Navigating Near Nowthen

Friday April 22nd, saw a new program of road rallies presented by the SCCA Land O Lakes region and the Twin City Rally Club, aimed squarely at newcomers to the sport. A series of short rallies of about 30 miles in length taking about an hour to complete that will introduce beginners to the different styles of rally to run. Tulip, Monte Carlo, Trap etc; each rally is being put on by a different member of the TCRC. Some club members are also using the program as an opportunity to learn how to put on a rally themselves.
The program was originally entitled "Friday night is rally night". But as one of the first two rallies in the program is on a Saturday afternoon the name probably won't stick.
It fell to yours truly to put on the first of the Rallies. I decided that I wouldn't do a rally based on the Tulip instructions that I am so familiar with. I'd use the opportunity to try something new myself. A map based course plotting rally.
Regular readers of this blog will remember that a while ago I wrote a post bemoaning the state of maps in the USA comparing them to the Ordnance survey maps in the UK. The US maps fared rather badly in that article.
Still, I wasn't put off by this. I looked on it as a challenge, and since then I've been studying the maps of the area as well as researching rally instructions from the UK and Europe hoping to find a way to combine the two. This new rally program gave me the perfect opportunity to see what I could do.
The only stipulation I had was that I had to start and end the rally in the Twin Cities metro area to minimize travel time for the entrants. I chose Elk River in the Northwest, as I am quite familiar with the area because I often go for a drive around there in my MGB, so I knew there were good roads to be found in the vicinity. With a route found it was then all down to working out instructions to get the cars around the course. All that should probably be the subject of a totally separate article.
So lets fast forward to Friday evening.
I arranged for registration to take place at the Starbucks in town, and when I explained to the manager what was going on, he very kindly donated a 2 gallon thermos of coffee for us to have before we headed out. The finish point, Northwoods Bar and Grill in Nowthen, was similarly accommodating. They had no problem fitting 30 people in on a Friday night when I called up that morning to double check. We really appreciate the co-operation shown by local businesses that enables us to put these events on. Otherwise we'd just be meeting up in parking lots. My wife and I were back in Starbucks the next day and the staff there said that it had been great to have a full shop on a Friday evening. I've also chatted with the manager in person and He's very happy to have the Rum Runner start there in the fall as well.
TCRC members had done a good job publicizing the event and this was rewarded in the fact that over half of the 13 entrants had not done a road rally before and only three had done more than one. The entrants and their vehicles were many and varied. George Quinn turned up in his 1964 Oldsmobile, Paula and Scott Liptak turned up in a minivan because Scott is wheelchair bound. As it was a rally several people turned up in their Subarus of course.

George Quinn and his 1964 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88

 Kerry Freund and his daughter Katherine are ready to head out.

Much of the registration was spent explaining to the newcomers what road rally was all about and handily there were enough experienced TCRC members there to do this on a one-to-one basis. Registration passed all too quickly, and shortly before people started to head out on the odo check, Lorrie and I headed out to set up the DIY controls that I had planned. Having unmanned controls meant that more people could run the event instead of working timing controls. The controls were simplicity themselves. A standard SCCA LOL checkpoint marker was placed on the side of the road and a post placed alongside with a bag of stickers pinned to it.

DIY control

Upon arriving at the control, the co driver would get out, and put one of the stickers on their scorecard before heading on to the next control.

The DIY control in use.

We got all the controls in place and headed to the final control location to await the arrival of car zero, when, much to our surprise we met car 1 waiting on the roadside a discrete distance from the final control.
"What on earth are you doing here?" I asked.
"Well, we thought we were on the right route, but we seem to have missed a control. We're a sticker short"
Of course they were a sticker short, they'd taken a wrong turn, cut off as many as 6 miles off the course, got ahead of us setting the course up and missed the final control completely.
As Rallymaster it wasn't really my place to tell them where they had gone wrong, but after some consultation with the final timing control crew they decided to go back and look for the missing control, they did have plenty of time after all. Amazingly they arrived back at the final control with the sticker in place just one second late!
Everyone completed the course, some people missed a sticker, and a few people were late to the final timing control but everyone had enjoyed themselves immensely as I was to find out when I asked people in the bar afterwards.

