My wife and I (usually!) have a terrific time on rallyes. We're lucky enough
to have a lot of venues for this, and all of them are a little different. We
like the gimmick rallyes the best. The Windy City Miata Club excels at
those.
We usually have a fantastic Poker Rally every year (skipped this year,
though :( ), and every year we have a Photo Rally, where the cars have to go
around finding the landmarks that match the pictures they have in their
packets. We're running a Photo Rally/Easter Egg Hunt in March. I love these
kinds of rallyes.
We also do TSDs. The Miata club, the Triumph club, and the Porsche club all
run TSD events. This is the true test of a marriage. :) We don't really
fight on a rallye, we're just out for fun. We run in the seat of pants
class, which means no calculators, no prepared tables, no GPS, and no more
than 2 people in the car. Here is our setup:
We have a lap desk. One of those things with the cushioning to go on the
navigator's legs. It has a little clipboard clip on it. Some of our friends
have taken small (12"x24" or thereabouts) whiteboards and drilled through
and put clipboard clips on there. Then they carry around wet-erase markers.
We just use a regular plastic lap desk.
We take a pad of Post-It notes, but really any sticky notes will do. We use
these to keep track of "ONTO" directions, road names that don't exist, that
sort of thing.
We take a good handful of pens, in as many different colors as we can find.
We have a little triangle highlighter with three different colors and
highlight the instructions before we start. Pink is an ONTO. Green is a
change average speed instruction, and Blue is something worth noting,
usually landmarks and non-quoted not signs.
We have a stopwatch each. My wife takes the big expensive one with the
splits, and I take the cheapy one with just the corrected rallye time on it.
This way, since we're SOP, I can use it to judge my average speed while my
wife figures out which direction we should go. :)
Also, we have a brightly colored plastic ring that fits on my thumb. When an
instruction comes up for a turn, I'll move the ring to my right or left
hand, whichever the turn is. That way if you're going along and find a whole
bunch of T-intersections you don't have specific instructions for, you don't
have to go back to the directions to remember later which way to turn.
We carry plenty of bottles of water, and some light snackety food. We do not
agree on the type of music we like (does any couple, really?!) so usually we
don't have the radio on while we're rallying.
We also carry two little stress squeeze balls, one for each of us. Usually
we don't touch them, but it never hurts! :)
Just go in with a good sense of humor and a lot of patience and don't expect
to be really competitive at first. Rallying is a blast and a half, but it
does take a lot of practice to master the art.
We also take along a camera. Along the way, one of us will snap a photo or
two. Often, what we'll do after a rallye is each do a little write-up of it,
independently. We talk about parts we remember, little squabbles and
difficult traps, that sort of thing. Then we'll compare what we remembered
differently. It's a lot of fun. These often turn into newsletter articles
about the event, too!
I don't really worry about anything technically with the car. Even rallying
in one of the old cars, just as long as everything is working, there isn't
really anything to do. You could get fancy with exotic rallye timers and
more, but we find them to be much more fun without all that stuff.
My new favorite rallying story happened this year, on the last PCA rallye of
the year. We were cruising along, trying to make up time after a wrong turn
(who me? never!). Up ahead is a checkpoint, just past a side street on the
left that ended in a T at our road. Our next instruction said, "Left at
double-arrow." My wife looked around and saw the <---> sign for that road to
the left. Then all of a sudden she puts down the route instructions and
scrambles to pick up the general instructions.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
"Well, I think that we have to go to the checkpoint! It says we can't pass a
checkpoint!"
"Right, we can't *PASS* a checkpoint! We have to turn here!"
About this time, the car we've been behind for the past 10 miles completely
ignores the street to the left and stops at the checkpoint.
I say, "I'm turning. The instructions say we can't pass a checkpoint without
stopping! Not that we can't turn off in front of one!"
So I made the turn, and she's still looking through the generals. Finally,
she realizes that I'm talking to her, and whips the route instructions back
out. "OH WAIT!!!! We were supposed to turn at that last street!"
Check the mirror, nobody there, slam on the brakes, back up, and ZOOM off
down the road, checking the mileage and the clock about twice a second! Now
she's got the instructions out, and we're just FLYING down this little road
that loops back around to about 1 mile before that double arrow sign. Then
we proceeded on to the checkpoint, except THIS TIME, an old white Dodge
Dynasty with about 9 people in it pulls out from that side street right in
front of us!!
They start driving, and then see a big white van and about 20 Porsches
parked on the sides of the road, and they slow down to about 4mph!! We're
yelling, both of us now, at the top of our lungs, "GO! GO! GO!" Finally, we
pass the van and stop for our time: +.11 minutes
WOW!!!! 6 and a half seconds late!!
To date, this is actually our very best leg, we've never had a score on a
rallye segment less than 11 before or since. It was a great time!
>- - recommended reading? books, magazines, web sites...
>- - tips, stories, experience (any recent first timers out there?)
>- - suggestions for enhancing my navigator's enjoyment*
>- - car set-up tips (my TR4's a daily driver, in good mechanical condition)
>
>I'd appreciate any recommendations, anecdotes, and technical suggestions.
>
>*that would be my wife Pam, who had no sense of direction and limited
>map reading powers. But she does enjoy driving about.
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