Puget Sound Rally Club put on the September Friday Nighter, employing Mr. Mike Workman as the rallymaster.  Mike found some fun roads and had some nice traps.

A terrific night for a rally was punctuated by a light, but enthusiastic turnout.  The rally left the Eastgate Park & Ride and wandered out to Issaquah for the end of the odometer check.  From there, it was down part of Issaquah Fall City Road, a brief loop by the Snoqualmie River Road, then down 202 to Ames Lake and over to the Carnation Farm area for the first checkpoint.  From there, we zigzagged up the Valley to checkpoint 2 in the Tualco area.  The last leg ran up the High Bridge Road to Snohomish and the finish.  We had three BMW club cars, but changed them to novice when no other novice competitors attended.  They all got trophies, which is how we like it!  Three points separated first and second Novice; first and 2nd SOP were 10 points apart; 1st and 2nd Masters were one point apart and while the Unlimited cars had a pretty big gap owing to a 20 point penalty trap, first unlimited scored a total of one!  Congratulations to the winners!

Thanks also to the workers.  Rainier Auto Sports Club manned a checkpoint with Mark Nolte, Charles Aggenbach and Jim Breazeale.  From PSRC, Scott Margerum, Kevin Mullins, Jeff DeLong, Kelly Smith, Dave Treen, Vasco DePinna, worked in various capacities along with guests Ryan McLean and Aaron and Annette Nelson, John and Derris Humphrey and ORCA’s Gary Coon.  It takes a village, and our village is getting a little on the small side.  With workers, these events cannot happen.

The last event of the season is the October Friday Nighter, on the 13th.  Rainier Auto Sports is putting that one together.  Their events are usually drivers events, featuring good roads and minimal traps.  Come on out and join us.

Debbie Sjodin did a masterful job of rallymastering this event, which featured 3 notes, all of which were used twice and then cancelled.  The course ran from the Eastgate Park & Ride to the end of the odo check, just off Union Hill Road.  From there it meandered out to Duvall, then back down to Carnation, finally finishing up in Sammamish.  It featured lots of cool roads and most folks had a good time.  Traffic was problematic in a couple of areas for some people, but overall, it was a commendable effort.  Andy LeMay, in his first ever rally, teamed up with Sara Noll to win the Novice Class.  Dave Johnson and Ryan Welsh won the SOP class, in spite of Dave running on “4 hours of sleep”.  PSRC’s Scott Margerum and Mike Workman took First in Masters, with the best unequipped score of 28 and PSRC’s Mike Daily showed why having a computer in the car can help, with a total score of zero.  That also means he did everything right, because if you get a trap wrong in unlimited class, your penalty is usually exactly what the trap is worth.

Thanks to all the workers from ORCA who made this thing happen:  Jack Heppes, Dave and Kathy Sacry, Don Gibson and Ben Thompson, Pat Biggar and Rick Ross, Steve Roberts and of course the rallymaster, Debbie Sjodin.  Without these folks, the rally could not have happened.

Two Friday Nighters to go; come join us next month for a PSRC’s second Friday Nighter of the year.  And be sure to check out the Rainier Website http://www.rainierautosports.com/events/2017/norwester/ as they prepare for their three day event commemorating the 50th year of the first running of the Nor’wester Rally.  They have 39 Entrants so far, and they are entertaining the idea of 50 entrants for the 50th year.

See you next month!

 

 

 

 

Kathy and Dave Sacry  created this marvelous course.  It started off on a different note, with some dead mileage between the end of the odo check transit zone and the start of the variable part of the rally.  It worked well enough, and gave us an area to wait that had a bathroom available.  A welcome thing for those who needed it.  The course meandered out by the Carnation Farm, then up to Cherry Valley, then by way of Tualco Loop and High Bridge Road to Snohomish where we finished at Brava’s Pizza.  A really fun run, with a minor detour for an off course route control (for all cars except one).  Scores were generally 20 points higher than average due to the route control.

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to ORCA for putting on a fine event.  They’re putting on the next one too.  Come on out, it will be fun as well.

 

The June Friday Nighter made its way from the Park & Ride to Fall City, and then started winding it’s way North toward Snohomish.  The first leg was just short of an hour, giving competitors a test for keeping speed for a long time.  Many did great!  The second leg went up Stillwater Hill, a road that in the 80s was a challenge for the underpowered cars of the day.  While the new cars get up the hill smartly, it is still an entertaining route.  After the route returned to 203, we transited through Duvall, and started timing again at Crescent Lake Rd. where a grumpy local yelled at some of the competitors.  My apologies.  We had originally planned to end the transit sooner, but the reference we used disappeared between the measurement and the checkout.  Leg 3 was a short run up to the outskirts of Snohomish, and it was marred by an accident by a non-competitor.  Most cars got held up and filed time decs, but the problem was that the accident was close enough to the control that there was no space to complete the pause taken.  About half the cars would have been unfairly penalized, so we elected to throw the leg, and score the rally on two.  My condolences to the folks who got a good score on leg 3.  Also to the checkpoint crew whose work was tossed out with the leg.  I’m truly sorry.

Thanks to the workers from all of the clubs that made this thing happen.  We had a great, well attended checkout and the crews worked flawlessly.  Thanks to all that helped.