TSD Rally Home of the Pacific Northwest
Join us Friday the 12th for If It Looks Like A Duck.
This is a traditional Friday Nighter beginning at the Eastgate Park & Ride, 14200 SE Eastgate Way in Bellevue. Registration opens by 6:45pm and cars begin to depart at 7:30pm. Finish is 10pm in the Issaquah Highlands. The rally is slightly more than 2 hours in length and sunset will be after 9pm. All cars should reach the finish before dark unless there is a particularly large turnout.
Just under three weeks to the NWRC June Friday Nighter on 6/12/26. Join us for If It Looks Like A Duck, presented by FOOTZ. This is the third event in the NWRC 2026 Championship.
Registration opens at 6:45pm in the NE corner of Eastgate Park&Ride. The entry fee is $30, cash only. Q&A meeting at 7:15pm. Cars depart beginning at 7:31pm.
Scoring will use the Richta GPS Checkpoint system, so be sure you have the app loaded on your smart phone. Checkout the Documents section of this site for the Richta introductory guide and also grab the NWRC General Instructions. There are no changes to the Generals for 2026, if you have a 2025 copy.
<from John Humphrey, rallymaster>
Dodging Beasts Rally Summary
First, thanks to all the rallyists who showed up for the first rally of the year. I hope that all of you enjoyed the event and will participate in future rallies. And, if you have friends that you think would enjoy Time-Speed-Distance road rallies, please invite them to attend the next rally with you.
Second, an observation. For the first time in my 43 years of rallying, women rallyists outnumbered male rallyists on an NWRC road rally!! I would like to thank Karisa Haydon for inviting her Rebelle Rally posse to run the rally. And, the posse invited four additional friends to run the rally with them.
The rally headed east, then south –
Checkpoint 1 in Maple Valley
Checkpoint 2 in Ravensdale
Checkpoint 3 in the middle of nowhere
Checkpoint 4 outside of Flaming Geyser State Park
Checkpoint 5 in Auburn
I want to recognize and thank the following people who helped with the rally tonight:
Derris Humphrey – Rally measurement, checkout, registration, Richta IT support & scoring
Mike Daily – Dash Plaque and Trophy design and build
Dave Treen – Delivery of Rally support box and emergency markers
Theresa Barker – Rally Checkout. Note: Theresa was a member of a Rally club in the late 1980’s whose club membership was largely Microsoft employees called “SHARC” (AKA – Software Hacker’s Auto Rally Club). She is planning on returning to compete on future NWRC rallies.
Last, the name of this rally is “Dodging Beasts”. Potentially, rallyists could have seen deer, elk, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, possums, black bears, bobcats and low flying owls hunting. Or, perhaps more beasts such as sasquatch, chupacabra, dogman or jackalope? Let me know!
John Humphrey
Rallymaster
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.