What on earth does a cryptic crossword clue have to do with road rally? I hear you asking.
On Sunday we took part in the Escape to Wisconsin rally. It's a rally we have taken part in before and we enjoy the roads through the Wisconsin farm country very much. In the past the rally instructions have been in Tulip style. An easy to understand format that contributes to our enjoyment of the event.
This year the format was to be different. It would be a more traditional "course following" event. Where reading the written instructions correctly and understanding the differences between turning ON a road and turning ONTO a road are paramount. We knew nothing of this type of rally so we were relishing the challenge.
But more of that later.
Nineteen cars took part in the event a good number of competitors. Two in the expert class, Four "Journeymen" (neither experts or rookies), the rest were beginners with less than three rallies to their names most of them were on their first event. We like the term journeymen it fits us to a tee.
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| Line up of cars at registration |
We set off at our appointed time with low expectations as we hadn't been out on a Rally since Summer Solstice last year. We didn't care about racking up a few points here and there we were just there to get some experience back, especially as scoring was to the hundredth of a minute.
We were most confused when at the first control we were given a slip of paper that we didn't understand. Was it some special instruction for the next stage that we weren't told about? No. It turns out it was telling us where the "trap" had been in the control zone. We were late at the second control because we had slowed a bit while working out what the slip was about. After that we got into a routine, scoring 9, 12, 11 and 16 to finish the first half. Those are good scores for us at any time. The roads were fun, the hillclimb out of Knapp, WI is a delight, the associated downhill afterwards like many of the downhills was a tad hairy with a lot of sand from the winter road treatments remaining on the slope.
Once again we visited Menomonie, a place with many memories for us. But, as with the last time we were there on the Summer Solstice rally, this was when our problems started and we developed our distaste for Trap rally instructions.
Control 9 was the one that started things off. What is known in the sport as a "Blackjack" trap. Basically this meant that as we drove past a road junction we could see the control, but in reality it had to be approached from another direction after having done a loop of a few extra few miles. Every car except the two experts made this mistake and scored a maximum. This part of the rally area is well known to me and it is something of a confusing triangle junction that can even cause befuddlement using Tulips, and having to wonder about "On" or "Onto" and other things and seeing the cars in front of us actually at the control made us make the turn in some kind of reflex reaction.
We were so annoyed with ourselves for being caught out we missed some instructions to get us to the rest stop at Elmwood. Luckily, we know the area and could find our way to the gas station in question with ease.
Elmwood brands itself as the UFO Capital of Wisconsin. I don't know about that, but strange things happened to us after visiting there. Our Emerald Time App defaulted to a UTC (Universal Time) with zero seconds display and the Rally Tracks Odometer locked up. So from then on we were flying blind, with no idea of time or distance. So we followed the route instructions the best we could, even now I'm not sure if we were on the correct route or not. I thought we were, explanation of the instructions afterwards would seem to indicate we weren't, even so I think we took an extra excursion on top of the possible one planned for in the instructions.
The one word instruction "Right" caused trouble for many of the entrants.
But apparently that's part of the fun of trap rallies.
Rallymasters will tell you that their rally has "easy" traps. That, as we English like to say is a load of cobblers. No trap is an easy trap, if a trap was truly easy then no-one would fall for it and there would be no point in it. Some traps are just less difficult than others and not every persons brain is wired the same. One set of instructions might be blindingly simple for one team yet may cause another one consternation and confusion.
And so we come to the crossword clue at the top of the post.
"Is working on novel, building literary muscle (5)"
The correct answer is "Sinew". Some people would struggle with that cryptic clue from one of last weeks Guardian newspaper crosswords, some would find it easy.
More people would cope with the clue "Tissue that connects muscle to bone (5)"
Other people would be happy picking out Sinew in a word search.
It's not a bad analogy. People who get enjoyment from Tulip style tour rallies can be likened to Word Search and Literal crossword types. Those who solve the cryptic crossword with ease are the Trap rally types.
Different horses for different courses that's all, and you can't please everyone all the time. It would be a lot of extra work for a Rally master to provide "course following" and "tour style" instructions for the same event.
Still, we tried and we learned. I doubt we will do another rally of this style.
A big vote of thanks as always goes out to Rallymaster Clarence Westberg, his wife Kate and their two daughters Liz and Gwen and her boyfriend for putting on and working the rally.
