Thanks to all

[ceecpa]

The Old Dominion Region of SCCA and the Virginia Motor Sport Club announce the 2005 Old Dominion Rally on October 22, 2005.

Start:   Amtrak Station, 112 N. Railroad Ave, Ashland, VA 23005
   Registration opens at 9:00 AM.  First car is off at 10:31.

Directions:   I-95 to Exit 92 onto Route 54 West to Ashland.  Go into downtown Ashland, turn right just before the railroad tracks; then left at the first opportunity to cross the tracks, then left to the train depot.

What:      The Old Dominion Course Rally is designed to challenge Novice rallyists and to be stimulating for Tour-accustomed contestants.  Careful planning will assist all rallyists to arrive at critical controls, though maybe not on time.

Special Leg:   Contestants will be taken to the door of Patrick Henry's home, Scotchtown, and given time to tour individually.

Geography:   The rally will take place in the town limits of Ashland and the counties of Hanover and Louisa, Virginia.  Good county maps can be found at <http://www.virginiadot.org>

Classes:   Novice, Stock, Limited, and Equipped.  Go to <http://www.odr-scca.org/> for definitions.
Additional Information:
Registration:   Go to the Old Dominion Region website and click on Rally Info or go to
         <http://www.usrally.com/eventdetail.cfm?id=522>

[Curmudgeon]

Despite the grey day and attempted interference from two AmTrack trains and a zillion-car freight train, we were able to get going on our first course rally in years.  After a long stop at the end of the ODO leg, which was not long enough to actually take the tour of Patrick Henry's home but quite long enough to get chilled and damp, we started off and promptly bit the first trap.

This was a control located inside a Free Zone.  HUH?  Three of the eight teams did it right: blow on through without stopping, follow the course as it looped around to the end of the free zone, and stop when it brought you through the second time.  We were NOT one of the ones who did it right.

But my navigator redeemed himself almost immediately: the 3rd control was at the end of a medium-long confidence leg, where you came up a hill and saw a control in front of you.   But the one you could see was the 4th control; to follow the course you had to ignore it and turn left to follow your route into the real 3rd control, which was a few hundred yards out of sight.

Sleazy!! One's natural instinct is to dive into a control and find out where you are.  But course rallys are all about denying your natural instincts and following the letter of the instructions, and my navigator yelled "Go left! GO LEFT!" which made us one of the two teams that did this one right.  WOO HOO!!  The penalty for biting this was was a crusher: you missed control #3 and maxed #4 for a total of 450 penalty points.  OUCH!  :grr:  And to rub it in, the checkpoint workers were handing out suckers!!  Even though we didn't bite this trap, we accepted our suckers in honor of trap #1.  

The rest of the day went like this, to the extent that NO TEAMS, not even experienced equipped ones, made it through without at least one max.  But the traps were well enough looped so no one got totally lost, and the traps were feindishly clever enough that we found ourselves admiring them even as we took our three maxes.

Many thanx to Chuck & Betsy for a well organized and challenging event.  I hope they havn't scared everyone away from course events ... for me it was a welcome blast from VMSC's past when we put on 11 tough course rallys a year and the 3 or 4 autocrosses were a sort of afterthought.

[ceecpa]

Thanks to all the competitors who ran the 2005 edition of The Old Dominion Rally.  Many thanks to the workers who waited by the road while rally cars circled and pounced.  Thanks to those workers who had to dash at great speed to open controls on time.  It all worked out and the top three cars were Mark Sanetrik and Larry Green (SCCA), Dave and Fran Lumpkin (SCCA), and Gordon Paterson and Pasha Paterson (VMSC).

By the way, there was no sign reading "Res Mea".  It's a legal term meaning Guilty Knowledge.

Chuck & Betsy