The second installment of the highly renowned Tour DeWitt series of rallies was Sunday, April 25, 2010. This year’s version accomplished what I wanted to do with the first one, which took place in September 2008. That was an actual circumnavigation of Clinton Lake. Don’t take this lightly, this may be the first known successful trip around the lake by actual rally teams. I’m sure the Wikipedia entry is already being written.
Eight rally teams: 2 Nav, 3 SOP, & 3 Novice, showed up on a day with questionable weather developments underway. It was threatening to rain from the start, and in fact rained quite a bit. This made the gravel roads, already a little soft, even looser underfoot,–er, underwheel. However, the weather didn’t deter anyone.
The rally started in Eastwood Center in Mahomet. From there, we passed north of Mansfield, south of Farmer City, then meandered around Parnell before a mid-rally break. This was at a state recreational area pavilion near the lake. Then the intrepid rallyists set off on the trip around the lake. Clockwise, for those of you keeping track. This was the longest leg of the rally, at 28 miles and 40+ minutes. After this leg, we headed east again, passing through Galesville and Centerville on way back to Mahomet.
Unfortunately, the southern suburbs of Mahomet seem to be very difficult to navigate. At this point all the teams wandered around aimlessly, as if they had no rally instructions at all. This, of course, was the case, as I had inadvertently removed a key instruction the night before the rally. Somehow, sanity prevailed, and the teams all managed to make their way to the rally ending point, which I had cleverly disclosed in the rally instructions. Lucky for me, I was so long in completing and closing out the last actual checkpoint that by the time I reached Monical’s, the unruly mob of rally teams had consumed enough pasta and pizza to have slipped into carbohydrate comas. They were now barely able to remain upright in their seats, and didn’t pose any actual threat to my health and well-being.
I pretended nothing had happened, ignoring the last leg, and scoring 5 legs. Amazingly, no one noticed. I told you they were docile.
Results follow:
Navigational:
- Bob & Karen Townsend 8 4 11 5 6 Total 34
- Dan Marx & Gary Patrick 10 1 1 17 26 Total 55
Seat of the Pants
- Mike Blackwelder & Jim Hamilton 12 27 54 49 23 Total 165
- John Li & Jonathan Flora 42 26 81 79 1 Total 229
- Paul Okarma & Alison Ryan 500 3 62 156 128 Total 849
Novice
- Tony & Jared Waguespack 27 6 112 113 60 Total 318
- Walt Saunders & Michael Duff 500 23 500 2 66 Total 1091
- Tim Noble & Holly Sims 5 38 49 500 500 Total 1092
Note that Bob & Karen were also First Overall.
Thanks to all who showed up and ran the rally, and for the understanding when they found my mistake.
Thanks to Joe Siedenburg for cold running and helping with the checkpoints.
Russ Bedford, Rallymaster