It was only 18 months ago that my wife and I started out Road Rallying at the Coulee Classic in Wisconsin. What follows is the event report I wrote for the Intermarque Newsletter in November 2012. Hopefully it will give beginners a taste of what road rally can be like, and perhaps for those who were there it will rekindle some pleasant memories.
"On Saturday September 29th we entered the world of classic car regularity rallying at the Coulee Classic in Wisconsin. This is a report of how our day went.The event, put on by Auto Italia Minnesota was due to start in Maiden Rock, WI at 11am and as registration started at 10, we had to leave home at eight as it was a two-hour plus drive from Princeton. The drive there was a wholly unremarkable zip along the highways and interstates around the Twin Cities that didn't even get interesting until we got onto Hwy. 35 south of Prescott, apart that is, from zipping through the Lowry Hill Tunnel in Minneapolis, that kind of put me in mind of the tunnel on the Monaco Grand Prix circuit.
Once past Prescott we thought we were getting a taster of what the rally roads were going to be like, zipping up and down hills surrounded by trees changing color. The scenery and views here were great. We were later to find out this was nothing like the rally roads, more of that later.
Arriving at Village Park in Maiden Rock we were greeted to the super sight of a line of bright shiny cars. Old classics and newer cars too. Modern Fiat 500's (no original Cinquicento's sadly) and an Alfa were the Italian marques on show. British cars were the most popular of the classics with a Healey 3000, two MG's (FG and an MGA) and a Triumph TR3 there. A 2CV was perhaps the most unusual car on view and a classic Porsche 356 the sweetest looking judging by the attention it was getting from passers by. Even FG was recognized by one competitor as the "self appointed most beautiful rubber nosed MGB in Minnesota". Which was gratifying as that means people do actually read what I put out here.
After the drivers briefing had finished, 11am arrived and we were all off! Traffic was stopped on Hwy 35 as we exited the park and headed south out of town, very cool. Technically the cars should have gone off at minute intervals and we should have waited until 11:12am as we were car number 12. But as this first leg was to set the cars odometer this was not an issue. It just lead to a string of cars waiting at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere to begin the rally instead of at the park in Maiden Rock.
So, a quick word or two of explanation to those of you who don't know what a regularity rally is. A regularity rally is an event over a number of stages, some long, some short, here the aim is not to be the fastest but to be the nearest to a set time for each stage. If you match that time you get zero points. Faster or slower than that time, you get penalized. You are always penalized a positive point score. Not a negative score if you're faster and a positive score if slower. The winner is the person who has the lowest overall points score by the end of the event. Zero points would be perfect and is pretty difficult to achieve as you're penalized for being even .01 of a minute off. Setting the odometer like in the very first stage is important so that you know how accurate your odometer is in relation to the official race distances listed on the directions, showing where any turns and road junctions are on the stage.
Another confusing thing for the first timer is that the timing is done on a decimal scale, i.e. half a minute is not recorded as 30 seconds but .50 minutes, 15 seconds become .25 minutes, etc. This helps with the scoring but it is quite an unusual sight to see an official timing device counting off the time like this the first time you see it.
At our next appointed start time we were off, feeling our way around the stages to start with. If we were close to our appointed finish time at the end of each stage it was more by luck than judgement. We quickly discovered that the scenery around the Wisconsin Coulee country was gorgeous, I mean really gorgeous and with the fall colors almost at peak it was extra beautiful. The Reds of the traditional Barns against a background of the yellows and oranges of the trees changing. All against a deep blue sky. At times it was difficult to concentrate on driving. Many times we wanted to stop and take pictures, but we also wanted to make the effort to have a good go at this "regularity rallying". Sadly on stage three we came across a fellow competitors AC Cobra by the side of the road. "No spark" came the reply when we stopped to ask how everything was.
