Discover Ontario Car Rally

[brooke]

Hi,

The 2009 Discover Ontario Car Rally is taking place on Saturday, June 6th.

This is part of the Ontario Road Rally Cup, but you don't need to be competing in the championship to come out and rally.

The DOCR is specifically designed to be beginner friendly so don't be afraid to come and give rallying a try.

For more information and copies of route books from previous years go to www.brooke.net/docr (http://www.brooke.net/docr) or e-mail brooke at brooke dot net

Cheers,

Brooke

[STeveD]

Hey, Brooke, good to hear that you're organizing it! We're avid users of Rallycalc. ;-) See you there!

[brooke]

Hey, thanks for that.

I took a year off because my daughter was born last April. Now with fresh ideas in my head and new roads, it's going to be a fun rally.

RallyCalc may get its first update since 2001. Nothing major, but I get lots of requests from around the world to have it display in 1/100s of a minute. Many places, including the US use 'cents' and RallyCalc isn't suitable for them.

Once I get the DOCR out of the way I'll finish it up.

Hope to see you on the 6th,

Brooke

[STeveD]

Well, if this is the place to make requests... ;-)

Any way you can have multiple UNDO's? Right now it only undoes the very last thing, where sometimes you'll realize too late that you had the wrong CAS entered during the last series of instructions. Yet you don't want to go back to the last CP as a "known point".

[brooke]

Well, I can look into that :)

If it was just one speed change ago, you can just enter the distance that the speed change was wrong (with the current, wrong CAS) and it will go back and give you the correct time for that distance. Then just put in the correct CAS, the current or next distance, and it will be correct. There is no need to go and do all the intermediate distances you've already passed.

However, that only works for one CAS mistake :)

I'll see what I can do.

Cheers,

Brooke

[rmoore]

A reminder--the Discover Ontario Car Rally is this Saturday, June 6! Two days away! This famous navigational rally has been taking place annually for about 25 years. This year it starts near Port Hope, Ontario. One of the special features of the DOCR is the huge, venerable trophy awarded to the top Novice team each year--a prize which is guaranteed to impress your friends and make them jealous! Expert organizer Brooke Jacobs is well known for creating a well-written rally with beginner-friendly Novice instructions, and with the great roads in this area, you don't want to miss this rally!

Full details are available on the event website at http://www.brooke.net/docr/
Come on out!

[STeveD]

Opal and I will be there. I think our cheerful competition will be there as well. Anyone else?

[madgen]

Trev and I will be there. After all, we've gotta keep our current win streak going! :-D

[STeveD]

It was a quick jaunt down the 401 to Port Hope for the start of the DOCR.

The DOCR was relatively well attended with 12 teams total. Two Expert (Moores & Leonards), plus 10 Novice, with a lot of new novice teams. Brownhill & Corbett hiked it out from Ottawa again. Kukikowski & Sutherland from Kitchener. The SPDA teams of Deneka & Gamble and Hancher & Doig from western GTA, and the other 6 novice teams had never finished in the points yet. Great to see some new teams out! Hopefully, Brooke didn't scare them off TOO badly. ;-)

For Opal and I it was key to (for the first time in a long time) actually set our clocks right! Each one to the same minute was a fresh change. The Terratrip had worked flawlessly since the last rally in Campbelleville, but sure enough. Driving away from the ODO reset the odo was frozen at Zero. CRAP! Opal saw the problem immediately though: When I took the ownership and insurance for Ol' Smokey out of the glove box, I accidentally knocked the ground wire for the DSI off the tab. Oops! Press that on, and then back it up the "exit ramp" from the service station past two curious truck drivers with 18 wheelers who had to avoid us, and start over again!

The ODO calibration was one of the most memorable of many rallies because it included Stacey Road with MANY pot holes. Not having a CAS here, I tried to take it as quickly as possible to make sure we'd have time for whole 21.46km ODO check. That turned it nearly into a car breaker! When we finally came to a stop at the end of that road, the Left Rear suspension gave off a loud metallic *CLANG*! While stopped! That's never good. I'll have to have a look at that soon, as she made it through the rally, but I think the left rear wheel bearing has grenaded and the parking brake doesn't sound happy. Opal used this section to work ahead and translate out the instructions in sections 3 and 4.

