December 4, 2022, marked the thirty-third annual Toys for Tots Teddy Bear Road Rally, hosted by the Northern New Jersey Region of the SCCA and Motorsport Club of North Jersey. This year’s sponsor and the sponsor for the past ten years was Subaru World of Hackettstown on Route 46 in Budd Lake, New Jersey.
Forty-two teams competed in this year’s event, and only four teams ran the rally clean and did not fall for any of the five route following traps. One team ran an almost perfect event with less than 1/10 of a mile error over a 70-mile route.
The NNJR/MCNJ Toys for Tots Teddy Bear Rally is the longest-running charity rally associated with SCCA and the longest contiguous event hosted by Northern New Jersey Region SCCA. Since 1990 we have collected over 3,900 toys totaling in today’s dollars a little under $50,000, and we hope to continue the event for many years to come.
This event is a very simple road rally using the back roads of Morris, Warren, and Hunterdon Counties. The event started at Subaru World of Hackettstown and ended about 70 miles later at the Long Valley Brew Pub in the center of Long Valley, NJ.
The rally is open to the general public and requires only a car or light truck with a working odometer and a pen/pencil to compete. The event is not a Time-Speed-Distance (TSD) rally but a mileage-based lightly trapped “gimmick.” The entry fee per car is a brand-new Teddy Bear or new toy worth at least $35.00 retail which is donated to the USMC Reserve Toys for Tots Program.
Toys for Tots began in 1947 when Major Bill Hendricks and a group of Marine Reservists in Los Angeles collected and distributed 5,000 toys to needy children. The idea came from Bill’s wife, Diane Hendricks. In the fall of 1947, Diane crafted a homemade doll and asked Bill to deliver it to an organization that would give it to a needy child at Christmas. When Bill determined that no agency existed, Diane told Bill that he should start one. He did. The 1947 pilot project was so successful that the Marine Corps adopted Toys for Tots in 1948 and expanded it into a nationwide campaign.
The Teddy Bear rally is a mileage-based course rally. 100 points are awarded for each mile variance from the official route. The contestants note their car’s odometer reading at manned and unmanned (DIY) checkpoints as listed in the route instructions. The club utilizes an odometer calibration leg to compute corrected leg mileages and compare them with the official leg mileages to determine the score.
Since 2016, the Region has been posting event notifications on Facebook and targeting individuals in the NJ, NY, and PA areas with low-cost ads, in addition to email blasts on Constant Contact, we have maintained a steady list of entries for our events.
Since its inception, the Toys for Tots rally has used “Photo Clues” (a format borrowed from the Metro Porsche – Snowflake Rally, which has been run for the past 68 years) to provide contestants a little extra challenge. These Photo Clues can be compared to “Lettered Route Instructions” used on SCCA National Course events. At times, the photos of signs/scenes along the rally route are hard to spot (but not impossible) or are taken of easy-to-see everyday common signs that have slight variations due to weathering or defects. All these features must be considered when correctly executing a Photo Clue instruction. In addition to the Photo Clues, the rally has used standard route following traps based on onto, the spelling of street signs, forced turns, and reversed numbered route instructions. All route traps are self-correcting, with the difference in the official on-course vs. off-course mileage helping separate the scores.
This year’s event had 6 legs, an odometer leg, and five legs that contained simple route-following traps.
Photo Clue A looked like a simple crossroad sign. The planned trap was that the crossroad sign in the photo was not the first crossroad sign you encountered; but the third, you had to drive 2.3 miles past the first sign (you needed to be confident) to find the correct crossroad sign. In either case, the route self-corrected. The photo of the crossroad showed that the sign was at a 20% angle. The first two crossroad signs were straight up and not at an angle. If you did not notice that detail, you turned at the wrong intersection and added 170 points to your score. Well, that was the plan, the day before the event, the township road department straightened out the sign, so at the Driver’s Meeting, the trap was explained, and even after letting people know the correct route, fourteen teams still had a problem with the leg.
Leg 3 – From Instruction 11 to Instruction 29 Official mileage: 10.132 miles
Self-correcting trap three. Route Instruction #12 had you turn onto Hazen Rd. Route Priority #2 states that once you are put onto a road by name or number you must remain onto that road until the next numbered route instruction. Hazen Rd went right at the first intersection, so should have you. If you did not, you encountered Photo Clue B, which placed you on Blau Rd. Either way, you then executed Route Instruction #13 (but at different intersections) and began looking for Route Instruction #14. The out of order Route Instruction numbers were there just to distract you from the onto trap.
Penalty: 120 mileage points (over mileage)
The next course-following trick was a simple course-following “onto” trap. 50% of the teams failed to follow the route where the named road turned to the right. Falling for this trap was worth 80 mileage points.
The third trap in the event involved a little sleight of hand, the Rallymaster reversed two route instructions, but since both instructions stated “Right after crossing over the RailRoad Tracks.” Since both instructions were the same, it really did not matter if you did them out of order, but it did distract the contestants from a second onto trap which was self-corrected by using Special Photo Clue B. This trap was worth 120 mileage points.
The next trap on the rally involved a Photo Clue of a house number attached to a tree. Per the event cover page, there were no valid route-following clues involving trees, mail boxes (or their supports), or telephone poles. If you did not notice the sign was on a tree, you would have incorrectly executed the Special Route Instruction and driven off-course to add 130 mileage penalty points. All teams turned Left on Free Union Rd to self-correct.
The last trap in the rally caught all but eight teams, Photo Clue F was a picture over a very large red barn right along the side of the road and only three instructions from the end of the rally. This was the second building used as a Special Photo Clue, and the other photo did not involve any tricks and was selected to lull the contestants into the last trap. Photo Clue F was not valid because it was a picture of a Mail Box Support. Yes, if you looked closely at the photo or the actual building as you drove past it, you would have noticed a very large mail box sticking out of the middle of the building, making the whole building a Mail Box Support, which per the event cover page are not valid route-following clues for today’s event. Since the Mail Box was right along the side of the building, which abutted the road, it was very easy to see, and the Navigator could reach out and touch it if they wished, and the Driver had to be careful not to clip the side door mirror since the Mail Box extended into the roadway. If you failed to notice this little detail, you went straight at a STOP intersection before turning Left at the next STOP intersection. Both on-course and off-course teams looped back to a SIG intersection, and you turned toward LONGVALLEY and to the ending location at the Pub. This last trap, if done incorrectly, added 410 points to your score.
This event could be driven in two and a half hours, and the first car was out at 12 noon, and scores were announced at 4:30 PM.
The event was scored in three classes: Novice, Intermediate, and Expert, with special awards for Best First Timer, Best Subaru, Best Porsche, Best Family, Best Husband & Wife, and Dead Last But Finished.
We keep the costs down for the awards by using simple frames to hold an individual poster-type award created on a quality color printer. But since the event is for a good cause, we have never had any objections from contestants on the nature of the trophies.
Total overall official mileage for today’s rally is 69.622 miles. As always, the real winners of today’s rally are the recipients of the toys that were donated for the USMC TOYS FOR TOTS program. We enjoyed the event and look forward to seeing teams out next December for the running of the 33rd Anniversary of the 1990 Teddy Bear Rally! Thank you!
Jim and Rose Wakemen, from the South Jersey Region, taking home medals for 4th Place Expert Class!