Everyone having a good time in the bar afterwards.

We did tally up the scores, although no prizes were given, as it was all about having a good time rather than the competition. There was one zero score, and from a pair of beginners too! Drew McLaughlin and Taylor Zenz in a Lincoln MKZ. A fine performance in not your typical road rally vehicle.
If we have to talk about the get together at the bar afterwards, then we have to talk about the one bad moment of the evening. Well, it was bad for me.
The bar had booked a singer for the night, and as was his wont he liked to involve the audience in his songs, and we, being large group of people naturally drew his attention, and he gravitated towards us to find someone to accompany him on some of his songs. Somehow, everyone else there decided that it should be me that would go up there and play the cowbell on a couple of songs.
I hate cowbell. I think that the Saturday Night Live sketch "More Cowbell" featuring Christopher Walken is one of the least funny things in the history of television comedy. Still, I gritted my teeth and clanged my way through "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and "Honky Tonk Woman",  everyone else enjoyed it so that was OK with me.
The event had been a success across the board. The newcomers had enjoyed themselves and discovered something new. They all said they'd had a good time and would do another one. The concept was well received too, so much so that I was told that if I wanted to run the Rum Runner along these lines I should. There's a big difference though, between putting together a 30 mile hour long route like that and a 100 mile plus afternoon adventure. Still it's something to bear in mind.
In closing, I have to thank Clarence and Kate Westberg, Dave and Rachel Fuss for working start and finish controls. Clarence also provided the pictures for this post. Last but not least my wife Lorrie for working registration and doing all the associated paperwork.
"See you next month." Said one cheery soul as they left the Northwoods bar. I certainly hope we do.

Time to turn to the tables.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm so fascinated by the sport of road rally. There's a lot of maths involved and mathematics and I do not get along terribly well. Is seven multiplied by eight 48 or 56? I'm having to count it out in my head right now, and now confirm it on a calculator 7 x 8 is 56. So, how does a mathematical nincompoop like myself cope with this? (Apart, of course from turning the calculating over to the navigator). If you are like me then fear not for these below are here to save you.

Larry Reid's Rally Tables on my dining room table...

These tables do all the hard work for you. I suppose it's not dissimilar to using the logarithm tables that we used to have in school. (Log tables and slide rules? It's getting just like school maths class.)

The book is a plethora of numbers and rallye calculations already worked out for you.

The riveting chapters include: Hundredths of minutes converted to seconds. Seconds converted to decimal parts of minutes. Miles per hour converted to seconds per mile and minutes per mile. But the biggest proportion of the book is given over to the Navigation Tables. Some 89 pages of tables where each speed between 12 and 59.75 mph is listed in tenth of a mile per hour increments along with the time it takes to cover a distance between 1 and 40 miles. 

About as interesting as watching paint dry to the uninitiated, but bread and butter stuff for the Rallyist. Three miles at 23 mph? 7 minutes 50 seconds. 

In the past, having these facts easy to hand must have been quite helpful to a navigator if they were trying to look out for landmarks and follow Rallye instructions while at the same time being bombarded with requests from the driver about their speed and progress. 
Also, you needn't go thinking that modern high tech equipment has replaced them. For one of the first things I was shown on my first Rallye, by a friendly fellow rallyist, and was advised to buy, was a set of Navigation tables on an iPad.

There you go, more Rallye fun, and more maths. I really should have paid more attention at school...

An old rule for a new rallyist

This is probably one of those posts that will be of interest to those friends of mine who don't road rally and are curious as to what makes it such a fascination for me (and my wife). For you more experienced rallyists the article might illicit a wry smile or two.

The road rally world of today is driven by expensive computers. Big black boxes that sit on the dashboard and tell you how fast/slow you're going in relation to your actual time, how far you've gone/got to go, even counting your time to the perfect arrival time. Even now though these big black boxes are being replaced by iPad apps that do exactly the same for 5% of the price. So it's fun to think back the old days and see what rallyists used then.

This is one of those pieces of equipment. A Stevens Rally Indicator or Stevens Wheel. 