Then, section 2 started. I don't know what Brooke's parents did to him as a child, but it instilled a real EVIL streak in this lad... Section 2 was road counting so Opal had to do it "live" with me. Things were going well for us at the beginning. Opal and I (car 10) arrived 4 seconds early for the first CP. Trevor and Ted (car 7) zeroed this. We continued up to about 17.03 at a Y in the road at Forsythe Lane / Deckers Hollow where we saw all sorts of rally traffic going all different directions. The Leonards were parked on the shoulder past the Left Y that we took. We saw (IIRC) the white Lancer coming our way. When we got to Forsythe Lane, Blake & Corbett were heading towards us. We made a left up Forsythe lane and doubled back a minute later finding a dead end. Now Kulikowski & Sutherland joined the party and I saw a blue WRX as well. Then Blake & Corbett reappeared, and disappeared again. What the heck!? Disappointingly, we didn't see Hancher and Doig struggling with us, which would have been nice.

In the end we gave up on the road counting and just used the GPS to find the roads mentioned in the instructions. We figured out how to scroll around on the Garmin Nuvi two rallies ago and it saved our butts this time. We basically found Cold Spring Camp Rd on the GPS, then Oak Hill Rd and headed for Oak Hill. We left the Ottawa team at the same intersection, but the CAS matched on Cold Spring. OPal immediately calculated how far behind we were... we'd need a TA of 6.5. Five km up the road we hit CP#2 after turning onto Beavermeadow Road. There was a strange Right-Acute Left-Right Y in the road on the right that we took correctly and then entered the CP. Brooke should have made this a route check / CP and we'd have aced the rally (having zeroed this CP without TA)! We were apparently only the second team to not fixate on the CP board take the Y.

Unfortunately, car 7 had made it there two cars before us. Darn it! And they only took a 0.1 early! We'd used a CP and it didn't look like they had. Ah well, that was our freebie and it was a long rally ahead.

CP 3 was just two clicks up the road. Not an easy find after a couple of "No Exit" roads before it. We were a little bit behind here, taking our second highest score (a 0.4) for being 26 seconds late. Car 7 took a 0.5 here, probably struggling as much as we did with the "No Exit" road. We sat at the CP proud of ourselves for catching two tough CP's, and used the GPS to calculate the "road counting" Junctions ahead of us.

Turned out to be a BIG mistake. We counted roads on the GPS, but we passed roads a KM before that we realized we had neglected to count. Argh! We end up doubling back and heading up what can best be described as a one lane forest access road. 300m in, we throw it in reverse and back our way out realizing this can't be the route. We employ our old reliable method of doubling back all the way to the last CP and starting over again. Now we count our roads again and end up on the same Forest road with the Ottawa team and the Leonards! Corbett clues in first and doubles back. They don't look amused. The Leonards and our team turn around then too and Opal catches a road-counting error. Oops. Turns out, we were in the right place from the start, and never had to do any of this. But she calculates out our next TA of 11.5 That's 18 minutes. Yeesh. We're almost out of TA's!

But that wasn't the end of insults here. The next CP was just 2km up from all of our double backs and we get confused by a no exit road just before turning left onto Walker. CAS is 44, so I try to make up the time, but we hit CP4 before long and I had to guess at how much time over 11.5 minutes we'd lost at Walker. The tendency is to guess high, so I was hesitant, but I thought it best to go with an extra minute. But at 12.5, that was our whole TA budget for the rally used up in the SECOND Section. This was going badly. We SHOULD have practiced the day before, but neither of us had time. Our extra minute of TA gives us a 0.3 early so it was the correct decision to wing it and add the extra minute. Yes, the CP workers tell me that Car 7 had been there. We find out later that they took a 0.3 late, probably confused by the same "no exit" we were.

One more CP in that section, #5 and we arrived 4 seconds early for a -0.1 early. Trevor and Ted took a 0.3 early here. We didn't know it at the time, but they were doing about as well as we were. Road counting is our Achilles Heel and four CP's in that section were doing us in.

