Jr. Crowe put together a “tricky” rally for the last points rally of SCCA Southern Indiana Region’s 2023 season – Crowe’s Circus Rally. Starting in Rockport, Indiana, it went west to REO and north to Santa Claus before turning south to finish in Rockport. There was one particular route instruction that every team missed. Fortunately for all the teams, the area of their problems was in a free zone, so the seconds, or in some cases minutes, they spent driving around the countryside didn’t count against them. All the teams except one figured out where they went wrong and resumed.
In the two-car Class A competition, Terry Davis and Bob Sonntag scored the lowest for the event, 37. Harold and Karen Davis had a zero on the third leg, but it wasn’t enough to get them the class win, as they finished 22 seconds behind Terry and Bob.
In the four-car Class B, Jim and Darlene Cannon won with a total of 182. Finishing second and recording their best finish ever in a rally, 220, was the father and son duo of Larry and Ryan Pearsall. They made the long drive from Robinson, IL, worthwhile with that finish, and they also zeroed in on the first leg of the rally! Third in Class B was the 1959 MGB, driven by owner James Hurm. James partnered with his friend Walt Aberli and finished with a score of 272. Finishing fourth was the team of Ernie and Sue Roales. They never found the “right opportunity” and made their way to the finish, picking up a maximum score on the last leg of the rally to ruin their “up to that point” score of 48.
Crowe’s Circus Report by Bob Sonntag
Jr. and Josie Crowe held the Crowe’s Circus Rally on November 5th. Paul Dornburg served as the Road Rally Safety Steward and Mentor, as this was Team Crowe’s first rally. It was great!
The expected route would take entrants from the On-the-Fly Convenience Mart in Rockport, Indiana, to Los Panchos Mexican Grill in just over 80 miles. That was going diagonally across one intersection. FYI, when one googles “On the Fly Rockport, Indiana” a surprising website tops the list. Try it.
Unfortunately, just days before the event, Jr learned that Los Panchos was closed for remodeling. The finish moved .6 miles down the road. Otherwise, I believe, Crowe’s Circus would have had the record for the shortest start-to-finish distance. As it is, I think a Michael “Rosie” Rosenthal rally that started at Roberts Stadium and ended at Wesselman Park has the record…but not by much.
It was a beautiful, sweatshirt temperature, dry, and sunny day in Spencer County and all six teams saw a good bit of it. Some teams saw a bit more of it than expected! That’s for darn sure!! That’s part of the fun of a T/S/D rally. Terry Davis and I were assigned the last car. No problem. That would let others with more recent and frequent “offs” start earlier and perhaps the extra two minutes per car would allow us all to arrive at the post-route social about the same time.
We watched Harold and Karen Davis, the only other car in our class, miss a straight Opp on the way to the odometer check. Whoopsie! Right or wrong, at least they knew when we were no longer behind them. Speaking of the odometer check, check out this video James Hurm shared. It’s the view he and his navigator Walt Aberli had from James’s gorgeous ’59 MGA. It’s like they finished the 25-minute odometer check in about 85 seconds — Crowe’s Circus – MGB GoPro!
The highlight of the rally had to be the simple yet very darn effective trap to catch those distracted by checkpoints near signs keeping them from counting to three correctly. It was after a scored leg and before the next restart event, so basically, there would be no time penalty for falling into the trap. All but one team recovered to start the final segment of the rally.
While Terry and I were in the trap, I treated one of my best practice rally rules as if it were a pirate rule. Thinking the rule was just a guideline, I looked at the Richta Scoreboard. DAMN! We were “off” and needed to get back on the route! DAMN! I saw that through the first five scored legs, Team Davis had 34 to our 31 heading into the last leg. DAMN! Not much wiggle room. We’re still off! DAMN! They also had a zero. DAMN! We didn’t. DAMN! DAMN! We got back on course and finished the rally with LOTS of extra miles. When we got to the social, we were greeted with cheers. Larry Pearsall and son Ryan were back on course too and the only car yet to finish.
While looking to find our way, Terry kept asking how much time we’d need to buy. None, as our off was after a scored control and before the next flying restart. We’re seldom so far off. We were so far off (no, Jr, we weren’t headed to Michigan) that Terry asked about the needed TA three times. We were so far off that Terry had TIME to ask, forget, ask again, and forget again. We were so far off we did find a very intriguing intersection that may have to appear in one of our future rallies.
Team Pearsall posted their best rally finish in the Class B highlights and will collect a trophy and Zero candy bars at the membership meeting. Team Cannon returned to form and took the win in B. Team Roales rocked it until that last leg. I expect this is their Rally Championship score to drop.
In Class A, Terry and I finished first, even without a zero, getting to Michigan, stopping for gas, or hitting 100 MPH. We did hit 100 miles on the odometer. Team Davis upheld the Class A honors by having ALL teams in A beat the best of the B teams.
Team Crowe shared some special unannounced prizes at the event. Signed train whistles for those with the most accurate guess of train tracks crossed and Starbucky cards for the closest guess on the number of stop signs on the route.
The Crowe Circus Rally was fun—more cars would have made it even more so. Though we all had course deviations, I think it’s fair to say that everyone enjoyed the rally. We are all headed into the winter hiatus in a good mood. Thanks, Jr., Josie, and Paul.
