Northwest Rally Council

TSD Rally Home of the Pacific Northwest

Ignoring The Signs

By Leave a Comment

Car 9 here. We encountered some curious GPS trouble at the July Friday Nighter.

First, this is not a general problem with the Richta GPS Checkpoints system. It was a combination of a conflict with another app and maybe (IMO) some limitations of any Android device.

Second, there were clues that there could be trouble brewing. No big red flags, but some indications. When you open the Competitor app into an event, the GPS coordinates begin refreshing and should do so very often. I noticed they didn’t seem to be changing quickly or steadily. Wish I had given that more thought. I dismissed my concern because I’ve mostly been staring at the Rallymaster app this year.

Third, I have an app called MileIQ installed on my phone. It is an automated mileage logger for keeping track of reimbursable business travel. This app updated earlier that day. Five days later, I discovered it had no data captured for those five days. I’ve had small problems with MileIQ reliability, but never found it to interfere with Richta. Restarting the phone made no difference. I ended up having to uninstall and reinstall MileIQ to get it working again.

Next clue was found about two miles down the road. At the Drivers Meeting, they announced the crew working the OUTCONE would be checking each car had gotten their Out Time in the app. The crew did not do this. Knowing our intended Out Time was 1930 + 9, I had already entered that into the rally computer and didn’t notice Competitor hadn’t detected the Restart location (CP1).

The final clue was the laggy checkpoint detection. Yes, there is a slight delay between passing the checkpoint coordinates and Competitor announcing it. As we arrived at one checkpoint (location unknown) we could see a line of cars idling. There were two posts between us and the stopped cars. 2nd post was pretty close to the cars, so seemed likely that the checkpoint would be at the 1st post. We were one or two seconds beyond the 1st post but not yet to the 2nd post when the app sounded. If the GPS data stream reaching the app was refreshing slowly or erratically, I would expect exactly this result.

We made no off-course excursions and arrived at the finish location having detected only CP2, CP3, and CP4. Somewhere along the way we passed the CP5 location without detecting it.

The event critique distributed at the finish described a leg 6 but there is no CP6 in the results. We didn’t hear anything about it being dropped or explaining the mismatch.

There were three other cars that did not detect CP5. A rally official was monitoring the map view of the course in the Rallymaster app and says those cars were off-course missing the checkpoint location entirely. It makes sense these three didn’t detect CP5. What doesn’t make sense is 30% of the SOP and NOV cars missing a checkpoint. When that many cars are getting lost at the same place there is a problem, and the leg probably should have been tossed. It’s not the competitors’ fault that the route or instructions were difficult to follow without local knowledge or more experience.

After the remove/install cycle with MileIQ, I’ve had no further issues with any GPS app. I’ll be making a few verification tests with Competitor and see if things are working smoothly again with it. Just looking at the GPS data refresh, it seems to be fine now.

Not all who wander are lost!

By Leave a Comment

Despite a downturn in the weather bring drizzle the entire evening, twelve teams turned out for 3 Lefts & A Right, the June installment of the 2023 NWRC Friday Nighter Season.

FOOTZ delivered the second event using the Richta GPS Checkpoints system, lightly seasoned with time traps. All teams completed the route successfully. Once again, Farrelli’s Pizza in Maple Valley provided us will a good finish location.

A familiar odometer check led teams out to May Valley Road before competition began. Leg 1 went down Cedar Grove Road, then jogged over to Maxwell. Reaching a stop sign at a T, where NRI 21. L AT “STOP”, CAST 34 was available, the instruction could not be used as the route was forced left since the road to the right was a dead end. Teams using NRI 21 sped up, arriving at the checkpoint 15 seconds early.

Leg 2 cut east from Maxwell, skirted the edge of Hobart and passed local landmark The Yellow Submarine. While crossing the ridge before Ravensdale, teams executed a small speed change using NRI 30. CSD 2 AT [arrow] OR [deer]. This was the initial setup for the trap. The arrow sign comes up first and CSD at [arrow] is simple enough. There is a [deer] soon after, so even if the [arrow] was missed you move on to the next instruction. NRI 31. CAST 40 AT SECOND [arrow] OR [deer] seals your fate if done wrong. There is one more matching [arrow] and if treated as the second you’ll be 3 MPH faster (40 vs 37 here) for the rest of this leg. It was the first [arrow] encountered since executing the previous NRI. Good for 11 early at the checkpoint on the west side of Ravensdale Park.