Fortunately, Section 3 was a piece of cake. Ordered Tulips and I worked from Opal's translated sheet alone while she worked ahead. CP6 was Brooke collecting the cards and sending us on our way. I took the opportunity to call him EVIL and give him some cookies, and off I went with a -0.1 early penalty... actually only one second early, darn it! WIth our 0.5 penalty for the second TA, and car 7 taking a -0.3 early we didn't know it but we were tied with Trevor and Ted! We just thought that we sucked.

Section 4 was "faces" to tell you left or right, and I worked most of it from Opal's translated notes. Opal thought she saw a trick in here, but it was just Brooke's use of pronouns. That's what you get when your navigator is a technical writer / editor. ;-) A simple section with just one CP, #7, which we zeroed. T&T took a -0.1 early. I'm not the only leadfoot in this sport. ;-) We worked ahead to a delay in section five that was a little tricky but we'd need to take 30 seconds.

Section 5 was a little tricky and Opal had to guide me through the first half. You had to note not only the turn you took, but the options that you left behind to use those later! There was only one CP (8) and we took a -0.5 early. Why? We forgot that 30 second pause from the previous section. Well, Opal says she told me to take it. I say I never heard it. She pays more attention than I do, and my wife also tells me that I never listen, so she was probably right. T&T took a 0.6 late.

Section 6 was out of order tulips and Opal caught up and helped we with the copied notes half way through. We took a -0.1 for being 3 seconds early to CP9. Unbeknownst to us, T&T took a 0.1 late. The CP workers told us that they Trevor & Ted arrived before us, making it seem like they had NO trouble whatsoever. Darn it!

Section 7 was simple columnar instructions. There was only one CP and we were 0.1 or 3 seconds late. Trevor and Ted zeroed it.

As soon as we were out of section 2, Opal and I had a good rhythm and good teamwork with no surprises. It worked great in the latter half, and we were smiling and laughing through the last half.



























Section 8 was an elapsed time section and both our teams zeroed it when we checked in at the Boston Pizza. We saw T&T's score of 2.3 and thought, "Damn, that's good. They got us". Opal ordered a beer while I had a Diet Pepsi and calculated our total. I double checked everything and came up with... 2.1. TWO POINT ONE!!! From a few tables down, Trevor and Ted didn't seem to be arguing their scores with Brooke, so they probably agreed with their 2.3. I slinked over to the score tally board where Dietmar and Brooke were tallying scores and saw that no one else was that low. Still a few teams to report, but it was looking good! We were 1.6 ahead of the Moores, too, so if things stayed where they were, we'd end up with the overall. On the way to get the camera that I forgot in the car, I dropped a teaser with Trevor and Ted, "Well, we're within 0.2 of you." Then I walked off without telling them if it was high or low. I enjoyed the anxious look on their faces...

When I came back in, Ted asked me, "What did you calculate?" "2.1 total including the 0.5 penalty for the second TA." I looked across at the scoreboard and they had us at 1.7. Hrmm! Looks like I missed a 0.1, and they forgot to give me the 0.5 second penalty! Even still... that would be 2.2. Oh, I could see the frustration in the colour of Trevor's face, but he was grinning and he was the first to shake my hand for the win. "No!" I exclaimed. "Not until they're final!" Ya see, there's been "Inquiries" after the results this year, and I wasn't counting my chickens until they were hatched!

Brooke and Dietmar had assessed us an extra -0.1 early on CP#9, and they were right. I missed it in my first calculations, but we were 3 seconds early. Ted still wasn't happy with our 1.7 though, so he accompanied me as I went and reminded Dietmar and Brooke that they have to assess a 0.5 penalty for the 2nd, 3rd, etc. TA's used. That meant going back through all of the scorecards to do so, but it didn't change any finishing orders and the results held without protest.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3416/3602767024_eb67487471_b.jpg

The Moores took first in Expert (Sorry Rita and Paul, my photo didn't come out!), followed by the Leonards in second. Or "Last" as Bruce calls it. I reminded him that he should have at least two more teams in Intermediate with him next year should he and Jane decide to drop back down to play with our teams. Hopefully they will!

