposing sport-utility-vehicle hit, but a hit, nonetheless. In fact, the Navigator is simply too big for a lot of people who would otherwise be impressed by its looks and image. So, for 2003, shortly after introducing a new and vastly improved Navigator, Lincoln is also introducing a more compact showroom companion for it – the Lincoln Aviator.
Ford Motor Company might actually have only intended to do a cosmetic facelift on the Ford Expedition when it created the Navigator, but with its distinctive grille and unapologetic size, the classy Navigator immediately carved out something approaching icon status while also helping create the “luxury” SUV segment. The new Navigator is better in almost every way, with a lowered stance, better posture, radically improved suspension, steering and interior. But it’s still huge, and it costs up there around $50,000.
When I attended the introduction of the new Aviator in Hot Springs, Va., I thought at a glance that Lincoln had decided to set out a fleet of Navigators. Then I realized the assembled vehicles were strikingly similar from the front, but they were decidedly shorter when viewed from the side. When parked next to a Navigator, the Aviator truly is smaller in every dimension. Not small, by any means, but reduced in height, length and weight.
That first-glance was my second misconception of the Aviator. I had seen preview information on the Aviator, and I realized that it was a Lincoln version of the Mercury Mountaineer, which is MercuryÂ’s version of the extremely popular Ford Explorer. So my preconceived idea was that the Aviator would be a classier Mountaineer. Then I saw it and thought it was a Navigator.
In reality, it is somewhere between the two — a Mini-Me version of the Navigator.
The Aviator starts out on the chassis of the Ford Explorer/Mercury Mountaineer, which was new for the 2002 model year, and features a patented porthole-design rear axle/frame layout, plus independent rear suspension, creating a lower stance and added interior space to house three rows of seats. After that, Lincoln made sure to move the Aviator upscale from every standpoint. Powering the Aviator is a high-tech revision of the 4.6-liter V8, which delivers 302 horsepower and 300 foot-pounds of torque, and a towing capability of 7,300 pounds.
When I suggested that the Aviator might best be represented as “Mountaineer meets Navigator,” I was stopped by Jim Cain, Lincoln’s manager of product development for the Aviator launch.
“It’s more like ‘Whopper’ and ‘Whopper Jr.,’ “ said Cain.
His impromptu analogy works, because if the Navigator is a whopper, the Aviator is intended to be a whopper junior.
“Our market research showed that as impressed as people are with Navigator, a lot of people don’t need a vehicle that big,” said Cain. “People loved the idea of a smaller Navigator. Now they can come into the showroom and compare the two, and they’ll see that they can get the same genes as the Navigator, with less size and with more agility and sportiness in the Aviator.”
The base for the introduction of the Aviator was The Homestead, an enormous resort hotel in the tiny town of Hot Springs, Va. The new SUVs stood in stark contrast to the ageless and immaculately renovated old hotel, which was built in 1766, but the location had a more pragmatic purpose. It allowed automotive journalists to put the Aviator through some spirited driving maneuvers around the twisting roads of the Allegheny Mountain countryside nearby.
Lincoln officials project sales of about 35,000 Aviators in its introductory year in what is a rapidly expanding market segment called midsize-luxury SUVs. Top competition is envisioned as the BMW X5, Mercedes ML-500, Lexus RX300 and Acura MDX, although some of the fancier General Motors SUVs up to the Denali also are within the target market. While Aviator is priced between the upscale and larger Navigator in the luxury SUV bracket, and the more modest Mountaineer, those projections would fill a nice region for LincolnÂ’s marketing strategy. Navigator sales are anticipated to top 30,000 this year, and the Mountaineer is projected to sell between 40,000-50,000 for 2003.
Toby Arnold, advance product marketing manager for Lincoln, explained that the Aviator will come in Luxury and Premium versions, priced from $40,000 to $50,000. That means the top Aviator will overlap just slightly with the lowest-priced 4×2 version of the Navigator, while the least expensive 4×2 Aviator will still be slightly above the most-expensive Mountaineer. “But the Aviator has 60 more horsepower” than the Mountaineer, Arnold added.
In order to take on such luminaries as the BMW X5 and Mercedes ML500 and Lexus RX300, Lincoln had to have a distinctive vehicle. Ford Motor Company paid great attention to differentiating the Mountaineer styling from FordÂ’s Explorer, so Lincoln was not about to merely put a Navigator face on the Mountaineer for its new midsize luxury SUV.
“The only common body panels shared with the Mountaineer are the roof and the doors,” said Cain. “Among the differences, the 4.6-liter V8 with dual-overhead cams and four valves per cylinder is unique to Aviator; the suspension has been modified completely, front and rear, from greater use of aluminum, to larger bushings, different attachment points and new monotube dampers; a new ZF steering system is also unique to Aviator; and the interior is completely different.”
Driving back and forth on some twisting mountain roadways, the Aviator showed up well against the BMW X5, Mercedes ML500 and Acura MDX. It is subjective whether the Aviator beats the X5 in sportiness, or the ML in luxury or the MDX in utility, but by creating a vehicle that at least challenges all of those for their strongest asset makes the Aviator possibly the best compromise for buyers who like all those attributes.