It's basically a circular slide rule. They came in two sizes 6" diameter and 10". This is the six inch version. The ten inch was more popular because of the larger size meant larger, easier to read numbers, especially at night. 

What I'm doing with a slide rule I don't know after my brushes with them in school. I can well remember having a small circular slide rule, when everyone else had a straight rule. 

"So Holmes." Said Rob Morton, maths teacher at Queen Elizabeths Grammar School Alford. " A circular slide rule. Whats three multiplied by two?"

I diligently set to rotating the wheels and sliders to do the calculation.

"Six" I said proudly, having  worked quite hard to get the calculation right. 

"Well done." The teacher said. To this day I'm not entirely sure if he was taking the Mickey or not. I think I heard a few giggles go around the classroom. 

So, how does this disc of plastic work for the rallyist?

As you see, there are three arms. The large one is marked T the two smaller ones E and M. 

When you go out on a rally the first thing you do is check how accurate your cars odometer is compared to the rally official distance on a special "Odo Check" section. This is what the E and M arms are for. At the end of this stage you set the M arm to read the official miles and the E arm to what your cars odometer reads. This takes care any measuring errors. Now set the T arm to the speed for the section of the rally you're ready. In this picture it's set at 43mph. A somewhat brisk pace.

Right, let's say you need to know how long it's going to take you to drive 11miles at the 43mph pace. You move the E arm to 11 and then read off the T arm. It says 19.8 minutes. Point eight minutes? You sound confused. Don't forget you also have the Galco hundredths reading stopwatch from a few posts ago. That's what you'll be using to time the leg.

Easy.

Now let's say you need to know how far you've gone in a certain time. You set the T arm to the amount of time that has passed. Let's say 11 minutes. Then if you look at the reading on the smaller E arm you see it says 6.45. You've travelled 6.45 miles! Calculations like this are the bread and butter of road rally, and I know of contestants who, in this world of the high tech black boxes I referred to at the start of this piece, still use the Stevens Wheel today to great effect. Road Rally is a sport that doesn't have to be run using the highest of tech.

To me it's just a bit of a novelty thing to have at the moment. It would though, be rather fun to compete in a road rally using one. 

After my first brushes with the slide rule at school all those years ago, I never thought I'd buy another one let alone consider using one.

Counting to one hundred

Confession time.

Do you know what the thing is I struggle most with in road rally? 

It's counting to 100.

To be more specific, it's counting in hundredths of a minute that's the problem. After a lifetime of knowing that there are sixty seconds in a minute, having to think that there is another way to count a minute is very difficult, especially at the end of a rally after a five or six hours of hard concentration on driving. 

So, for those who read this blog but don't road rally, here's my latest acquisition. A hundredths reading stopwatch. 

If you're anything like me it looks weird the first time. A one hundredth of a minute is six tenths of a second. If you're counting in hundredths and the time to a checkpoint reads 2.33 minutes that's not two minutes 33 seconds that's really two minutes 20 seconds, a whole 13 seconds difference! That piles on the penalty points for sure. So you can see the need to be accurate and totally unconfused by your timekeeping. 

The stopwatch in the picture is reading 0.84 minutes, which in normal time is 50.4 seconds. 

My stopwatch acquired from a member of the Minnesota Road Rally fraternity is a Galco.  It was made in Switzerland by the Gallet company. Although Gallet are unknown to most, they are the worlds oldest watchmaker, their history can be traced back to Humberto Gallet who became a citizen of Geneva 1466, and began making timepieces there. From the 20th century onwards they have become noted for military chronographs and timepieces. President Harry S. Truman even wore a Gallet watch during his presidency. Gallet chronographs were supplied to members of the US Military in Operation Desert Storm. The Galco name on my timepiece indicates the watch was assembled in the USA, probably by the Excelsior Park company, a subsidiary of Gallet, who themselves had the highest reputation as a producer of sports related chronographs. Mechanisms for the watches were made at the home factory in Switzerland and shipped to the factory in Chicago to be placed in the cases that were specially tailored for the American market. The Excelsior Park company went out of business when the sports timekeeping world went digital. Gallet however goes from strength to strength. It's a fascinating history that I have only skimmed in researching this blog entry.