In novice, one team managed to take 205 penalty minutes with only 11 checkpoints. Impressive! I do hope they're out again. We had a 301+ after MLWR and it only made us try harder.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2447/3602763622_d4de801fde_b.jpg

Baig and Ladwa finished 4th to score 7 points. A great performance after finishing outside the points in the 2009 January Jaunt. Kulikowski and Sutherland took 3rd novice!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3601/3602764178_1bb0bf8693_b.jpg

Trevor and Ted in Second, Opal and I in 1st, with our first overall win as well! Finishing 0.1 minutes apart... you can't ask for better competition than that. Well done guys!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3388/3601952215_21baa61e4d_b.jpg

That's some BIG metal! Opal's taking it home first to use as a kitten bed. (Does anyone want some cute fluffy kittens? Anyone?)

Our congratulations to all of the teams, and our thanks to Brooke! He put together a very challenging rally and we all enjoyed the challenge.

... though road counting... not so much! :-)

[Navigator]

Wow thats awesome guys. Congrats to the SDPA Teams. I remember the first time we won overall; talk about getting addicted after that. Steve as always a great write up now when are you going to start using the harder notes. :-o

[TrevorH]

[STeveD]

Thanks Ivano! We'll be stepping up to intermediate for 2010. Hopefully we can log some events at the end of this year with the Timewise so we can practice for a strong January Jaunt finish!

(Yes, I'm dreaming that far ahead. ;-) )

Thanks for reminding me about that trick in Section 5, Trevor! CP8, yes. When we were first driving into the section, we saw the Leonards driving out of it as oncoming traffic. I waved to them and asked Opal, "Are we still in the Oncoming Rally Traffic section?" "No, that was over a long time ago." When we came across that street with the CP just around the corner, it was SO tempting to make the right, but Opal wouldn't let me. I was ready to do a U-Turn, but we made the big loop around to take it the correct time, so it all worked out!

You're right, Trevor! I hadn't thought of it that way... six seconds difference after four hours of rally. Yup, the margin of victory was 0.04%.

I just noticed something... I was wearing the same shirt in Peterborough! That's now my lucky rally shirt! I'm going to wear it for the rest of the rallies this year!

... but I do intend to wash it between rallies! No reason to panic.

So for the overall, including future forecasted points to be gained as organizers, here's the top 3:

Novice Drivers:

Stephen D: 46 (56 with org points)
Trevor H: 36 (46 with org points)
Andrew K: 33


Novice Navigators:

Opal G: 46
Gary S: 33
Ted D: 32

It's all still up in the air with four events left this year! The top three teams are all still numerically capable of winning novice. Opal's going to miss Infinite Monkeys, which will bring her to an equal number of events as Ted, and let Gary S have an extra to have six full events scored. But... we won't know before President's Prize at the absolute earliest! Likely, top Navigator won't be decided until the very last event, SPDA's First Frost Rally in December.

[Opal]

DOCR, as illustrated by gratuitous kitten photography:

This rally is how long? With how many breaks? NONE? Pardon me, I'll be right back...
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2425/3609213270_1db933d7f1.jpg


Wait, were we supposed to turn there?
No. No turning. NO.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3653/3609204862_8e5cdaab33.jpg


Stage 2, corner counting, as illustrated by hissy-fit kitten:
TO HECK WITH THIS, I'M WALKING HOME!
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3645/3608406219_d0f1a0f091.jpg

Checkpoint!
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3557/3608393835_94acc46717.jpg

"Well, we're within 0.2 of you." Then I walked off without telling them if it was high or low. I enjoyed the anxious look on their faces...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/3609225300_b527e8991f_b.jpg


0.1 points...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3623/3608402233_bca3fb26c8.jpg


Today, they tried to steal my car keys. The little black and white one had them half way to the shed when I looked up:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3321/3608927506_8ea5eb4c37_o.jpg
(HA! If only they knew they were stealing the keys to the Civic of Doom and not Old Smokey.)


In case it's not clear... kittens! Cute! Free to good homes! PM ME!!

[STeveD]

The nearly black one, "Diesel" is a cuddler BTW!