Open Road Rally

[TR_Tim]

Perry and I need to contest this in support of our bid for the Novice Championship (this would make two years in a row for SPDA...).

Who else is likely to make the trip? I know it's a long way, but all the reports are that it's relatively easy navigation and a lot of VERY enjoyable roads.

Details below...

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The first ORR of the 2010-2011 series, and the 2nd-to-last ORRC of the 2010 provincial series will take place on November 6th out of Perth, Ontario. Registration will take place from 10:00 to 11:30 am at the Perth Restaurant, 23 Gore Street, Perth. Car zero starts the rally at 11:30 am. This is the same host location as last year. Please see these two maps for town detail and where to park.

http://www.pbase.com/robert_ottawa/image/129242848
http://www.pbase.com/robert_ottawa/image/129242842

Driving time for the rally will be about 4 hours. The route is about 40% paved, most of that in the first half, although it is a fun scenic drive throughout. There is only one boring 10 km transit towards the end of the event.

Like last year, instructions will be the same for all classes and will consist of distance-to-turns or simple Tulips only. There are no tricks and no one should get lost. If you do get lost, you will be embarrassed!

The cost is $40.00 per team.

[STeveD]

Tim, Opal and I are doing everything I can to make it there. Just hitting a snag or two in the car prep. Nothing throwing money at it shouldn't fix, though. :-)

[TrevorH]

Ted and I will be at this one as well. It's a long drive there, but the roads are just too much fun to miss. Plus, I need to check in on that angry, pitch fork wielding farmer.

[TR_Tim]

Steve - car prep?? Isn't that what you have a spare STi for? ;-)

[Napping]

I'm in need ofa teammate for this one. I'd like to Navigate, but alternatively, I can drive..

So, if anyone needs a navi, let me know asap.

[STeveD]

TR_Tim wrote:
Steve - car prep?? Isn't that what you have a spare STi for? ;-)

Having the STi ready is not in the cards... but I'll just bring another Subaru wagon from the stable...

Thanks to Dan and the guys at Fourstar, the good skid plate is going on, and the light bar is being test fit for MLWR. :-) Some durable winter tires for the gravel, mud, rain and possible snow we should see on Saturday. They're also doing the Timewise

Goodbye, 22lbs/hp... hello 19lbs/hp!!! She'll be tearing it up! And... get this... a MANUAL transmission!!!

You have a chance though, Trevor. She'll be on old stock suspension instead of the Hotbits. That's going to slow us down a bit.

[STeveD]

And... someone please take Eugen up on his offer! He's competitive at the top of novice class for sure!

[Napping]

Looks like I'm sittingthis one out. Couldn't find a teammate. Perhaps for the better. Got plenty of work at home piled up over past few weeks, so it's a good opportunity to get stuff done.

[STeveD]

Well, not a perfect rally for the club, but a very strong result! On the way out, the highway service station parking lot was sheer ice, so I was worried about how grip would be on the backroads.

The notes were simple... very simple. Not a trick in them, and each class (Novice, Intermediate and Expert) got the same set. So the focus of the navigator for the whole rally was staying accurately on time.

SPDA Expert: Steve and Opal
SPDA Intermediate: Trevor and Ted
SPDA Novice: Tim and Perry

This year's rally also started out very slow! Robert warned that some fun roads at the beginning had been paved, so the 45 CAS in Section 2 was kind of painful. Then another transit of about 16km without a turn or a checkpoint. They definitely lulled is into a sense of security. Three checkpoints down and over 2 hours into the rally. aA70 minute time with no CP's...

When the pace picked up on some traditional Lanark roads, we found the grip to be fantastic! Though it had a layer of wet mud up top, it wasn't greasy at all, and even the loose gravel somehow gave good grip! (Note to self; buy new car, don't forget to buy mudflaps!!) We even used the newly installed skidplate once!

Most of the roads that Robert chose this year were more than a single car wide to deal with hunting season traffic. So getting by oncoming traffic wasn't so hard.

When we got to the "No Exit" road we were warned not to go too fast on; that 20km/h would be a challenge, we found that it was easily passable in the 30+km range for the most part. Trevor somehow made up almost a minute on us in that section! :-o So yeah... it wasn't that bad at all.

Henshall was a tricky CP as always; uphill and around a bend, he wasn't hard to spot, but we barely made his CP within the window. Some moderate pace mixed with some more transits, and we were zeroing everything. After a long ET section, we checked with the Moores and they were also all Zeroes. The Leonards unfortuantely took a total of 0.5 at CP's 4 and 5. Was our first Expert entry really going to turn out well?

In short, yes. Opal and I managed our first zeroed rally! This earned us a tie for first expert with the Moores. When you zero the whole thing, there is no tie breaker, so we both got 10 points for our respective clubs.

Some roadside yaks hurt Trevor and Ted's efforts in intermediate to bring them in second behind a good local MCO team. A one minute TA calculation error with the driver questioning the navigator put them back just enough to come second.

The battle that everyone was watching though was the novice one between SPDA's Tim and Perry against MCO's Peter and Gary. They couldn't have cut it much closer; IIRC, it was a three way tie with another of the local MCO teams at 0.7. So it came down to the most number of 0 checkpoints to separate 1st and 2nd. Here, Peter and Gary's 5 zeroes edged out Tim and Perry's four zeroes. Believe it or not, the other local novice team had four zeroes as well, so that tie for second was then decided by number of CONSECUTIVE zeroes.

So novice shook out as:

1st: Peter and Gary
2nd: Tim and Perry

Going into First Frost, Tim and Perry will have a 1 point lead over Peter and Gary: 55 to 54. If they can finish at least 1 point ahead, or tie at First Frost, they can lock the championship.

So a great result overall for the club! 56 club championship points will hopefully hold SPDA's lead over MLRC for the rest of the year. We're looking for a consecutive SPDA win on the HSL Rallysport ORRC Championship Club award!

See you all at First Frost on December 4th! Please set the date aside to compete or volunteer!

[TR_Tim]

We had a great time - esecially on the tight, twisty gravel roads south of Sharbot Lake.

We were pressing on quite hard in the TR with a lot of sideways action and I was so sure that we were going to struggle to keep up the CAS that I was unconcerned as Perry said "we are 5 seconds early......6 seconds........7 seconds......" We'd been running behind early in the section and I was expecting it to tighten up again any minute.

And of course I hadn't given all of the time back when we came across the next check point.......0.1 for early arrival. And what was the final result? Tied on 0.7 and we lost on the count-back. Damn!! It's so easy to know what you SHOULD have done, after the event.....................

But as Steve says, a great result for the club and we'll be at First Frost to try to clinch the Novice Championship. We just have to finish ahead of Peter and Gary.

[STeveD]

Whoot! Horn tooting time!

Current ORRC Results (http://www.rallysport.on.ca/index.php?fuseaction=site.details&id=466)

With the 4th and 5th place novice teams having SPDA Ottawa members on them... SPDA scored more points (75) than MCO (72) at the MCO rally! :cheer: With 56 points from the SPDA series regulars, an extra 19 points came from our SPDA Ottawa crew.

It was good to have Ted and Trevor back again, too. Shame that the battery died in their camera!

We're going into First Frost with a 98 point lead in the club championship! It's looking good!

[STeveD]

If you want to see what the notes and Opal's scribbles looked like... here they are!

The final scores are here:

http://www.mco.org/cms/attachments/225_ORRC%20Results%206Nov10.pdf