Thank you to all who participated in the Columbus Day Road Rally. It was quite nerve wracking not knowing if Hurricane Joaquin was going to thwart our efforts to pull this off, and thankfully, the rain subsided, Joaquin went out to sea, and Ken and I were gently relieved. However, we do contribute this threat to our low turn-out.
Despite the low turn-out, we had a high rate of success! We recruited some newbies who all said they loved the chance to partake in a fun and exciting adventure. My fellow experienced rallyists told me it was an awesome route, with great roads and good instructions. It was challenging where it needed to be, but yet we kept it as simple as we could for a novice to hopefully, at least, finish!
We had 15 cars total, 4 of which did not make it to the checkpoint. But 3 of those 4 did come to Applebee’s to understand how they fared and why/how/where they went wrong. It’s so important to come back to share your experiences, commiserate with your fellow rallyists and get to know more about rallying!
I will say, it’s been a long time since I hosted a rally and yes, IT IS A LOT OF WORK….but I had so much fun putting it together. We ran it quite a few times and had one person “cold run” it for a sanity check. One direction seemed to be a problem for one or two of our rallyists…this was near the Saw Mill (River) Parkway and the “HATCHED” direction. The Saw Mill Parkway was clearly marked, parkways generally don’t exist, but sometimes we get tripped up and it’s really not done on purpose…unless of course it’s a Halloween Rally!
I’m not sure why, but we posted 45 signs – UGH – the downside is you have to pick them all up the next day…so when you think it’s over, it’s not…..Sunday, thankfully was a gorgeous day and if you have the chance to run the rally during the day – do so….It’s beautiful as it wraps around the reservoirs. We lost one sign (ironically in a remote area) but Car # 15 retrieved it, so it counts, and while some were way wicked hard (SO WE HEARD….) they all counted because in one way or another, they were all accounted for…
Even though quite a few cars came thru the check point early, we heard about two situations involving time delays for our rallyists – one was the car that lost its muffler whereby a fellow rallyist stopped to help; and the other was a (non-rally) car that blocked the road for at least 3 rallyists who held them up. In the 1st instance, no one asked for a time allowance, but in the 2nd, a time request was asked for and granted. Although Time Allowances are at the discretion of the Rally Master, they, if legitimate, are generally granted.
We look forward to our next rally, the Turkey Tour on November 21. Please come join us.
Regards,
Diane and Ken