RReNews asked Debbi Segall Laitenberger to write a piece after her return to SCCA National RoadRally Championship Series. A member of our RReNews Clan has known her since the early-90s when Debbi was active in the SCCA Finger Lakes Region as a Rallymaster and competitor, and she also served as the RoadRally Board Chair. Enjoy Debbi’s take from the Navigators seat with Jim Miner as Driver after running the June 3rd and 4th Wisconsin rallies. While course rallies existed, and she was prepared for those challenges, GPS scoring did not!
ROADS SCHOLAR COURSE RALLY
This rally could be subtitled “How many ways can we be trapped by County T?”
Main Road Rules included:
• Right at T and Left at T as specific rules
• Designation – any road listed by name is the Main Road even if you have not yet traveled upon it, and a redefinition of the T rule to: Left when working on an odd-numbered RI or Right if working on an even-numbered RI AND to include County T. Can you see where this is headed?
One MRD list had Onto / T-Rule / County T. Add a Letter Instruction to Turn ONTO County T. After completing NRI 3, a right sideroad labeled County T is a T, and the Main Road goes right by the T rule. Oh, my!
There were only 3 legs where County T was a factor. However, there were 3 legs based on spelling/incorrect signs and several overlap situations where you had to hold an execution to a later point. Very few of the LRI’s were actually to be executed, and the multiple LRI situation we had visualized did not appear. Two trap situations included an Onto or LRI carrying into the next leg. Much of the event was within Free Zones, which helped some, but ambitious speeds prevented that from being as useful as one might hope.
I think it’s been 40 years since I last got bit by a “before” instruction, and I hope it’s another 40 before it happens again. At least we didn’t have any legs where we were the only ones to get it wrong 🙂
Wow! Amazing performances by Satish Gopalkrishnan and Savera D’Souza with a total score on Roads Scholar of 9.2 points (scored in tenths of seconds) for 21 controls. Steve Gaddy and Chris Bean had one max, otherwise 4.6 points for the day.
ROADS SCAMPER TOUR
55 timed controls in 160 miles of rally. Subtract Transit Zones and breaks, and that provides many opportunities for scores. Another impressive performance by Satish and Savera with 7.2 points for the day (.13 average). Gaddy and Bean had 8.2 (.15), and Jim Duea and Dave Fuss 8.9 (.16). I do wish we could figure out how these teams get multiple zeros in a row on a GPS-scored rally! The mileages were excellent all day. If we ran on time, we got late points. Okay, we will run a bit early; we still have late points. More early – now early points. Very frustrating. And nothing consistent about it.
Controls were separated into four distinct types. First, all controls were identified in the RI’s, but with five controls between CZT’s (Car Zero Times or restarts), any error was multiplied with no opportunity for recovery. The second portion told us how many controls there were before the next restart AND the object they would be at, but not necessarily at the first occurrence of that object. Well, you could predict that they would occur between the end of one free zone and the start of the next, which did help some. I totally own our max in this section. We thought we heard the app beep that we’d passed the last control, so we motored on without regard to time on our way to a break. Oops. Much later, we determined the sound we heard was not the app but the computer’s noise when it’s in split mode from the last beep.
Control portion three showed each control in the RI’s with a control number placed between two instructions but no object to go with it.
The final portion had no indication of where or how many controls we would encounter. There were two sections, and in the first, we could tell how many controls would occur using the (CP) numbers in the RI’s – NINE. Again, if you made a mistake anywhere in there, you had no way to recover. The final section had no ending CP number, and we counted 9 or 10 app beeps.
There was an automatic pause of 6 seconds at each stop not associated with a Transit Zone. That was often not long enough, and we went faster past homes and farms than we would have liked. Pause 12 would have worked better (and still let L and S cars add a convenient number in hundredths).
Jim Crittenden, Rallymaster for both National Championship events, wanted to know which type of control we enjoyed most, and I can’t decide. While usually a big fan of on-time all the time rallying and controls that are not visible way ahead, 5 to 10 controls between CZT’s is too many. My vote would go to 2-3 controls, then a quick CZT with a 30 pause.
The roads were wonderful, the weather cooperated, and the hospitality was outstanding. Jim puts together impeccable route instructions and a really enjoyable weekend, and we extend huge thanks.
You can review the standings for these events:
Click here for the Roads Scholar Course Rally
Click here for the Roads Scamper Tour Rally
