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Who says that putting on a Road Rally is hard work? Nonsense. Piece of cake! Two
weeks before our rally, we found out that one of the roads written in our route
was closed, and another was impassable. Two nights before the rally, we found
out that another road was flooded and closed. No problem, right? We ended up sending
the rally cars down I-390 south as part of a transit between the fourth and fifth
checkpoints. A little out of the ordinary I suppose, but we did the best with
what we had to work with. Two hours before the event, our Sweep vehicle driver
called to tell me that the fuel pump died in his truck. We arrived at Manetti's
in Canandaigua at 3:00 only to find that they weren't open yet. It seems that
they recently changed their operating hours and forgot that we were coming. So
everything is going just as smooth as can be, right? The phrase, "well oiled
machine", comes to mind. Just as I about to start crying and pulling my hair
out, things started to fall into place. We hit the road on time and it looked
like we were actually going to pull this off and look like we may have known what
we were doing. The first half of the rally presented some interesting challenges.
Most of the dirt roads had turned to deeply rutted mush from the recent thaw and
rainfall. We hit a Monsoon rainfall just a little north of Conesus. Craig got
his Neon stuck in mud while trying to turn around at his checkpoint near Groveland.
Thanks to Bob VanSice who helped push him out after he some how managed to work
the first checkpoint and then get to Craig and Alan just before we did. I think
his STi may actually be capable of flying; I'll investigate further. Just before
the fifth checkpoint down near Nunda we came across fog so thick you could stir
it. Oddly enough, there were many Time Allowance requests submitted at the upcoming
checkpoint.
The workers at the Mobil station in Nunda where we had our break point were impressed
with all the muddy cars and thought our little Rally was just the coolest thing.
There's not much going on in that neck of the woods so I guess it was exciting
for them.
We lost car 6 somewhere between the sixth and seventh checkpoints after Russ Hughes'
Son/Navigator started to turn green. A handful of Sheriff's Deputies and State
Troopers showed up at the seventh checkpoint just to find out what was going on
I guess. After a short 15-minute delay, the rally got moving again, only to run
into another wall of fog during the eighth leg, just east of Spring Water. The
Mazda 323 GTX green machine piloted by Rick Barnes and Jason Kostyshak broke down
before reaching checkpoint 9, but they managed to catch a ride with someone else
back to Manetti's.
The event wouldn't have been complete without one more problem, so a glitch with
the scoring program kept us from announcing final results. Alan Smith and Dana
tried hard to work out the bugs while the crowd began to thin. We finally gave
up when it seemed like the restaurant staff were the only ones still waiting around.
I guess the story doesn't quite end there. As we were packing up and heading out
to the car, I realized that Tom Langdon had left a half an hour earlier with my
keys. I had left his USB thumb drive in our car and gave him the keys so he could
get it out. Maybe he thought I didn't need them back. There was another set of
keys that we kept in the car, so we called AAA to get into the car to retrieve
them. Jerry Kerwin was nice enough to stick around and keep us warm in his car
while we waited for help to arrive. We finally made it home at about 3:00 AM and
our bed had never been more comfortable.
Special thanks to my lovely wife Dana for all of her help and hard work. I couldn't
have done this and kept my sanity without her. Our collective thanks go out to
our checkpoint crews, Marnie Soom and Cassie Rife, Craig McMaster and Alan Blood,
Tom and Deb Langdon, and Bob VanSice and his son Mini-Me. And, of course, I can't
forget to mention Brad Johnson who showed up to navigate in the Sweep vehicle
that wasn't coming. He managed to convince his fiancé's father to drive
down at the last minute to be our Sweep. Mr. Gettings reported that he actually
had a really good time and was glad that we sent him out into the woods for the
night. Now we just need to get him to compete!!
The competitors seemed to enjoy the event but objected to the heavy fog we ordered.
This was an interesting, challenging, and fun experience for Dana and me. Moreover,
we're looking forward to ITAR 2008. We're just hoping that baby Haley doesn't
mind the bumpy mountain roads.
-Cory
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