In these days of digital timepieces it's refreshing to listen to the relaxing tikka-tikka-tikka of a quality clockwork timepiece.

How I went from my first Road Rally to Rallymaster in 12 months. (part 1)

On September 28th 2013, I was stood at timing control one watching the first car arrive, and get timed on the first Rum Runner Road Rallye. I have to admit to feeling somewhat pleased with myself. After all. I had only been road rallying a year and here I was, my first road rally as Rallymaster. I glowed internally with pride for a few seconds and then got in my car and zipped off to check on the other control point workers.

It was, indeed, exactly 12 months to the day since my wife and I had competed in the Coulee Classic Road Rally, and we were immediately taken with the sport. I’ve always loved driving around, discovering new roads and new scenery, not knowing what was around the next corner. The family Sunday afternoon drive was a staple of growing up. I’m lucky that my wife, Lorrie also enjoys getting out and about enjoying the countryside. The fact that there is a type of motorsport out there where one can drive around on new roads not knowing what’s around the next corner was for me, too good to be true.

Everyone was so friendly and welcoming at that event, making us feel a part of the crowd that I quickly joined up with the Twin City Road Rally club, and attended the monthly meetings which were really just an excuse for a drink, good meal and a natter. Being in with the club we learned more about what to do and competed in a few more road rallies in the midwest. But for us, living North of Minneapolis it was never a short drive for us to get to an event. Ninety minutes was the shortest drive I think, more than two hours was regular. I started to figure that the only way to get an event that I would have a shorter drive to would be to put one on myself. I dropped this nugget into a TC Rally Club Facebook conversation one day and before I knew it the next rally club meeting was devoted to how to put on a road rally. Lorrie and I were the only others who turned up, so we got a lot of one-to-one advice. So much information was thrown at us it was just a blur at times. Much of this we’d pick up later as things progressed.

First thing was to join the SCCA, the governing body. You have to be an SCCA member to get the event sanctioned and insured, in case of any mishaps. So I sent in a family membership for Lorrie and I. 

“Why did you do that?” I was asked when I presented her with her membership card. I explained it was no more expensive as a family than for me as a single. Besides, if we were to put on a Road Rally it might be more advantageous for both of us to be members. You, dear reader, should note this apparent lack of enthusiasm with scenes I shall relate that occurred a few months down the road.

So, in my spare time I would go for drives around Princeton looking out potential rally roads and started to read old rallye books for ideas looking at how things were done in the olden days, what I’ve read in these books has definitely shaped how the Rum Runner series of events are developing. 

When I started out I had no idea what made a “good rally road”. We’ve driven on some wonderful scenic roads in Southern Minnesota and Wisconsin, along the Mississippi river and close by on the rallies we’ve taken part in. But there was nothing like that around Princeton. Then as I was driving round I began to realize that if I’m enjoying driving the section of road then surely rallye entrants would enjoy them too. Sure enough, interesting fun bits of road began to manifest themselves. Using iPad Apps like Google Earth and Pocket Earth along with RallyTracks on my iPhone plotting a Rallye route became quite easy, and I soon ended up with a course that I thought people might enjoy. 

Then it became time to get a second opinion. I took Lorrie out on the course to see what she thought. At this point we still only had no more than four rallies under our belts, but we knew what we liked.

As we cruised around the course Lorrie started to share her opinions and I began to realize that her seeming lack of interest of a few months previous had disappeared. 

“Your checkpoint needs to be over there, around that corner. They won’t be able to see it as they approach from here.” 

“This is good. They might not even see the turn down to the checkpoint.”

Someone was clearly enjoying this road rally lark more than they were letting on. 

With that, we had a rallye. Now it was time to start organizing properly. Organising properly means paperwork.

But let's leave that for another day...

Lucas Flamethrower Volunteer duty

The Lucas Flamethrower, at 19 runnings of this event, is one of the longest running, if not the longest running, road rallies in the Midwest. People keep coming back year after year to enjoy the roads around Red Wing, MN.

