Remember when I pulled the yellow tape off the top of the Jaguar and stuck it to the nose of the car? All night at dinner I had people asking me “What’s that yellow tape on your car for?” At first I answered truthfully, but as it involves a long explanation after the third time I just started making things up:
“It is holding the headlights on.”
“Oh, that is to increase visibility.”
“Without it the engine falls out.”
“I put it on to confuse people. It is Confusion Tape. It is working!”
I have to admit, this was enjoyable. It became something of a mental exercise to come up with good ones all day today.
Dad & I slept very well. Likely because this hotel, while wonderful in many ways, probably has the worst Internet access of anyplace I’ve stayed this decade. It was almost, but not quite impossible to maintain enough connectivity to get anything done. I gave up and slept, which in hindsight was the right move. Had I been able to get online I would have been updating this website instead of sleeping!
Dad awoke at some ungodly hour and got me up with enough time to get showered and ready for the day. I stopped by the parking lot to check on the car’s fluids and attend to its needs. As I finished up the sun hit the horizon and lit up the cars with the most amazing warm orange glow. I fired off as many shots as I could in the moments it was bathed in that magical light.
The Parking Lot, at Dawn…
Breakfast is good and hearty. My navigator is able to eat all that good brain food, or something. It is going to be a long day and an early start. We have quite a bit of making up to do. Dad stays for the driver’s meeting and I go to the room, then fetch the car. The rally start is in a parking lot a ways from the hotel, so we wander down there to await our route instructions. Pretty soon the parking area starts filling with rally cars.
We receive our route instructions the first segment is a 13-ish mile odometer calibration transit stage to a museum parking lot. I suggest we run it now, rather than wait for our “start time” since it is just a transit. I ask the course worker if that is OK and he affirms it, so off we go. The navigation is pretty straightforward so I just drive while Dad works on calculations for the TSD segments to come. About halfway there the Rallymaster blows by me in an Audi at “Ludicrous Speed.” We arrive at the parking lot to find out that there is some error in the route instructions, thankfully it is still a while before the first car is due out.
The scene at the parking lot is like any other staging area for a rally. Navigators are furiously making calculations and drivers are cooling their jets.
Kevin Blount in the 1955 300sl is effectively car #1, despite being assigned #2, as #1 has dropped out. The time comes for the TSDs to start and we all watch the elegant Gullwing head out to the “Out Cone” and pause. Soon car #3, a 1961 Porsche 356B Super 1600 Coupe driven by John Clemson, with Doug Zaitz navigating, pulls up behind them.
As we’re car #13 that means I need to get into the car before my navigator has a heart attack, so I put the SLR away and climb in the driver’s seat. I do grab the little CoolPix camera and keep shooting as we queue up though:
We take off for the first segment and about a mile down the highway perform a four-wheel drifting panic-stop and a hard reverse maneuver as we ALMOST miss a right hand turn as the marked road’s sign is VERY small. Not far up this road we see what appears to be a checkpoint, but it is on the left side of the road. We can only assume that the course reverses and we come back down this way again. Dad has his calculations down and gets me to the right places at the right times and we are very confident that we did well. The segment finishes way up on a hill on a looping road named “Loop Road.” The next segment is a reverse of the first, and we’ve already seen the checkpoint… which as far as I’m concerned is almost like cheating! If we screw up on this one we should stop rallying!
Dad is confident that we nailed it. The next segment starts right at the place where we panic-slid before, and the route instructions are a “Toward”, specifically “Toward Pelton Dam.” Now I’ve never been to Pelton Dam, but I recall seeing the signs for it yesterday as we arrived on a transit stage. The average speeds are high on this segment (44,54,54) for the first part so we cook along and have to be extra careful to not miss any turns. Thankfully my memory is good, and the signs are hard to miss. Dad keeps me on time, as the road gets curvier and twisty. I’m grateful for having this strong engine as the hills are very steep and maintaining an exact speed is easy, even when the road gets curvy like this. We come upon the checkpoint along the lake, and Dad thinks we’ve come very close. The route instructions warn of a rough cattle guard ahead, so I slow as I come around a blind corner and sure enough, there is Car #12 a little ways past the rough spot dead in the road. It is Sergio Perticucci and Alex Carrara in the yellow Alfa Duetto. Sergio tells us that he’s holed his oil pan. A pickup is coming the other way, so I have to move. Sergio tells us to continue as help should be on the way.
The rest of the segment has more entertainment, a one-lane bridge, some tough route-finding, and this…
The TSD finishes up at a scenic overlook with a 10 minute pause. Oddly very few of the rally cars bother to go over a look, and instead queue up on the shoulder of the road. The view is nice. I’ve travelled through this part of Oregon often (Sue’s family lives around here) and never knew this canyon was here:
The fourth TSD segment is genuinely confusing for us. It starts off well, but we make a small navigational error that, if we’ve missed the checkpoint, will cost us a 5 minute penalty. We recover from the error and are able to stay on course but a doubt nags at our minds for quite a while. We see other rally cars in confusion as well, going several different directions around Culver. At one point the road we’re on crosses US 97 at a very sharp angle with no mention of it in the route instructions. We go on faith that we continue straight and are rewarded a few miles afterwards with the segment’s checkpoint. Dad thinks we’re on-time so we high-five each other and continue on leaving that nagging doubt with all those lost rallyists wandering around Culver, Oregon.
