Waterloo Rally Report.

Iowa (noun). A place people pass through when they are going elsewhere.  

This is certainly what we were thinking as we set out to take part in the Waterloo Rally out of Davenport, Iowa. 

The start point, being a good four hours from home, meant that we drove down to La Crosse, WI the night before to be nearer to the start. This gave us plenty of time to think about what might be ahead of us as we drove down there. Reports of the Mississippi River being just above flood level in La Crosse conjured up images of flooded Rally roads in my mind. This was not to be the case.

Dorchester, Iowa, the start point, is a small town. A very small town. A couple of dozen houses, two bars and a church. Re-inforcing the image stated in the opening sentence that there is nothing much in Iowa. In fact, as we drove into the town, we passed the Wings bar, where registration was and didn't notice it. 

Wings is a great place. As traditional and small town Ma and Pa a place as you can find anywhere, with good food to boot, their burgers were complimented by everyone.

The now legendary "Wings" bar.

When we arrived all the "usual suspects" were there. The social aspect of rallies is something we like it's always nice to see the same friendly faces always pleased to see you. For me, it was also really nice to "meet" Jay Nemeth Johannes properly. As you know, Jay has contributed a couple of Rally reports to the blog. We've exchanged many a comment on Facebook but not actually shook hands and said "Hello". 

A few other entrants drifted in as start time approached and 2pm a small field of five cars, two in Limited class along with ourselves and two novices in stock, were heading out on the Rally. 

So to the roads. We had heard tales that the roads were good out there. It quickly became apparent that this was a severe understatement. The roads were excellent. Wide strips of limestone gravel winding their way along wide river valleys, adjacent to lively trout streams, (as a matter of fact we came across so many trout fishermen out and about I think "trout fisherman" would have been an acceptable delay reason). The strips of gravel would then rise away from the valley floor up steep slopes, running along a ridge, before dropping back down into another valley.

A panoramic view of the start of CZ2

The course was compact, we came back to the start point in Dorchester twice before returning there to finish. Waukon, the other break point was only 14 miles from Dorchester as the crow flies so you can gauge that the area covered was very compact indeed.

The sun was shining as we set out, and we were feeling good about the day, our DNF at the Escape to Wisconsin a few weeks ago, was well and truly forgotten and as these roads opened out in front of us we were pretty quickly in awe of the countryside. 

Too much in awe perhaps, for as we approached the start of CZ1 we didn't count the 45mph signs by the road side. CZ1 started at the second sign. We missed the first one, counting the actual second one as the first. So we drifted off down the road looking for the second sign which, of course, we never found and ended up getting into the timing control almost one minute early. Perhaps that minute had already put us out of the running even in a small class of three. 

We quickly put that behind us and carried on. The wonderful day helping us forget that cock up. By the  time we reached the first rest stop we were very happy again.

First break point and a chance to chat and compare experiences.

Break points are a good chance to get together and share stories to find out how everyone else is running. Even more so in a rally with such a small field for all the entrants can gather together. The old hands can quibble and moan about some irregularity or something, while at the same time offering words of advice to the less experienced and the first timers.

First break done with, we headed out again and the great roads and scenery just kept coming. We started to string together, what we thought was a respectable string of scores. Twenties and Thirties when you're being scored to the hundredth of a minute was quite acceptable to us. At one point we even posted a 7 so we really started to feel good about ourselves.  

Scoring the seven was a little cause for concern for me as going around some S bends uphill on the gravel we slid about a bit out of control. Nothing serious, but I'm still a little nervy about driving on gravel as it is. So that moment made our hearts race a little. 

Back on the course something unusual happened. We started posting some twos and threes! Communications were working better between us and I was getting better at keeping the average speed even. We started to feel good about our finish.

More great Road Rally scenery.

As we returned to the Wings bar for the final time we had mixed feelings, sadness that this short (110 miles) rally was over, but also a tad excited that we might actually have done quite well.  Scoring though, it has to be said is not our strong point and however well we thought we had done, this all could go up in smoke if we'd done our maths wrong. 

Well as it turns out we did do our maths wrong, but luckily it didn't affect the outcome and we ended up 1st in class S. Quite the turn around from the DNF of our previous event. A certain navigator was seen grinning like a Cheshire Cat as the results unfolded. She was grinning even more when she received her prize T-shirt.

Our winners T-shirts

Class win notwithstanding, this is an excellent road rally, and a huge thanks has to go out to Rallymaster Mike Thompson for putting the event on and also to Fred Rosevear and Jay Nemeth Johannes for working the controls. Dates are already being sounded out for another running over these roads later in the year. If you live within 5 hours of the start point and can spare a weekend away in the name of Road Rally I would seriously recommend that you turn up for that one.

So, what did we learn from this Rallye? Obviously, we learned that coming first is pretty cool. But more than that our faux pas at the very start taught us the importance of concentration and observation right from the outset. For if we had seen that first 45mph sign and counted properly we might have scored better on that leg and increased that small gap in points between first and second.