We would have liked to have run it, but the annual recommendation is to run with snow tyres and driving lights, none of which are fitted to the Scion. So we decided to volunteer to work control points. It would be good to get a view of how someone else runs a rally. We might learn something to incorporate into the organisation of the Rum Runners.

When Rallymaster Ed arrived at the registration point, his first words were. 

“I’ve left the rally route instructions for the competitors at home. Not to worry. I’ll sort something out.”

Ed’s 19 years of putting on this event clearly meant he had no problem dealing with any unexpected issues that may arise. So we weren't bothered. After we had signed, and received  all our papers and received our clocks and checkpoint signs we could head out to the first of our three checkpoint locations.

Setting up a checkpoint is simplicity itself. Place the checkpoint sign and viewing mirror at the designated point by the roadside and retire a safe distance away as in the photo and await the arrival of the cars.

There you sit with checkpoint clock in hand and when a car passes the checkpoint you stop the clock, make a note of the time and hand it to the navigator of the car. 

“How do you know when the car has reached the checkpoint?” I hear you ask. “You’re a couple of hundred feet away from the sign.” 

Simple. You know that mirror by the side of the checkpoint sign? You look in that for “the flash”. Watching for the flash or blink is best described in the attached photo sequence below.

Some competitors are cheerful as you hand them their timing slip. They thank you for volunteering (always nice for a worker to hear) and may even pass a cheery comment before they briskly head on their way. Others will be less cheery either because they had a delay on the way or the time you’ve recorded for them doesn't agree with what they have. These people are experts they know what time they did. Some will accept what you told them. Some will pass a comment.

The locations of the checkpoints had been worked out well and we had no problems with traveling between our assigned locations. As a Rallymaster, this is something I’m always concerned about in my events and I always err on the low side for checkpoints so the workers will have plenty of time to travel between them and not be rushed in setting up. I was happy that Ed thought much the same as I in this regard.

When night comes things change. Sighting the car as it passes the marker board is different for a start. Instead of looking for a blink from the tyre in the mirror you’re looking for a flash from the lights of the car. Seeing the checkpoint board is made easier by shining a flashlight at it, made all the easier in the winter by being able to stick the flash light in a snow pile so it shines on the sign perfectly. 

Car headlights can certainly cause a problem in the dark too. Many entrants are very considerate and will dip their headlights so you can see as they approach but some others are not so thoughtful. When a car comes at you with its headlights on full beam as well as 4 driving lights full on it can blind you momentarily making it very difficult to see the exact moment when the car reaches the checkpoint board. You can take precautions agains be blinded by headlights but I don’t think there’s anything you can do agains a full barrage of driving lights.

For us the whole thing was pretty uneventful. My wife did loose a contact lens just after we arrived at our second checkpoint assignation, which meant that we swapped duties as I was the only one who could see when the cars passed the checkpoint board.
There are many different tales told of unusual happenings for control point workers. Being quizzed by law enforcement is a very common tale, (just think about it for a moment, two people sat in a car on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. It just asks to be investigated), and when a Sheriffs car passed by us at our final checkpoint, we thought we were in for some questioning. But no. He just drove on by. After everything we’d heard, I have to confess to being a tad disappointed. We even had our explanation worked out and everything. Perhaps after 19 years of this event checkpoint workers parked on a dark road in the middle of nowhere was nothing new to him.
There’s nothing too taxing in being a control point worker. Just be organized and everything should be easy. It was an interesting experience. There’s no doubt we would rather compete but it was nice to get a look at another rallye from the inside.
Big thanks to Ed Solstad for putting the event on.

Time, Speed, Distance. What it's all about.

