On a brisk and overcast Saturday morning, twenty-three cars started the SCCA Milwaukee Region’s Kettle Moraine Colors Rally. Twenty-three cars finished the rally five hours later, and that is always a win for any rally committee and certainly Rallymaster Fred Rosevear too! Thank you to Jim Crittenden for doing the usual flawless job of scoring for the rally.
Temperatures on October 30th were in the upper 50s and warmed into the mid-60s by afternoon. The overcast remained, but the forecasted rain never developed. That made for good rally conditions but somewhat muted the fall color show. As it turned out, we had a late fall, and we’re still about a week ahead of peak colors, but some areas provided a lovely canopy of fall colors. Speeds were moderate, in keeping with the tour nature of the event, usually around CAST 35 to 40.
Using the RICHTA GPS Checkpoints App, thirty-four legs were flawlessly scored. A measurement error resulted in the tossing of two legs. It was clear from the results that controls were fair and the speeds reasonable. As proof, our First-timer class was won with an average score under 8 points per leg!
Gary and Sharon Starr won the Equipped Class with a score of 10.4 points. We scored Equipped Class to 0.1 seconds. Had we scored to the seconds, Starr’s score would have been one point. Close behind in second place were Fred Glenn and Matt Zajac with 19.2 points; in seconds, they would have had five points.
Our Region’s Calculating Class is an “app-only” class with GPS or stock odometer measurements. Andrew and Hannah Temple won the class with 159 points or an average score of 4.4 per control.
SOP Class honors went to the team of David Drager and Jason Schultz with a score of 106 or 2.8 per control. It is worth noting that they beat the best calculating team!
Joanne and Robert Greko took home a First Timer Class win with a respectable score of 280 or 7.8 points per control.
The Committee tried something new this year by adding a non-competitive Tour Class. These teams had the option of either following simplified route instructions or running as a group behind the sweep car; we had mixed results. The Tour teams started about 30 minutes after the last rally car but quickly caught up with the rallyists. We needed to extend the breaks and wait until the rally had cleared CZT points in several cases.
People seemed to like the concept, and we had an additional nine entries we may not have gotten otherwise. In the future, we will either put the Tour cars out first or hold them longer. We will also consider eliminating some roads that were appropriate for the rally but not the Tour Class.