Exterior styling follows the Navigator look from the trademark grille, surrounded by clear-lens quad headlights and lower foglights, integrated into the lower spoiler, all the way to the rear. The lower molding of the bumper and side sills is charcoal grey, which makes the vehicle look lower, which is appropriate, because it handles less like a typical, top-heavy body-on-frame truck-based SUV.
Just as striking in similarity to the Navigator is the interior of the Aviator, which features the harmonious blend of American walnut burl wood trim, premium leather, and the new satin-nickel finish that dominates the center dash stack and console of the Navigator. Also the same is the light-emitting diode instrument lighting for the symmetric gauges. The look is so impressive, I figured it would remain unique to Navigator, but instead, Lincoln intends to capitalize on that look to establish a “DNA” throughout the Lincoln line.
It would seem that the Aviator might be as big a threat to prospective Navigator buyers as to conquests from competitors. Lincoln officials donÂ’t foresee that.
“About 12-15 percent of luxury SUV buyers will come from people moving up from luxury sedans,” Cain said. “And once buyers move into the big-size SUVs, they usually don’t leave that size and status. We don’t expect to see much cannibalization of the Navigator by the Aviator. We think 10 percent of prospective Navigator buyers might go to Aviator, and maybe 5-10 percent of current Navigator owners might migrate down for their next purchase, but that’s about all. We don’t expect to see any fall-off in Navigator sales, mainly because the new Navigator is such an improved vehicle.”
Aviator also represents LincolnÂ’s attempt to attract younger buyers. Mike Crowley, Lincoln marketing manager, said that since the introduction of the Navigator and the Lincoln LS sedan, 70 percent of LS buyers and 60 percent of Navigator buyers were people who had never before bought a Lincoln vehicle.
Navigator buyers average 50 years of age, while LS buyers average 51, which is a significant difference from Town Car buyers, whose average age is 70. Lincoln is aiming the Aviator at age 45, with a more active lifestyle for sports and weekend activities. While 70 percent of Navigator buyers are male, Lincoln anticipates that will drop to 60 percent with the Aviator. Many women seem to like to drive large SUVs, and for those who do, they might well choose the Aviator as being plenty big but more manageable than the larger Navigator.
The engine began as the 4.6-liter modular V8, which has been used in everything from sedans to pickup trucks to Mustangs and SUVs. In the Aviator, that engine is redone of all aluminum, with the dual overhead-cam design, significantly increasing the power output and towing capacity. The 302 horsepower peak at 5,750 RPMs and the 300 foot-pounds of torque peaks at 3,250 but 90 percent of that maximum is available from 2,000 RPMs upward. The RPM red-line limit is 6,300, with electronic control against over-revving.
The transmission is a five-speed automatic with a high stall-speed torque converter. Two-wheel drive is available on base models, but all-wheel-drive is expected to account for 65-70 percent of Aviators. With all-wheel drive, FordÂ’s AdvanceTrac stability system allows the Aviator to move straight ahead even if only one tire has traction by helping correct potential oversteer or understeer skids.
The independent rear suspension makes it easy for the third seat to fold down flat into the floor. The second row can be purchased either as bucket seats with a console or a 40/20/40 split fold-down bench, depending on the choice of either six or seven occupants. The ZF Servotronic II rack-and-pinion steering complements the suspension to upgrade the steering precision. The Aviator corners smoothly and stays stable and flat even around twisty roads, while the steering provides excellent road-feel feedback. Four-wheel disc brakes with antilock and electronic brake-force features, and 17-inch wheels are standard.
Other features include dual-zone climate control, back-up warning beeper, six-way power front buckets on both sides, a premium audio system with in-dash CD and cassette players and secondary controls on the steering wheel, thicker glass to aid sound-deadening, and several Premium model items, such as high-intensity discharge headlights, power moonroof, and a DVD rear-seat entertainment system.
Safety elements start with accident-avoidance capabilities because of the enhanced agility and handling of the tightly coordinated steering and improved suspension systems, the lowered stance because of the rear-axle and suspension design, and the quick-responding steering system. In a crash, the dual-stage front airbags, seatbelt pretensioners, and the Safety Canopy side-curtain airbag system aid survivability.
Ford claims “best in class” achievement in ground clearance at 8.9 inches, first-row shoulder room at 58.3 inches, legroom at 42.4 inches, and third-row headroom at 38.9 inches, and legroom at 34.8 inches, as well as for cargo capacity for load length behind the front seat of 78.1 inches, and cargo volume of 39.9 cubic feet behind the second seat, while the 7,100-pound towing capacity in all-wheel drive and 7,300 in 4×2 are also both best in class.
Fuel economy is estimated by the EPA at 13 miles per gallon city and 18 highway, with a 22.5-gallon fuel tank. That represents a large improvement over the Navigator. More concrete comparisons show that in size, the Navigator is 206 inches long and the Aviator 193.3 inches; the Navigator has a 118.8-inch wheelbase and the Aviator 113.7; the Navigator is 80.2 inches wide and the Aviator 76; the Navigator is 77.8 inches high and the Aviator 71.4; and the Navigator weighs a hefty 6,041 pounds compared to the AviatorÂ’s comparatively svelte 4,975.
Obviously, the Aviator is still plenty big enough, but represents a more reasonable size for a large segment of consumers who want their luxury with some maneuverability, too.

