<VV> Info needed for setting up a Fun Car Rally

[rbuckridge at comcast.net]

We did a lot of rallying back in the 60's.

A rally's success or failure was largely judged on the ending location. Was the bar or pizza joint easy parking were we could all keep an eye on our cars? Did the bar have a good selection of beers and did they make good burgers? Being in New Jersey, did the pizza joint have good pie?

If you answered no to any of the above, a carefully planned, well run rally was in danger of failure.

One of the best rally's I ever ran was the Rhyme & Riddle Rally. Over half of the route directions required you to solve math problems of a tricky nature or required you to figure out the rhyme or riddle before you could find the correct turn.

Dead Ned was what they used for a Dead End sign, as in turn right after seeing Dead Ned. A complex math problem was easily solved if you read all the way to the end of the problem and saw that you multiplied by 2, was your last computation. If the answer was an even number, turn right or turn left if your answer was odd.

But the one I still remember today is, "Twinkle twinkle little car, keep your wheels upon the tar, when you see the general store, turn that way on CR 4." The general store we passed was on the left, so your next turn was left onto county road 4.

But a good rally must keep safety in mind. On highways use real easy clues to get the drivers off the highway and onto less traveled roads. Once on back roads, tricky or hard to see clues are OK, but no "look back" clues. Some rallymasters use these clues were the driver or navigator had to look back after you passed the clue. Not very safe.

Clues that are in odd locations are best. Don't use clues that require a car to come to a stop so they can count the number of wagon wheels in someone's yard. Think how the home owner feels after 50 cars have stopped in his front yard.

Don't require a driver or navigator to leave the car and go on foot to see a clue, unless you have the location staffed with rally people to secure the area and also safely direct the car off the rode way into a parking area.

Remember it's a fun event and never forget the safety of your rallyists.

And never, never, never have your drivers park in the banks parking lot on a Friday night around 10PM if the pizza joint parking lot is full. You should have seen all the Lakewood cops we attracted that night. LOL

Roy - Bayshore Corvair, but Surf Corvette Club member in the rally daze.


Message: 5
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:12:41 -0500
From: "Russ Moorhouse" <corvair65 at verizon.net>
Subject: <VV> Info needed for setting up a Fun Car Rally (no Corvair)
To: "VV" <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Message-ID: <1485E7B824BD47859241827747593D9B at joespub>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
reply-type=original

After telling my 35 year old son, about the fun we used to have with TSD 
rallies and just general fun rallies, he decided that he would like to try 
that next year with his VW group.  He has put together a fall VW Skyline 
Drive Cruise the last two years and this year he even got sponsorship from 
VW of America.

He thought a fun or gimmick rally would be something different to do next 
year.  I have never set up a rally and it's probably been 35 years since I 
last ran one.  The sports car club I belonged to got more into autocrossing 
after the gas crisis in the 70's.  So I can only remember so much about 
these rallies we were in, probably because they ended in a bar most of the 
times.

I've searched the internet and I can't believe there is nothing of any 
substance on how to put on a fun rally.  I realize that it depends on the 
course your going to use and using vague hints that people can get lost, if 
they don't get it correct, but I could use some ideas, especially with the 
hints, from those of you who either participated or planned a rally, so I 
can help him out with this.

Thanks!!

Russ Moorhouse
'65 Corsa coupe 140 HP
Kent Island, MD
http://mysite.verizon.net/corvair65/Stinky/index.htm