Wayne and Wendy would have loved it ...

[ceecpa]

The Old Dominion Rally happened Saturday and Sunday, October 28 and 29, 2006.  Eleven cars ran ODR-1 on Saturday and thirteen cars ran ODR-2 on Sunday.  The Sunday entries included two VMSC cars, one in Novice Class and one in Stock.

Weather on Saturday started in heavy rain but the skies became mottled by mid-morning and were beautiful and sunny by lunch.  The rally was 200 miles long and included 20 checkpoints.  There were 6 Equipped cars, 4 Limited, and one Rookie (Novice). The winning score was 22 by Jack von Kaenel and Jim Friedman who were running Equipped. Jeannie English and Dave Kolb won in the Limited class with a score of 45.  The VMSC crew of Stephanie Mann and Joe Eggert was the novice entry. They made ALL the controls and received a trophy for their efforts.  There were no stock entries on Saturday.

Sunday began as a beautiful day and continued that way for the whole event.  The 13 entries included 6 Equipped, 4 Limited, 2 Stock, and one Rookie.  Von Kaenel and Friedman repeated their winning ways and received 14 points on Sunday.  First Limited were Larry and Steve Gaddy with a score of 42.  First Stock was the VMSC crew of Nick Fisher and Gary Aheimer with a total score of 2872.  There were 18 controls on day 2.

Course Marshals for both days were wonderful.  VMSC crews working on Sunday included Bruce Edwards, Jeff and Audie Chenery, Keath and Donna Marx, Charlie Passut, and Chuck and Betsy Edwards

Course Marshals for Saturday from VMSC included Bruce Edwards, Michael Barnes, Gordon Paterson, Pasha Paterson, and Charlie Passut.  Charlie Passut was Chairman of both rallies in addition to working the course.

SCCA workers were Greg Smith, Jeff and Audie Chenery, Keath and Donna Marx, Betsy and Chuck Edwards, Charlie Passut, and Rick Folsom.

Rick Folsom was Chief of Scoring and scored both rallies while the Sweep Car went from control to control.  By the time the sweep arrived at the end each day the rally was scored.  SCCA rules require that the scores be posted for 30 minutes so that anyone who has issues can raise them.

There was one Claim (protest) on Saturday and the Claims Committee met on the spot.  The Claim was rejected and the trophies were awarded within 1.5 hours after the end of the event.  On day 2 the first car arrived at the restaurant at 3:30 PM, the scores were posted at 4:30 PM and trophies were awarded at 5 PM.  Rick did a fantastic job.

As you can see there are many workers needed to make a rally work.  We're talking about pneumatic cord timing devices and we're talking about transponders.  But the workers are the ones who make an event possible and they are the ones who make it good or not so good.  In the case of the two days just passed the workers were calm, clear, competent, and dedicated and I extend my heartfelt thanks to all of them.  You're merely the best.

Chuck Edwards

[Egz]

Steph and I had a great time.  Thanks to you and the workers for a great event.

[mfbarnes]

My hat is off to anyone with the nerve to compete in a course rally.  I'm also astounded at how well so many teams did, with computer or otherwise.  THAT was not easy.  Kudos to all the teams.

Thank you to Chuck and Betsy for all the time and effort put into managing these events.  Thank you to Charlie Passut for showing me how to work the clock, and for taking the more difficult job of time writing.  Thanks also to Dave Head.  When we presented him with an obvious incidence of creeping, he had to wisdom to dismiss it with the reasoning that it came right after a trap.  With his long experience, he could exercise that level of discretion.

Anyone who thinks TSD rallies are tame should work a checkpoint.  Wow.

[Curmudgeon]

Wayne and Wendy Whiner, that is.  If being an SCCA nat-anal rallyist means becoming a professional whiner like the ones I saw after the event, I will gladly forego the honour.  

The capper was a contestant who had stopped in sight of a control, and then backed up out of sight to avoid being waved in.  When he was presented with his penalty, he protested that 1) he didn't see the control, but 2) he saw a bunch of people standing near the road and backed up "to be safe" (which means he didsee the control).  I dunno who he thought he was kidding, but it appeared that no one was going to call him a liar to his face, more's the pity.

But working was a joy ... we spent the day congratulating each other on having the good sense to take our 400 worker points and enjoy touring around in the lovely fall weather, then watching the rally cars (most of them) come through.  It was spooky how close to perfect most of them were.  Chuck did a cute thing I will probably steal: he carefully engineered pauses so that each leg was an exact number of minutes long, which made scoring a breeze and made it easy for us workers to see who was on time and who was not.

Kudos to Chuck and Betsy and all the organizers for a well run show from our point of view.