We've established that the way to do well in a road rally is to score as few points as possible, and the way to achieve that is to be on time at the checkpoints. So just how does one go about being on time at the checkpoints time after time?
It all comes down to three little words. Time, Speed, and Distance or T,S,D.
Road Rallies can also be known as TSD rallies to emphasize the importance of these elements.
When you register at your road rally event, you will be given a set of instructions to follow the route of the rally. The instructions can vary from plain and simple written/pictoral instructions, called Tulips (that's a subject for another day) to some more complicated map plotting. What is common to all instructions is being able to work with two of the factors to produce the third. For example, if you know that the next junction to turn at is a mile away and you have 2 minutes to get there, it plain and simply obvious that you need to average 30 mph to reach the turn. This is the basic building block of road rallying. If you reach your marks on time, be they a road junction, landmark or checkpoint, then you'll be doing fine.
To do this consistently you need a system, and there are almost as many systems as there are Rally-ists. Many first timers, ourselves included, work it all out as they go along, doing the calculations as needed, and reading the times off a stopwatch. This is known as "seat of the pants" or SOP. Very experienced rally-ists can be as accurate using SOP methods as less experience competitors using expensive equipment. One of the most comprehensive systems out there was developed by Minnesota Rallyist Gary Starr and can be downloaded here.
 Don't trust your maths to give you accurate distance/time calculations? Then there are Rally Tables, (like this simplified version here),  available to purchase that have the calculations all done for you. Using the simple example linked to you can see that at 36 mph (on the left hand side) it will take 1.66666 minutes to travel one mile, five minutes to travel three miles etc;. Bought tables are much more comprehensive and can take some time to work with before the Rallye starts to work everything out.
Still daunted by all this? Then move into the 21st century and use your Smartphone, there are many Apps on the market to help the aspiring Rallyist that we can discuss later to help you. The Apps, of course, are limited by the GPS technology in the Smartphone. Not accurate enough for you? Not enough technology for you? Then you can get really serious and move up to expensive distance sensors running off the wheels or very hi-tec GPS measuring devices for greater accuracy. But all that is for another day.

Our first Rallye.

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."

Starting out Part one. (A simple Q&A series)

What do I need to go road rallying? A fast four-wheel drive car with a safety cage, I'll bet. Crash Helmets too. I'm sure of it. Sounds very expensive to me, like all Motorsports. 
Not really. Obviously you do need a car. But no high speed, turbocharged four wheel drive vehicle. No crash helmets either. My wife and I road rally in our Scion XD with 210,000+ miles on the clock. I have also been known to use my 1976 MGB roadster. The thing with road rally is it's not about speed. Good communications between driver and navigator are paramount. But we can discuss that later.

I have learnt that being on time at checkpoints is very important. You must need expensive timing and measuring gear then.

Yes and No. While it is very true that there is some very expensive timing and measuring equipment out there that will make the inside of your car look like the inside of a spaceship, (we'll deal with them as the need arises). You can get by very successfully in Road Rally just by using your cars' odometer, a watch with a second hand, pen and paper and if you are mathematically challenged like me, a calculator. One step up from that, there are some very useful smartphone Apps out there for only a few dollars.

So, I really don't need anything expensive?

Not at all.
If I could find a rallye tomorrow I could go out and take part?
You most certainly could.
So where do I go from here?
How about we deal with that another day?

Rallye or Rally?

I'm new at this. What's this deal with the spelling? Is it Rallye or Rally?
Good question. Basically it boils down to this, (and this is only my opinion). The sport is Road Rally, but the events are generally Rallyes. This is most certainly true in Europe where the real hotbed of Rallying is. The first Road Rallies were held in the early years of the twentieth century in France. "Rallye" is a French spelling.  I guess it has stuck. English speaking folks tend to use the Rally spelling. You can delve into linguistics and semantics if you want to but let's keep it simple and enjoy ourselves.
I also used "Rallye On" for the name of the blog because "Rally on" was taken.

What Road Rally is.

A Road Rally is not a race.

"A Road Rally is an event traversed over a predetermined course on public roads within the legal speed limit. The challenge is to drive over the course, following the instructions given, arriving at checkpoints along the course on time. You score penalty points by arriving late or early at these checkpoints. The entrants who score the lowest number of penalty points are deemed the winners."

Basically it's a leisurely drive though the countryside with a bit of competitive element thrown in. It is one of the oldest forms of motorsport there is, and is a great deal of fun.
This blog will detail my personal adventures in road rally, also allowing other guest writers to share their opinions and stories on this most enjoyable branch of Motorsport.