Northwest Rally Council

FOOTZ and PSRC combined forces for this entertaining and challenging rally. The course stayed between May Valley and Summit Landsburg, ultimately Finishing in Maple Valley. A few competitors suffered a bit of a meltdown on the rally, with several teams scoring maximum leg penalties (300). One of the SOP cars wrote “Tilt, Tilt, Tilt” on their scorecard.
The hard traps of the rally involved recognizing that school bus stop ahead graphics had red octagons on them and two walking people that satisfied the CROSS note. To complicate matters, there was an instruction that tried to use the signs used by the note, which were not executable because the note took precedence for use of the sign. That is definitely in the advanced course. All in all, the burns were relatively light, so failure to catch all the nuances was not too painful for most. The off-course excursions were another matter, but mostly self inflicted. The hardest traps for a rallymaster to control are the ones that competitors invent for themselves. We try really hard to keep that from happening. Thanks to the workers who helped make this possible: Mike Daily for putting the course together, Charles Agenbach for running pace with Mike; Mike Workman, Scott Margerum and Jeff Delong for working checkpoint 1 and 4; Dave Treen and Kelly Smith for working Checkpoint 2 and 3; and Vasco DePinna and Kevin Mullins who ran sweep. Most of these folks also ran the checkout, as did Ryan McLean, which is an important part of organizing a rally.
Thank you all for attending. It was gratifying to see so many folks enjoying one of our rallies. Don’t forget, we are running a bring a new rally team, get free entry promotion. Bring your friends and run for free! We are taking August off, so the next rally is September 13th, with ORCA putting on the rally. More details to follow on that. See you in September!

30 Years ago, give a take a year or two, I wrote my first rally. It pretty much followed this same route, although the end of the odo check was where the Costco is now, and the rally ended at Round Table Pizza, which went out of business a few years ago. The Fall City area has been spared some tremendous growth by a limitation in their sewer system to take more customers. Anyway, this even worked out much like the original one did, with everyone finishing and having a good time. The checkpoints were near the river, so we were fortunate to have cloud cover that kept the rafters away. It meant that we missed a nearly full moon, but the event was all but over when it started getting dark.

Thank you to the workers who gave their Friday Evening to work the rally, Andy Newell, Charles Aggenbach and Mike Daily at Checkpoint 1/3 and Steve Roberts and Don Gibson at checkpoint 2. And you all did a fine job on the do it yourself checkpoint 4. Thanks to John and Derris Humphrey, who checked out the route along with Roberts and Gibson. Also, a special thanks to Dave Treen who made the trophies and the dash plaques, ran pace and helped me measure the rally. Without these folks, these rallies could not happen.

Next month, Mike Daily will be putting on the rally in a joint FOOTZ and PSRC adventure. Mike’s rally will be entertaining and challenging for those trying to get the traps right, and it will be a fun run for those who go out for a ride. Come on out and join us!