Yesterday, Saturday, August 14, I had the pleasure of running Bob Townsend’s “Winding River Roads” rally. Jimmy Hamilton and I rallied the Darth Vader Mobile on Bob’s rally. It was on some roads I had never seen before south of Champaign and Philo. It was wonderful. A hot summer afternoon looking for the checkpoints and trying to keep on course. Just a gentle rally with no tricks and lots of fun roads. Jimmy and I have been on many rallies, but this is like the old ones. It worked. It was scenic, It was difficult at times to keep up to the cast, but there was always time to catch up. It truly tested the ability of the driver to keep an average speed without just setting the cruise control and cruising, and the navigator to keep us on course. For a couple of old SOPers, it was the a great time.
I only regret I had to leave right after the end for some family fun, as Karen and Bob were hosting their usual ‘big spread’ of food at the end at their home in Philo. It is always fun to feast at the Townsends.
All in all a great rally. Especially for an autocrosser like me. You autocrossers out there should try rallies. They are fun! Jimmy and I had a blast the one time we missed a turn and got off course. I don’t think we scared the rally chair and vice president too much when we passed to get back on time.
Speaking of…… what a great group of people to rally against. Not a large turnout, but a good one with experienced ralliests. Bob used some phantom checkpoints and several times you were to time yourself in to the phantom checkpoint and then give yourself an out time. You could make your times perfect if you got the calculations right. If there was a trick in this rally it was mentioning the phantom checkpoint on the outslip instead of the route instructions. Of course after the first phantom checkpoint we came upon a ralliest stopped and we realized we had missed the phantom check point, so we stopped and did some calculations. Having thought we must be the only ones to forget it was proved wrong as we saw several rally cars parked along the road recalculating in times and out times along the rally route quite a bit after the phantom check point locations. We did the next phantom checkpoint at the right place.
Great rally, great time. The Darth Vader Mobile ran great until the last checkpoint, where it vapor locked. Once Jerry White’s navigator reminded me that some Corvettes have a pressurized fuel tank, I opened the gas cap and listened as it sucked in air . Lots of air. Then it started. It did the same thing when I dropped Jimmy off to get his car, but got home fine. Vapor lock! Who would have thought.
Dennis Miller has called an autocross committee meeting for this coming Tuesday, August 19, 7 pm at his house. All are welcome.