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Last year, a group of die hard rallyists gathered to run a winter rally. The previous events had no snow, and they all were hoping this one would be different. They got their wish, and for the first time in anybodies’ memory, a winter rally was cancelled because of snow.
On January 12 of this year, 27 teams gathered at the Yard of Ale Canal House in Piffard in a bid to complete the rally that was started last year.
The rally course was essentially the same as last year, but a few changes were made the few legs that got ran last year. The course was broken up into 4 sections, an OMP leg of about 15 miles, a 45 mile run out to Oakfield, a 50 mile loop around the Tonawanda Swamps and Indian Reservation, and then a 50 mile journey to the end of the rally. In contrast to many events, the final control was within 1.5 miles of the end of the rally, and apparently caught several teams off guard.
Many of the roads on the event were roads that had not been used for many years, and each section of the event had it’s own flavor:
- The first competitive section was fairly simple and open. There were a couple of hills, but nothing too challenging. The most interesting of the roads planned for this section had been dropped when it was impassable for mileaging and course check. For many years, some of these roads formed the backbone of the “Eastside” rallies, but they seemed to fall out of use in the early to mid ‘90s.
- The second section was fairly flat and explored virgin territory north and north east of Batavia and through the swamp lands. While a few local were surprised to have 30 cars down a road in one night that might see 10 cars in a week, there were no problems. The one seasonal road on this section was always passable, even when others were snowed in. I’m not sure exactly why, but it could have something to do with it being the road that leads to the local firing range.
- The third section featured more interesting roads, including two on slick clay mud. While the first few roads were very rarely ever run, by the middle of the last third, old time rallyists could almost predict what roads would be used and where the controls could be.
- When the event was mileaged, large volumes of snow prevented the use of three interesting seasonal roads, so they were dropped. Instead, paved roads were used. As usually happens to events my wife and I write, if we drop a seasonal road because of snow, there is no snow in sight when the event is run. If we don’t drop it…. Let’s just say they were in last year’s routes.
The snowless, mostly paved roads turned the event from being a driving challenge into a navigational challenge. Staying on time became more important that getting through hard corners.
Of the 27 cars that start, 26 finished. The team of Alvin Fong and William Buck had to retire due to a flat tire. 10 of the cars where Novices – definitely a good sign for the rally program. While many novices had very good scores for their first event, the most impressive drive goes to car 27. Even though a shaky start led to them arriving at most of the first two thirds of controls after they had been closed, they continued on. At the controls they did make, their scores were quite impressive.
In all, the event had 18 planned and manned controls. One radio control had to be dropped because of some technical problems. Another control ended up being dropped because of a typo that put the control after a free zone, but still within the limits of a Pause over time. That gave a final total of 16 scored controls.
Staffing 18 controls did present some logistical problems, but luckily we were able to round up a large number of workers. The control workers were: Roger & Keneth Harnaart, Bill & Jennifer VanRemmen, Frank Bov, Amanda Kellog, Carl Dressie, Chris & Jake Buckman, Steve Kittelberger, Barb Lissow, Craig McMasters, Alan Blood, Bob, Greg & Ryan VanSice, Mike Toombs, and John Walsh; Eric & Debbie Hinkston took care of registration; Kurt Theil ran sweep; and Sharayah Werner navigated for course opening and helped with tech. Co-rallymaster Beth Werner also worked a control.
A special note of thanks should also be added to The Yard of Ale Canal House for graciously letting us both start and end our rally there, and for putting on a good buffet afterwards.
- John Werner, Rallymaster
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