Northwest Rally Council

TSD Rally Home of the Pacific Northwest

5/9/25 – NWRC’s May Friday Nighter

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Less than two weeks away, the NWRC May 2025 Friday Nighter should be a good time. This one is titled the “Gremlins of Lost Time” and authored by John, our Council president.

All the usual details apply and can be found in the info section of this site.

Registration opens at 6:45pm at the Eastgate Park&Ride (14200 SE Eastgate Way in Bellevue). We meet in the NE corner of the surface lot under the SE 142nd flyover. Driver’s meeting at 7:15pm.

Please note that Eastgate way is closed W of 139th Ave, with a long-term detour in place, connecting Eastgate Way to Richards Road via 139th and Kamber.

Entry fee is $30 per car, cash only.

Please read/review the updated (2025) NWRC General Instructions. Having a printed copy with you may prove to be helpful.

All events in the 2025 Friday Nighter season use the Richta GPS Checkpoint system for scoring. If you are not already familiar with this tool, please read the quick guide. Download the Richta Competitor app (from Apple or Google Play) and install on your iOS or Android device ahead of time.

The May Friday Nighter will end in Four Corners at Farrelli’s Pizza.

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Nine teams turned out for the season opener “Sprung Spring”. This is encouraging for event organizers, as it is the largest turnout for the first rally of the season that we’ve seen in several years.

PSRC Rallymaster Dave Treen sent competitors out to Issaquah and then south toward Renton to end the odometer transit on Wax Road. Leg 1 continued along Wax, then zig-zagged over to Lake Francis briefly, before running the length of Maxwell to the checkpoint just before Norvydan. Car 9 missed a turn (either Lake Francis or Maxwell) and had a little adventure but found their way back to the course.

Leg 2 wound through the Taylor Creek area and crisscrossed Hobart before coming back to SR169 to reach Witte Road. Cars followed Witte to its next encounter with SR169, where the route took them to Belmont Woods and along the Pipeline to the next checkpoint in an area you probably didn’t know is called Noble.

Leg 3 headed toward Landsburg, then south, past the Ravensdale Market (which is in Georgetown, not Ravensdale). It looped around Ravensdale Park (exactly where you’d expect it to be), back through Georgetown and almost to Landsburg before teams turned on Summit-Landsburg Road, eventually reaching the final checkpoint very close to the finish location in Four Corners.

Scoring was completed quickly and awards presented as pizzas were being served.

There was a question at the finish about Time Allowance behavior observed in the Competitor app. Teams attempting to take a 0:10 or 0:20 T/A could not do so, getting 0:30 instead. This was traced to a parameter in the event settings. For future rallymasters, please check that you have the minimum T/A value set to 0:10, maximum set to 19:30, and the increments set to 0:10, 0:20, 0:30, 1:30, … These are established in section 9.5.1 of the NWRC General Instructions. Using other values requires that a supplemental instruction be issued.

Puget Sound Rally Club gives Dave a big thank you for stepping up as rallymaster, and also gives recognition to PSRC members Kevin, Mike, and Vasco as well as non-members Jack and Charles for their assistance.

https://nwrally.org/1613-2/

March Madness, Meet April Anticipation

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In just two weeks, the NWRC 2025 Friday Nighter season begins, when Puget Sound Rally Club presents “Sprung Spring” on April 11th.

Rallymaster Dave Treen describes it as “a 2 hour driving event with no intentional traps” which sounds perfect for waking rally skills from winter hibernation.

Don’t forget to grab the updated General Instructions new for 2025.

Season Championships will be run for Novice, Seat-Of-Pants, and Masters classes. Run the April Friday Nighter to establish yourself as point leader! Note that due to the six-way tie for 1st place in the 2024 Novice championship, all participants remain eligible to compete as Novices in the 2025 championship.

Rules Updated!

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The NWRC General Instructions have been updated. The new edition is available in the Documents section of this site and also here.

Member clubs and interested parties submitted proposals last year and gathered in January to discuss and edit them, to then be voted on at the annual meeting in February. All amended proposals were approved unanimously.

A non-official summary of the changes adopted in 2025:

If supplemental instructions are needed for a Friday Nighter, they will be available at the finish of the prior month’s Friday Nighter.

Clarified requirement for two contestants per car: single contestant entries are not allowed.

Abbreviations AL and AR were added to the definitions.

Language was cleaned up in 9.3.2 for how ‘Evansville’ handles scoring and time allowances.

Restored the 300 point maximum penalty for a checkpoint. Rallymasters may choose to use a lower maximum for their event. The 60 maximum was an artifact from 2023 when Richta was hard coded to it.

Shortened the definition of the Equipped class (no change of intent).

Revised 9.7 Inquiries removing the same class requirement for peer review.