2009 Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally: Day One

My father and I have been Vintage TSD (Time, Speed, Distance) Rallying now for eleven years and three months, and you would think we’d have it figured out by now. Our first rally together was in May of 1998, and I flew back to the USA from England, where I was working at the time, to join him in his newly restored “retirement project” E-type Jaguar. We won our class and had a great time driving all over Maine in this amazing car. Since then we’ve rallied all over the country, and once even all the way across it. We’ve done stately tours, and insane regularity rallies where we’ve fallen into almost every trap. The one thing I’ve learned in that time is that when we’re on, we’re on. But… when we’re off, we’re REALLY OFF!

For the past three summers we’ve made a habit of doing two, highly competitive, and highly technical TSD rallies together. Every June we join Doug Breithaupt for his Classic Motorcar Rally, and every August we’ve run down to Portland to participate in the Monte Shelton Northwest Classic. Both events have been going on for a long time, and provide formidable challenges for the rallyist. Their primary differences are scale and pace. Doug’s rally is small, informal, and always features at least one tour of a car collection. The Monte Shelton is a very large rally, with anywhere from 50 to 90 cars. Both are great events and we look forward to getting the old Jaguar out and trying to best our past performances.

Unlike years past where we’ve swapped duties, for these events we’ve settled into the roles of myself at the wheel as Driver (and under the bonnet as Mechanic); and my father, Charlie Goolsbee doing all the REALLY hard work in the Navigator’s seat. He enjoys the mental challenge, and me… I just enjoy being out in the E-type, no matter what else is going on. In these roles we’ve done well, with constant improvement in our finish positions each year at the two events. Last year we finished 9th out of 80 cars, our best run to date. To beat that we’d really have to be on our game, with the car running well.

Just prior to departure for the Monte Shelton I had installed a new stater motor in the E-type, as it had finally died after acting odd for years. The car otherwise was in excellent shape having just completed a complete tour of the west coast, from Seattle to Los Angeles and back with my teenaged sons. The starter chose southern California to finally cease functioning and had to be push-started all the way home. This was fine with teenage boys, but would not do for my father! I rushed through the job during evenings of the hottest week on record here in Pacific Northwest, and had it completed mere days before the rally.

We depart Seattle on a foggy Thursday afternoon and meet with John Morrow and his daughter Olivia at Jaguar of Tacoma in his freshly restored ’66 E-type FHC. Together we drive down I-5 to Portland to the Check-in and Scrutineering for the rally. This year’s event has about 50 competitors, a bit off from last year’s 20th anniversary bump of 80. We have been assigned number 13… thankfully I’m not superstitious. The car passes inspection and we’re all given an orientation on how this year’s event will go by the organizers. All that’s left now is to show up early in the morning and not make too many mistakes!

Scenes from Scrutineering…

In our earlier effort at the Classic Motorcar Rally in June we blew the first morning, becoming so lost on the second segment that we gave up, found our way to lunch, and spent the rest of the rally recovering. We did very well and managed to pull off a 5th place overall in a field of a dozen cars. We feel very confident about the Monte Shelton though, since they’ve altered the format a bit, making it easier. For example there will only be ONE checkpoint per TSD segment, and it will be in clear sight. Meaning that once we pass it we can concentrate on the next segment’s calculations. We knew that the key to success would be to STAY ON COURSE.

Scenes from the Start…

The 2009 Monte Shelton Northwest Classic begins in downtown Portland with much fanfare, flag waving, pomp, and circumstance… but due to our low number we miss most of it. Instead we’re following the course’s first transit segment out of town south towards a park in Lake Oswego where we’ll be given our actual TSD route instructions. Before departure I managed to sync one of our clocks to within half a second of 13 minutes behind “real” time, giving my Navigator a “car zero” reference among his clocks, calculators, speed tables, and clipboards. Once armed with the route instructions Dad starts building our pace notes and I do what drivers do when waiting for a start… pace around, take some photos of cars, chat with other drivers, and try to relax until our start time.