After three stages we had a lunch break in Plum City. The sight of a dozen classics in the main street created some interest amongst the locals, one of whom had parked up in Main Street in his own classic car. A colossal yellow Chrysler Imperial. This thing was so big you could have fitted four MGB's in it. With lunch over we filled up with petrol and headed out. This was where we got confused. We had some issues following the instructions getting out of Plum City and we weren't the only ones. I think we lost one set of competitors in a yellow Honda for good there. Once out of Plum City we missed a road sign because it was obscured by corn stalks. A rookie mistake, experts would have been measuring the distances, (see above on the importance of setting your odometer). By the end of the stage we were some 14 minutes off our pace. We took a 14.50 minute delay as was our right to do. So we set off and set about recovering the 14 minutes we lost. We got through the rest of the stages OK but it looks like we should have kept taking delays through the other stages until the next break in Durand. But this aspect of the rallying wasn't clearly explained at the briefing for us newbies so we ended up gathering loads and loads of penalty points over the next couple of stages. Stage five gave us the pleasant sight of meeting about 10 Corvette owners of a club out for a drive. We shared a cheery wave with every one of them as we passed each other. The break in Durand was welcome as that got us back on schedule and gave us a chance to chat with some of the other competitors. With four more stages to go we were starting to grasp the concept of regularity rallying. Waiting until our appointed time to leave the stage start point and judging our arrival time to cross the finish. So much so that we logged two zero point stages in the last four stages of the race (as the marshall at one of the stage finishes said has he handed us our slip "You can't be better than that"). We were pretty pleased with ourselves there I can tell you. We were enjoying ourselves.
But that was it. The rally was over. So we headed over to the Stone Barn in Nelson, for some of their Artisan Pizza and turn in our score sheet for the final results.This was where things got really confusing for us beginners, for we didn't have to turn in our score sheets until we'd done all the calculations. Which was fine, we had a grasp of the maths behind the scoring. But not every finish Marshall had filled in his scoring slip in the same manner. We even ended up with two scoring slips numbered for stage seven. "Ask the more experienced rally-ers for help in doing the adding up" was the instruction. Fine. No problem. That way we got to know some other people and find out what nice folks they were. But even they had to scratch their heads in confusion when one scoring slip looked to me like we'd reached the finish of one stage 50 minutes before we were due to start it!
But with no results announced by 6:30pm we had to head home as we still had a two and a half hour drive ahead of us to get back home. However many points we scored didn't matter. We knew we weren't going to trouble the prize winners, except perhaps, the prize for finishing last. But we really enjoyed the event and would do it again. It was pretty much 9pm when we arrived back in Princeton tired and worn out. Nine hours and some 400 miles. FG the MGB had purred along the whole way. What a wonderful car it is. It deserves a special washing and waxing after that.
A thanks to the organizers for putting the race on, especially the stage finish marshals who found themselves waiting a rather long time for us in the middle of the event there.
Perhaps we'll see you all again next year."
"On Saturday September 29th we entered the world of classic car regularity rallying at the Coulee Classic in Wisconsin. This is a report of how our day went.The event, put on by Auto Italia Minnesota was due to start in Maiden Rock, WI at 11am and as registration started at 10, we had to leave home at eight as it was a two-hour plus drive from Princeton. The drive there was a wholly unremarkable zip along the highways and interstates around the Twin Cities that didn't even get interesting until we got onto Hwy. 35 south of Prescott, apart that is, from zipping through the Lowry Hill Tunnel in Minneapolis, that kind of put me in mind of the tunnel on the Monaco Grand Prix circuit.
Once past Prescott we thought we were getting a taster of what the rally roads were going to be like, zipping up and down hills surrounded by trees changing color. The scenery and views here were great. We were later to find out this was nothing like the rally roads, more of that later.
Arriving at Village Park in Maiden Rock we were greeted to the super sight of a line of bright shiny cars. Old classics and newer cars too. Modern Fiat 500's (no original Cinquicento's sadly) and an Alfa were the Italian marques on show. British cars were the most popular of the classics with a Healey 3000, two MG's (FG and an MGA) and a Triumph TR3 there. A 2CV was perhaps the most unusual car on view and a classic Porsche 356 the sweetest looking judging by the attention it was getting from passers by. Even FG was recognized by one competitor as the "self appointed most beautiful rubber nosed MGB in Minnesota". Which was gratifying as that means people do actually read what I put out here.
After the drivers briefing had finished, 11am arrived and we were all off! Traffic was stopped on Hwy 35 as we exited the park and headed south out of town, very cool. Technically the cars should have gone off at minute intervals and we should have waited until 11:12am as we were car number 12. But as this first leg was to set the cars odometer this was not an issue. It just lead to a string of cars waiting at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere to begin the rally instead of at the park in Maiden Rock.