New Suburban carries everything, and adds agility for 2003

One way to conduct a road test of a new vehicle is to take an overnight trip. Drive somewhere, live with the vehicle a little, stay overnight, then return. That’s exactly what my wife, Joan, and I decided to do recently, driving from Duluth in Northern Minnesota to Minneapolis. We both usually travel light, but this time, we had a problem. We traveled heavy. We knew the weather could be changeable in October – especially this October – so, should we take these shoes or those boots? This jacket or that windbreaker? The heavy sweater over there or the golf shirt? And what if we want to dress up a little?
Actually, the problem we had was that we made simple decisions in every case: We took everything!
The “problem” was enabled because we were road-testing a 2003 Chevrolet Suburban, which, as far as overdoing things is strictly over the top. There was no problem finding enough storage space. We had enough room to take one of everything, and we probably could have taken every possession we owned in every closet in the house, if we had concentrated. Needless to say, we used only a few of the numerous things we took, and we realized that if we owned a Suburban, we would never make a decision on what to bring along.
Sometimes staying pretty much the same isn’t such a bad idea. The entire automotive world seems to be whirling to fill every imaginable niche, while the Chevrolet Suburban just keeps on truckin.’ The oldest and most successful of enclosed-rear trucks, the Suburban has been in a class of its own for decades ago, long before the term “sport-utility vehicle” was ever uttered. The Suburban has fought off all challengers of whatever size and remains the vehicle of choice for those who want their SUV large, powerful, roomy and capable of towing just about anything.
Ford attempted to compete with the Suburban by first coming out with the Expedition, and Lincoln Navigator, and then with the enormous Excursion, which did manage to be longer than the Suburban, but never could dent the SuburbanÂ’s dominance, and is now headed for extinction.
With a length of 219 inches, a width of 79 inches and a weight of 5,590 pounds, the Suburban is a full 20 inches longer than the Tahoe, which was spun off from the Suburban years ago to satisfy customers who thought the Suburban was simply too big. It is big. It can be called enormous, but Chevrolet sold 154,782 of them in 2001, and running sales figures for 2002 show an increase of 5.8 percent. Customer loyalty remains over 50 percent, which is pretty amazing for a vehicle that now costs between $38,000 and $50,000-something.
The test vehicle was a Suburban 2500, built at the Arlington, Texas, plant, while Suburbans are also assembled at Janesville, Wis., and Silas, Mexico. It is significant that this one came from Texas, because in its first couple of decades of service, Texans bought more Suburbans than anyone, because it always has been the ideal heavy-duty hauler for hauling horses or any size trailer from the ranch. The test vehicle, which only had two-wheel drive, had a trailer towing package, various convenience option groupings, and listed for $47,468, off a base price of $37,853.
The Suburban was freshened up in 2000, and probably will go another four years before it gets a thorough restyling, but Chevrolet has made some significant changes for 2003. Several of the changes deal with the criticism that the Suburban is too big – a valid complaint, because it is so big that it is cumbersome to steer and manipulate in citified traffic. Enter Quadrasteer.
The availability of Quadrasteer, the new four-wheel-steering concept developed by General Motors, takes care of the agility problem. A normal Suburban takes up 44.5 feet when it tries to make a full U-turn; with Quadrasteer, the same Suburban with Quadrasteer completes a circle in only 35.2 feet – over 9 feet less! That’s more than a full lane-width, and it makes the Suburban feel much more manageable.
Quadrasteer works at low speed so that when you turn the steering wheel hard to the left, for example, the rear wheels turn a bit toward the right via a sophisticated steer-by-wire system. They donÂ’t turn as sharply as the front, but they turn enough to make the rear end swing almost as if the whole vehicle were pivoting. As speed increases, the opposite angle of the rear-wheelsÂ’ turning is reduced, until it gets to 0.000 at 20 miles per hour. From there on up, the rear wheels turn slightly in the same direction as the front wheels, which aids stability in freeway-speed lane-changing maneuvers.
The best and most notable function is when turning corners on downtown streets, where the device is impressive; or for parking, when it is a tremendous benefit; and if you ever had to make a U-turn, itÂ’s suddenly easy.
Four-wheel disc brakes with antilock are standard, as is a dual-stage front passenger airbag. Choosing Quadrasteer adds $4,495 to the $37,853 base price for the 4×2 version of the Suburban. You can also spend $1,335 on a package that gains all sorts of audio upgrades, including a CD player and Bose speakers. The Autoride system is another $925. StabiliTrak, which was developed by Cadillac, is optional and has advanced to a four-channel system for 2003. If anything causes a Suburban to stray from where the driver is aiming, StabiliTrak takes over, applying or reducing the throttle or braking in reaction to sensors on each wheel to reduce the tendency to spin. Traction control, limited slip differential, and side airbags for both front occupants are other optional features.
The test Suburban had a 6.0-liter V8, with 320 horsepower and 360 foot-pounds of torque. The EPA fuel-economy estimate projects 14 miles per gallon in city driving and 18 on the highway. Consumers also can select a base 5.3-liter V8 with 285 horsepower, or an 8.1-liter V8 with 340 horsepower.
The familiar squarish look of the Suburban remains, but the interior has been upgraded considerably. First, the third-row seat bench has been enlarged, allowing full, eight-occupant seating. And that still leaves room for a large storage area behind the third bench. Naturally, the backrests of the second and third seats folds down to stretch to 77 cubic feet of room. You get three-zone climate control standard, and you can choose a rear DVD system. A 34-function information monitoring system will tell you everything that might be amiss, or you can easily program in your choice of whether you want the horn to honk or the lights to flash when you hit the remote lock switch. And the pedals can be adjusted up to 3 inches to suit individual drivers.
My favorite feature on the interior is the decision Chevrolet made to install a new steering wheel in the Suburban, and in the spinoff vehicles such as Tahoe, Yukon, Escalade and all. For years, those big GM SUVs have had a deeply dished – and extremely plain – steering wheel, and nobody seemed to notice that when various remote switches for audio controls were installed, a driver couldn’t reach the remote switches without taking a hand off the wheel, unless he or she had fingers that were 8 inches long. The new steering wheel design is attractively contemporary, much less dished, and all the remote devices are eminently reachable.
After all these years, it would seem that Suburban might not need many enhancements to attract new customers. But finding out that the 2003 can turn in a slick radius, and at the spin of a neat new steering wheel could convince some skeptics, as well.