Time arrives and we begin our first TSD segment. After a bit of tricky navigation we settle onto a large 4-lane road going southbound and I ask my navigator how long we’ll be on it. He replies “It looks like we stay on it until the end of this segment.” He says our route instruction say look for a sign saying in part “(something)” at mile 12.3, which corrected for our odometer would be 12.4 or so. Mile 12.4 goes by and no such sign is seen. We see rally cars with confused occupants going the other way, never a good sign. At mile 14 we hang a U-turn and start trying to figure out where we’ve gone wrong. Dad finds it. We missed a left turn, labeled as “straight as possible” in the route instructions, but we missed it as the main road was in a right-hand curve. We find our “(something)” sign and I start hauling ass to make up the time we lost going the wrong way. Near the end of the segment we pass the checkpoint, two minutes and four seconds late. We’ve already missed our start time for the next segment and Dad is giving me instructions rapid-fire as I drive at a hurried pace to catch up. About four miles into the second TSD we realize we’re lost… again! We backtrack to the very beginning of the segment and recognize that we went straight at the start rather than right. The Rallymaster’s route instruction syntax is very Yoda-like, with verbs at the end, and we missed the meaning of “then R” at the outset. We’re screwed. I drive right at, but not beyond what can be described as “reasonable and prudent” for what seems like an eternity of short TSD segments (really only three). Passing Rally Cars with numbers in the mid-20s at first, and eventually those closer to our own. Dad is beside himself and I’m just single-minded and focused on getting us back to our proper position. Now that we know how to interpret these strange route instructions we are able to stay (mostly) on-course, but we know we’re very far behind our time. Despite Dad’s admonitions to take it easy I keep pushing ahead when I can, I blow past a checkpoint, whose course workers are getting a good laugh at our pace, and manage to arrive at a rest stop between segments with a few minutes to spare before our scheduled departure. We stay on-course and on-time from here to lunch, which includes one TSD and a long transit.

When we’re off, we’re REALLY off.

This rally is blown for us. There is now no possible way for us to place well. Even if we were to run perfectly, we’d place in the middle of the pack. The only way we can “win” is for everyone else to screw up even more than we have and that isn’t going to happen; there are just too many GOOD rallyists here. Dad offers to never do this ever again. I mull the proposal and decide to just do the best we can, if only to prove to ourselves that we don’t suck as much as our score might show.

Lunch is at Silver Falls State Park, in the Cascade foothills east of Salem, and consists of the traditional salmon BBQ. I note that all cars save two have made it to lunch, one shows up on the sweep trailer, the other is missing entirely: our friends the Morrows in their E-type. I hope they are OK and send them an SMS text message inquiring about their location and condition, but never hear back.

The weather turns all Northwest on us as we ascend Santiam Pass and we put the top up and seal it with my usual bright yellow duct tape. Without this “aftermarket weatherstripping” the top of the windscreen becomes the lip of a waterfall, which pours down upon the driver’s hands and the navigator’s calculations. While this segment is a transit stage, we’d prefer this over the Cascades to be less eponymous of the range, and keep ourselves and our workspaces dry. Dad finishes up his calculations for the afternoon’s TSD’s early and takes a nap. As we near the Santiam Pass highway I spot John & Olivia going the other way… boy are they lost! At least their car appears to be running well. I grab my phone to give them a call but only get voicemail. John’s a big boy with real rally navigation experience… he can find his way without me.

We ascend, crest, and descend the mighty Cascade range and arrive in Sisters, Oregon bathed in sunshine and jammed with vintage sports cars drinking gasoline. Our tank is fine, as we filled up before we went over the mountains, but we do make a pit stop for us. While waiting I drop the top, and recalling the weather forecast, which called for occasional showers east of the mountains I retain the yellow duct tape by applying it to the nose of the car. If it rains I have a pre-sized weather-strip handy.

From Sisters we rally northward on back roads in the area between US 97 and the Cascades through ranches and farms. Two TSD segments bring us to Madras. We feel pretty good about our performance as it seems dad & I have gotten back on our game. In Madras we stop for gas and find our way to the staging area for the next TSD. The sun is hot and shade is sparse. There is a bit of confusion for the direction of the start of the next segment and cars are parked literally point both north and south. We carefully read the instructions and figure that the correct direction is south. We have a brief conversation with the guys in a silver 300sl pointed north (who are going to be the first car out) and convince them that south is the way to go. After departure it seems that we are right, but the point becomes moot as it appears that this segment is thrown out by the rallymaster (likely due to the ambiguous wording about start direction.) It is a shame because Dad & I think we nailed this segment. Such is life I guess.

We arrive at Kah-Nee-Tah, find our room after a bit of tricky navigation in this sprawling resort, and I crash for my own nap while dad watches TV. He wakes me in time for dinner.

The day’s results are passed out and we’re in twenty-ninth place out of forty-five cars still in the rally. There is no hope that we can do anything but prove that we’re not idiots… and that will require staying on course. We promise ourselves that we’ll do better tomorrow and wander off to bed.

When we’re off, we’re really off.