How to plan a road rally

Tips on how to plan a road rally successfully.

1. Know your audience's cars. Make sure the roads you plan to use are suitable for the cars that you expect. Don't take British Sports cars on forest trails and don't take 4x4 trucks on city streets. Make sure the roads are fun for the type of vehicles you expect to participate.

2. Know your audience's skill level. As I found in my infamous Lets learn to rally rally, even the simplest of traps are virtually incomprehensible to a novice who is just learning the sport. make sure you keep things at a level that is fun for every one involved. This is particularly challenging in a club like GSCC where you have extremely talented rallies who want to be challenged showing up the same day as novices running their first rally. Just be sure you let people know what they are coming for and all will go well.

3. manage your logistics. make sure there is ample parking at places where people might gather like the start finish and break points along the way.

4. Be extra careful of control locations. make sure all timing controls are located in safe places. make these away from houses and populated spots so that distraction are minimized.

5. Consider the speed. Make sure that the speeds you assign either directly or indirectly are appropriate for the roads you will be using. Don't make them so slow they become a nuisance and not so fast that they become a hazard. Also, consider what other tasks the rallies will be doing in addition to driving the roads.

More on how to plan a road rally later.......

Road rally ideas

There are as many different types of rallies as there are rally masters.

My personal favorite rally is the straight tsd rally. This is sometimes called a touring rally. In this type of rally, you are given clear concise route instructions and the winner is decided by who arrives at the control locations at exactly the correct time.

Another form of TSD or time speed distance rally involves adding certain logic traps to the route instructions. The winner is still decided by who arrives at the correct time but most likely the winner is decided by who gets the most traps right.

The mileage only rally is fun rally idea. In this rally, the traps or tricks will cause the contestant to take a different course causing them to measure a different distance. The winner is determined by being the closest to the official distance.

A photo rally is one where the route is determined by pictures of intersections. the winner is usually determined by measuring the correct distance.

Gimmick rallies are also a popular rally idea. These involve answering questions about things found along the rally route. The winner is the one who gets the most questions right.

Lime runs were once popular rally ideas, but have fallen on disfavor in recent years due to the potential for speeding. In a lime run, also known as hare and hound, the rally master leaves the start ahead of the contestants. At each intersection that he might have changed direction, he leaves a spot of lime on the pavement. The contestants must guess which way the rally master (or Hare) went. The object being trying to catch the hare or to at least measure the same distance as the rally master.

Another rally idea, poker run rallies, are popular with motorcycle clubs and classic car clubs. In these events, the contestants follow a simple course and get cards dealt to their hand at each control they encounter. The winner is the one with the best poker hand at the finish party.

I hope these will give you some good road rally ideas to try with your club or corporate road rally.

More road rally ideas see mikestrawbridge.com

TLSCC rally results

May 6 Back Roads Rally Results


1st Timers

Bill and Melissa Richard

Tony and Trena Vargas

John and Carolyn Packer



Carload

Ricki and John Jordan

Howard and Vicki Camden



It’s Not My Fault

Frank and Wanda Rosebery

Arvin and Debbie Appelman

Frank and Sharon Reagor



Semi-Pro

Bill and Pat Bingham

Jacob Manon and Jessie Cook

Tom and Angie Parrish



Backroads Browsers

David and Barbara Williams

David and Wendy Williams

Mike and Michele Richardson

RallyCross June 24th - cancelled

There will not be a Rallycross June 24th at Dave Brooks farm in Graysville, tn.

See the Chattanooga SCCA web page for times and directions.

Georgia Sports Car Club Annual Picnic

The Georgia Sports car club is having it annual members picnic this Saturday June 17th.

For more information see the club web site at GSCC

This year it will be just a picnic with no rally or scavenger hunt. So contact Tom and let him know you are coming.

Calibrating your Odometer

No two automobile odometers ever read the same.

Even in identical cars, the tires would have to have the same pressure and the same tread depth and loading to make the odometers read the same.

For this reason, each rally starts with an odometer calibration run. Normally this section has a specified time in which to reach the end or it may be separate from the timed runs all together in the case of a rally race.

In any case, the basic procedure is the same. You drive the odometer calibration route making note of your mileages at the points referenced in the route instructions.

Special note on using trip odometers: If you are using the mechanical in dash trip meter, there is often some lag before it starts to count after it has been reset. You will have to learn how yours operates if you want to reset it at each zero point. Usually there is about 2/100ths lag in a stock Odo after the reset button has been pushed. Many rally masters do not know this and think they are starting at zero when they are not. If you are running a computer pay careful attention to the early readings to make sure you both started at the same point. In most cases, my navigators do not use the first "zero" points unless they know the rally master has done things right.

So after you get your numbers collected, check to see if they are consistent. Do you get close to the same factor at each data point? If you just use the end point you could fall victim to a reading error - either your own or the rally master's.

Follow your computers instruction for calculation of the correction factor. In the compurally software, you just key in the mileages and it does the work for you.

If running the stock odo, divide the distance you measured by the rally masters mileage. Then use this number to multiply by the official mileage to know what your odo should read at that point.

Rally dating idea

Now I don't think I would take a first date on a rally. I have seen many marriages get strained by running a rally together. In fact one club has a class for married couples called "divorce court."

But if you are looking for an interesting idea for a date with a person you know a little bit about and want to learn more about, making up your own treasure hunt rally could be a fun way to spend some time together.

Now if you are still stuck in the "I need a first date before I can have a second date" phase then jump over to John Alanis' site right now before you read any further. Get his course on how to attract women and you will have plenty of choices on who to allow on your rally date. (Note I did not say ask her out.) Click this link to go to John's site right now.

Now assuming you have a special someone that you want to have some fun with, lay out a route to that fun spot. Use clues along the way to build mystery and suspense.

For example, lay out a route to a restaurant you want to try. But don't tell her where you are going. Since she needs to know how to dress, make that part of the route or general instructions. Tell her every thing she needs to know but only in small clues carefully spaced out in the route instructions. Build mystery and suspense along the way.

For more dating treasure hunt ideas see this site.