Six days out. The NWRC Friday Nighter season continues with “Duck Around & Dine Out” on Friday the 12th.

Will Fall approaching fast, I felt it was worth another run over the DADO course to review visibility and traffic conditions. Past the odometer check the initial legs run on narrow roads with substantial tree cover. By the time I got to the Snoqualmie valley it was quite dark. Can’t blame a cloudy sky because the Harvest Moon was out on prominent display.

It’s interesting how different some roads look and feel when illuminated by headlights instead of the sun. Areas that felt open and plagued by a low speed limit during the day became more challenging. Likewise, areas where CASTs were set low to account for other road users were now empty.

As a result of last night’s review I made a few adjustments and the necessary updates to instructions, calculations, and checkpoint slips.

Some new details about the September Friday Nighter:

The event is trying two new things.

Most Friday Nighters have leg #1 begin at the Park&Ride and end at a timed checkpoint by having the odometer check (a transit) and the competitive portion (a regularity) stuck together as one leg. The downside to that method is when a team of first-timers don’t realize they should stop at the end of the odometer check. To help prevent this common mistake DADO will have a RESTART at the end of the opening transit zone.

Off-course markers used to be a common way to advise teams they had wandered off the planned route. The markers were typically a placard with a red X. They suffer from many limitations. There must be a place to put up the marker. That place needs to have room for the pace car to stop and put up the marker. It needs to actually be seen and recognized by the lost team. It does not provide any clues about how to find the correct route and needs to be retrieved when the event is over. DADO is going to try using geo-fencing. A quantity of Richta route controls have been strategically placed to stop teams from wandering outside of the rally boundaries. The control slip for these will identify it as an Off Course Marker. There is no penalty score for finding the marker. If you encounter one, I’d definitely like to hear your feedback about this experiment.

Like “Just Redux” in June, each timed section will begin at a RESTART. Using a RESTART on each leg helps maintain car spacing. When you reach a CHECKPOINT open the control slip (by tapping it on the displayed list). The slip will tell you what NRIs to execute to reach the next RESTART where you will get your restart time.

I hope you’ll be there on Friday.