The next leg used the pleasantly twisty Ravensdale-Black Diamond Road between its namesakes then headed out to the Green River Gorge. Along the way teams faced NRI 40. CAST 45 AT FOURTH PREMARKER OR PAUSE 9 AT “STOP”. A premarker is any of the many yellow, diamond-shape signs warning of something. Once outside of Black Diamond, there are two premarkers in quick succession. So far, so good. Then there is a long stretch of nothing. Eventually, two more appear on the horizon. They are still quite distant, but easy to see because they are the only things to spot. However, before you reach the third premarker, there is a stop sign on a gate in a wide turnout on the left. Amazing how the brain works, as that stop sign is hugely visible, but so hard to see once you’ve spotted those diamonds. The checkpoint was just before the GRG bridge. Using the first half of NRI 40 was good for 11 seconds early. 3rd & 4th premarkers are circled in red, below.

Leg 4 started just beyond the bridge, taking one of my favorite stretches of road up to Cumberland. On the way to Veazie, navigators became tense.

Stacking ITIS instructions is allowed, but frowned upon because it usually makes things very complicated. This stack only had shock value. It is much simpler than most stacked ITIS situations would be, as all of these ITIS instructions require finding the same [arrow] premarker. Although four NRIs are all on the table, you’re only looking for two things – that arrow and the sideroad sign. The first matching sign is the arrow, where NRI 46 is executed. Next comes another arrow. If you counted this sign as the 2nd and used NRI 47, that made you 11 early. Remember, it needed to be the 2nd after NRI 46. The crossroads premarker came next, but there had been no more arrows. If you executed NRI 48, add another 4 seconds early. Finally the sideroad premarker appeared and all that madness was behind you. Checkpoint just before Krain Korner.

Another short hop on SR169 and leg 5 started on SE 383rd. The phantom bantam was mentioned. NRI 53. CAST 34.4 AT JEMA RANCH RD ITIS (birthplace of famous rally rooster, Tatty) gave competitors a chance to forget that for this event, gravel roads did not exist. Cheap trap? Yes! I called it the chicken finger and kept the penalty small at 5 early. Otherwise, it was 5 miles of great road with nothing for the navigator to do except hang on. A right at stop brought you to the checkpoint just before Green Valley Road.

The final leg passed Flaming Geyser Park, then climbed the remarkably steep and twisty section of Green Valley. Hard to believe it still has a 40 speed limit. All the fun ends once GV reaches SR169 and the route heads to and through Black Diamond, then on to the last checkpoint about a mile before Four Corners.

Scoring was completed and awards presented as pizzas were coming out of the kitchen.

It was great to see the increase in turnout at this event. We had only seven cars in May. It takes more than six to cover the insurance cost, and at least ten with other expenses. The absence of Novice cars in May was alarming. One of the Novice teams this month came from Bellingham to check out the Richta system as they want to restart Chuckanut’s rally program. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the depth of the Master class, especially since one very consistent team was missing.

FOOTZ thanks: Bill and Charles Aggenbach for providing valuable feedback in the route/instructions checkout process. Charles also drove the pace car and assisted at the finish. Photo credit for the on-route image at the top of this post goes to Emily Winslow. The Winslows also spearhead the NWRC social media campaign. It takes a village.

See you all in July!

Appetizer Launched On (Re)Schedule

By 1 Comment

Seven teams roamed the Issaquah, Hobart, Ravensdale, Maple Valley area on familiar roads while becoming acquainted with the Richta GPS Checkpoints system. The Rallymaster promised no course following traps so that full attention could be placed on seeing how the Richta Competitor app worked and integrating it into the team’s workflow. Overall, it was successful and well received. A series of posts on this website and emails sent to the member clubs delivered a large amount of preparatory information but until you run a GPS event, it all feels very theoretical. Comments at the finish were generally positive, with teams liking the immediate score feedback and the app’s simplicity of use.

Appetizer was intentionally short, at just about 1:45 total time, including the odometer check. The missing CP numbers (1,2,7,12,16) in the chart above were all Restart points, similar to an Outcone with an assigned out time, each followed by a handful of marked passage controls. The passage controls were scored point to point using what the Richta community has dubbed the Evansville scoring method. With Evansville, your out time from a passage control is your in time at that control (meaning you leave each control on perfect time.) Evansville is intuitive and easy to adopt for all paper class competitors. Equipped and unlimited class teams have to adjust their workflow slightly. The format was chosen specifically to provide a relatively large number of checkpoints, allowing teams to develop some comfort and confidence with the Competitor app.

Thank Yous go out to Bill and Charles Aggenbach for check-out of the event, Charles again for driving the pace car, and Barry S for use of the images in this post. The June event will use the Richta system again but will be a more traditional format. The June supps were posted last week and have a few additions to the April/May foundation. Each checkpoint will likely be followed by a pause to process checkpoint slip information and a physical reference for starting the next leg. Constructive feedback is welcomed.