« Previous Page — Next Page »

• About the Author

  John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
  
  For those who want to keep up with John Gilbert's view of sports, mainly hockey with a Minnesota slant, click on the following:
  
  Click here for sports
  
  

• Exhaust Notes:

  PADDLING
  More and more cars are offering steering-wheel paddles to allow drivers manual control over automatic or CVT transmissions. A good idea might be to standardize them. Most allow upshifting by pulling on the right-side paddle and downshifting with the left. But a recent road-test of the new Porsche Panamera, the paddles for the slick PDK direct-sequential gearbox were counter-intuitive -- both the right or left thumb paddles could upshift or downshift, but pushing on either one would upshift, and pulling back on either paddle downshifted. I enjoy using paddles, but I spent the full week trying not to downshift when I wanted to upshift. A little simple standardization would alleviate the problem.
  
  

  SPEAKING OF PADDLES
  The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution has the best paddle system, and Infiniti has made the best mainstream copy of that system for the new Q50, and other sporty models. And why not? It's simply the best. In both, the paddles are long, slender magnesium strips, affixed to the steering column rather than the steering wheel. Pull on the right paddle and upshift, pull on the left and downshift. The beauty is that while needing to upshift in a tight curve might cause a driver to lose the steering wheel paddle for an instant, but having the paddles long, and fixed, means no matter how hard the steering wheel is cranked, reaching anywhere on the right puts the upshift paddle on your fingertips.
  
  

  TIRES MAKE CONTACT
  Even in snow-country, a few stubborn old-school drivers want to stick with rear-wheel drive, but the vast majority realize the clear superiority of front-wheel drive. Going to all-wheel drive, naturally, is the all-out best. But the majority of drivers facing icy roadways complain about traction for going, stopping and steering with all configurations. They overlook the simple but total influence of having the right tires can make. There are several companies that make good all-season or snow tires, but there are precious few that are exceptional. The Bridgestone Blizzak continues to be the best=known and most popular, but in places like Duluth, MN., where scaling 10-12 blocks of 20-30 degree hills is a daily challenge, my favorite is the Nokian WR. Made without compromising tread compound, the Nokians maintain their flexibility no matter how cold it gets, so they stick, even on icy streets, and can turn a skittish car into a winter-beater.