The next two TSD segments go by very fast, though the navigation is not easy as we loop east past Smith Rock. Near the end of “Regularity 6” we are near Redmond, so stop for gas. We’ve already passed the checkpoint and lunch is next up near Terrebonne, so best to stop here in the “big city” for gas. Lunch is at P. S. Ogden State Park and consists of burgers hot off the grill. Well… once the grill got hot that is. The delay is enough for the Rallymaster to tack on 30 minutes to the schedule, so I spend some time re-adjusting our “Car Zero” reference clock. It is bizarre how hard 30 + 13 can be when you are dealing with increments of 60, so it takes me a few tries. Must be the confusion tape!
After I finished my burger I chat with Toni Slavich, who we rally with often, and she mentions how the last two segments (“Regularity 9 & 10”) look VERY difficult, as they are very long, and have very high average speeds, and have very little timing info in the route instructions. I have a lot of respect for Alan & Toni as a rallying team as they consistently finish well, unlike Dad & I, the original Hit Or Miss team.
I bring this data to Dad and ask how well prepared he is for these segments. He thinks he can do better, so I tell him to get to work on doing it better. I offer to self-navigate the upcoming Transit stage and tell him to tear out the route sheet so I can do that.
Dad crams a bunch of calculations while I transit and manages to create what we believe is a very credible set of timing guides for the last two segments. The next two segments (“Regularity 7 & 8”) are relatively simple, with clear instructions, and obvious timing references. The Rallymaster is evidently lulling everyone into a false sense of comfort and security before he drops the big two later. Segment 7 takes us to Antelope, and the 8th TSD finishes in Shaniko, Oregon where we have a 10 minute pause. I jump into the ice cream parlor and buy a chocolate malt since it is quite hot. Dad & I share it while we wait for our time to go. Since the chances of rain are now zero, I rearrange the confusion tape to reflect the sunny forecast:
“Regularity 9” features pretty minimal navigation, but features a long (26 mile) stretch of 33 MPH driving followed by several miles of quick speed changes (19, 33, 19, 33) with no hints on timing other than Dad’s math. This is a rallying nightmare. At least the scenery is nice, as we’re following the Deschutes River down towards the Columbia. It is packed with rafters enjoying the day. The segment ends at Sherars Falls just past the bridge. It is a spot that has been used for fishing, and crossing the river, for millennia. Today we just stop and try to find shade and cool while we wait for our start time. I cover the car with the tonneau. Dad wanders over to the river in the shade of some small trees. I squeeze into the margin of shade afforded by the cliff wall. The falls are bracketed by traditional native American scaffolding for catching fish. I try to find a perspective to photograph them with the cars in the foreground, but can’t pull it off. I snap this photo of somebody snapping a photo of the Jag… and don’t notice the coke can atop the Porsche, or our shake cup until now.
The final TSD segment is pretty tough, but we’re ready for it. The route instructions have long timing blanks, and even occasional gaps in distance, with just verbal directions to follow. You have to calculate your timing and distance based on speed data. Dad has filled in all the gaps though and we’re ready to go. Our time arrives and we head off. The route climbs and climbs, with many twisty turns. At first it is hard to maintain the average speed due to the incline and turns. Once above the canyon and on the plateau the route finding gets tough with seemingly endless “towards” instructions. Finally, after 40 miles of tough stuff, a long stretch of fast driving and we still haven’t seen the checkpoint. We’re less than 10 miles from the hotel when I get stuck behind a guy towing a boat. He is going JUST a bit too slow for me to maintain my average speed, but I’m in a no passing zone(!) I finally crest the hill and am given a chance to pass but now he’s going faster. I pull out to pass but end up having to go way too fast to get around him, and SURE ENOUGH just around the big bend is the checkpoint. I’m cooking along at 20 MPH over my average speed. Grrrr. I know I’m early. Dad knows I’m early. He’s a lot more philosophical about it than I am. He’s right though, given our performance yesterday we should be happy with how we’ve recovered and not let a minor issue like this get us down.
We arrive at Kah-Nee-Tah and Dad heads off to the room while I take the Jag to the traditional end-of-the Monte Shelton car wash. I wash the car, grab a beer, then park the car in its resting place for the night:
I hang out for a bit, drink a couple of more beers, take some photos, observed a prancing moose, chat with John Morrow, and have another beer.
At dinner we hear a talk by Janet Guthrie, and also the results. We have moved up to 19th place (from 29th). Not bad considering! We collect a “silver” medal for the effort. The scoresheets are handed out and they tell a far more intriguing tale. On the 10 TSD’s today we collected the following penalty times: 0:01, 0:00, 0:11, 0:02, 0:02, 0:04, 0:02, 0:02, 0:19, 0:10. That comes to a grand total of 0:53 seconds off THE ENTIRE DAY. Only one team did better than us, with 0:27, and they won the whole rally. Only three teams collected less than two minutes of time, and most accrued four minutes or more. If only we could have done as well yesterday! We’d be right in top tier, probably in the top three.
Like I said, when we’re off we’re off, but when we’re on, we are really ON!
Thanks for sharing those pictures. Looks like a fantastic time.
You’re welcome. Just don’t ask how “Team Mad Dog” did. 😉
We’ll have to wait for John to explain himself.