Although my wife, Lorrie and I have only been road rallying for 18 months and members of the SCCA for less than a year, we have already put on two road rallies. In fact, the “Rum Runner” series of Rallies out of Princeton, MN have quickly garnered a reputation as enjoyable, beginner-centric events that can even present a challenge to the seasoned veterans.
On Feb 15th, 10 cars, (plus sweep) set out from the Coffee Corner coffee shop on Rum River Drive in Princeton on the first “Iced” Rum Runner. The 150 mile route took the entrants down to Becker before returning to Princeton and looping around the Rum River state forest to a finish, and prize giving at the appropriately named “Finish Line” cafe back in Princeton.
As befits a winter road rally, snow was lightly falling during the first section of the event much to the delight of everyone. The snowfall never got bad enough to cause anyone any problems, although later in the event the sweep vehicle was needed to pull one competitor out of a snow bank. In this regard, a big thank you must go out the sweep vehicle run by Gabe Johnson and Leann Frydrych who even played good samaritan to a member of the public that they saw in a ditch.
Winners in Class E (E in this events case stood for “experience” as the three E class cars could muster a good 100 years rallying experience between them) were Clarence and Kate Westberg who posted the only perfect “0” score for the rally.
Winners in Class S were Dale and Kristine DeWitt with 4 points.
The most popular class was N, the Novices. Here the winners were Kristen and Shawn Niehaus with 8 points.
All entrants were very happy at the end of the event, all saying they’d return again. A big thanks goes out to Jim and Kathy Jurgenson who came all the way from Milwaukee to participate. Hopefully a good report is going back to the road rally community in Milwaukee and maybe more cars from Wisconsin will be seen next time.
A successful road rally is only as good as the crew that works it. The sweep crew has already been credited. Checkpoints were worked by Lorrie Holmes, Dave Fuss, Kerry Freund and Randy Hoffa. A big thanks to all of them.
As Rallymaster I am sufficiently buoyed by the success of the event that planning has already started for the fall version of the Rum Runner. Perhaps we’ll see you there?
Above: Winners in Class E. Clarence and Kate Westberg.
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