So, a quick word or two of explanation to those of you who don't know what a regularity rally is. A regularity rally is an event over a number of stages, some long, some short, here the aim is not to be the fastest but to be the nearest to a set time for each stage. If you match that time you get zero points. Faster or slower than that time, you get penalized. You are always penalized a positive point score. Not a negative score if you're faster and a positive score if slower. The winner is the person who has the lowest overall points score by the end of the event. Zero points would be perfect and is pretty difficult to achieve as you're penalized for being even .01 of a minute off. Setting the odometer like in the very first stage is important so that you know how accurate your odometer is in relation to the official race distances listed on the directions, showing where any turns and road junctions are on the stage.
Another confusing thing for the first timer is that the timing is done on a decimal scale, i.e. half a minute is not recorded as 30 seconds but .50 minutes, 15 seconds become .25 minutes, etc. This helps with the scoring but it is quite an unusual sight to see an official timing device counting off the time like this the first time you see it.
At our next appointed start time we were off, feeling our way around the stages to start with. If we were close to our appointed finish time at the end of each stage it was more by luck than judgement. We quickly discovered that the scenery around the Wisconsin Coulee country was gorgeous, I mean really gorgeous and with the fall colors almost at peak it was extra beautiful. The Reds of the traditional Barns against a background of the yellows and oranges of the trees changing. All against a deep blue sky. At times it was difficult to concentrate on driving. Many times we wanted to stop and take pictures, but we also wanted to make the effort to have a good go at this "regularity rallying". Sadly on stage three we came across a fellow competitors AC Cobra by the side of the road. "No spark" came the reply when we stopped to ask how everything was.
After three stages we had a lunch break in Plum City. The sight of a dozen classics in the main street created some interest amongst the locals, one of whom had parked up in Main Street in his own classic car. A colossal yellow Chrysler Imperial. This thing was so big you could have fitted four MGB's in it. With lunch over we filled up with petrol and headed out. This was where we got confused. We had some issues following the instructions getting out of Plum City and we weren't the only ones. I think we lost one set of competitors in a yellow Honda for good there. Once out of Plum City we missed a road sign because it was obscured by corn stalks. A rookie mistake, experts would have been measuring the distances, (see above on the importance of setting your odometer). By the end of the stage we were some 14 minutes off our pace. We took a 14.50 minute delay as was our right to do. So we set off and set about recovering the 14 minutes we lost. We got through the rest of the stages OK but it looks like we should have kept taking delays through the other stages until the next break in Durand. But this aspect of the rallying wasn't clearly explained at the briefing for us newbies so we ended up gathering loads and loads of penalty points over the next couple of stages. Stage five gave us the pleasant sight of meeting about 10 Corvette owners of a club out for a drive. We shared a cheery wave with every one of them as we passed each other. The break in Durand was welcome as that got us back on schedule and gave us a chance to chat with some of the other competitors. With four more stages to go we were starting to grasp the concept of regularity rallying. Waiting until our appointed time to leave the stage start point and judging our arrival time to cross the finish. So much so that we logged two zero point stages in the last four stages of the race (as the marshall at one of the stage finishes said has he handed us our slip "You can't be better than that"). We were pretty pleased with ourselves there I can tell you. We were enjoying ourselves.
But that was it. The rally was over. So we headed over to the Stone Barn in Nelson, for some of their Artisan Pizza and turn in our score sheet for the final results.This was where things got really confusing for us beginners, for we didn't have to turn in our score sheets until we'd done all the calculations. Which was fine, we had a grasp of the maths behind the scoring. But not every finish Marshall had filled in his scoring slip in the same manner. We even ended up with two scoring slips numbered for stage seven. "Ask the more experienced rally-ers for help in doing the adding up" was the instruction. Fine. No problem. That way we got to know some other people and find out what nice folks they were. But even they had to scratch their heads in confusion when one scoring slip looked to me like we'd reached the finish of one stage 50 minutes before we were due to start it!
But with no results announced by 6:30pm we had to head home as we still had a two and a half hour drive ahead of us to get back home. However many points we scored didn't matter. We knew we weren't going to trouble the prize winners, except perhaps, the prize for finishing last. But we really enjoyed the event and would do it again. It was pretty much 9pm when we arrived back in Princeton tired and worn out. Nine hours and some 400 miles. FG the MGB had purred along the whole way. What a wonderful car it is. It deserves a special washing and waxing after that.
A thanks to the organizers for putting the race on, especially the stage finish marshals who found themselves waiting a rather long time for us in the middle of the event there.
Perhaps we'll see you all again next year."
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