Westchester Sports Car Club
Halloween Rally 1999 - Rallymaster's Letter
What three words best summarize the second annual WSCC
Halloween Rally? Trick or Treat. My best buddy Marguerite
Harder agreed again to be my faithful co-chair. If we had any doubts last year,
we became clearly convinced of our rally-goers’ conviction as well. You are a
bunch of frustrated Halloween partyers. Our call for costumes on cars and teams
was met in full force. We had a car dressed as a bunch of grapes (“I drove
through a grape vine”) and a black car dressed as a giant spider (“searching for
Miss Muffet”.) Both tied for first place costume trophies. We also had a car
dressed as “bio-hazard” with orange gooky stuff all over it. The passengers won
first place costume trophies as-um-dead monks? Death? They were all good. I
skipped cosmetics all together and went as a witch and Marguerite let her true
spirit out and went as a rotting, bloody ghoul.
Admitting we were too tricky last year, we presented our extended list of treats to you first: if you
traveled more than 4 miles without a witch or bat sign or without being able to
complete an instruction, you were probably off course and should retrace. Most
people were pleased with this because it put a limit on those long, lonely
drives we’re all so familiar with. We redesigned the signs to be basic letters
and numbers. We admitted to highway mileage, another treat. We also showed a
sign that would replace our check point when we closed it so you would know you
had completed the rally and could proceed to Tino’s. All of this we hoped would
soften the shock of our tricks, which were many.
We made up trick or treat bags
and handed them out at the start under a bright full moon, which delights and
enhances tricksters. Each bag contained candy and toys. You all got a sticky
eyeball, sometimes it had plastic ants stuck to it. The bag was handed to the
navigator and then, usually, passed to the driver. There was one team where the
navigator sat, all hooked up in full rally gear with a light around his neck, a
nice clip board, a ready calculator and a pen. The treat bag was in the hands of
the driver. The driver handed the sticky eyeball to the navigator who didn’t
look up and popped the whole thing in his mouth and started chewing. This was
not candy. He soon realized something was terribly wrong and pulled sticky,
spitty eye parts from his teeth. So the driver, thinking quickly, handed over
the foil-wrapped chocolate covered peanut butter eye ball. “Here, this one’s
candy.” Pop, right into his mouth, foil and all. I guess the foil tasted pretty
bad because he started spitting out shreds of it. Marguerite was on the ground
with tears rolling down her face. Next trick followed closely. After distracting
you with candy, we alternated the starting directions, randomly of course,
between straight, right and left. You were not amused. You wanted so badly to
follow that car in front of you and couldn’t believe your navigator could fail
you right from the first instruction. “Give me that” and the sheets would get
snatched out of the hands of the navigator. So much for trust.
All sections
(labeled A, B, and C) joined on Route 22 at West Lake Drive, hence the need for
3 10 mile markers. A short run on the highway took you to Katonah, Somers,
Purdys, then back on the highway to Putnam county. We led you up into
Connecticut for a short distance. Many of you expressed concern when you read
“Welcome to New York” in the instructions. Exactly what state would you be in??
The last dirt road took you to Route 35, then to Route 100, where we met you in
our human form. At least half of you finished, for some of you this was your
first completed rally. We enjoyed very much taking your virginity and hope
you’ll be back. Some said it was the best rally they were ever on. Perhaps they
were on a sugar high from the candy? We eventually posted the final sign and
left the check point at 11:15, heading for Tino’s. We braced for an onslaught of
eyeballs.
One team complained about the average speed, but since they did VERY
WELL, we’ll take it with a grain of salt and eye of a newt. You all loved
Burdick Road (“use extreme caution”). There were more roads like that one, but
the big trickster Hurricane Floyd killed the second half of the rally and forced
a last minute scramble to re route around road collapses. Behind the scenes
there were some very hard working people who greatly contributed to the accuracy
of this rally. Bob Kleinman and Eddie Claridge, who have been awarded many rally
trophies volunteered several test runs. We used all of their suggestions. Frank
Cardone ran a test in his CRX. This was our acid test. If Frank and his car were
able to finish then any car could survive. (He made it.) Fred Heine, a former
WSCC member who brought you last year’s Turkey Tour volunteered to help organize
the start.
Among WSCC members, team Kanzler took first place, team
Lipscher-Gebala took second. My brother John formed a last minute team with GJ
Dixon III (an autocrosser) and took 5th place. They actually finished with a
better time than first place, but paid the price of missing too many signs. Dave
Wooley joined with his son, Dave Gill joined us as did Clair Smith. Clair
remains unaccounted for. Thank you for being such good sports. You helped us
enjoy the culmination of many hours behind the wheel. Of course, you probably know that
we saved some of our best tricks for next year. We are considering
a summer rally, perhaps starting farther north, would like your opinions. Drop me an
E-Mail at WSCC.org . Day or evening? Longer or shorter? Easier or
more difficult. See you at the Turkey Tour!
Val Christou