A rally group out of the Chicago area gave me the idea about six years ago. Put your rally together, sell the “entry” as a donation to your cause, and they can run it whenever their schedule allows. Their events were to view holiday lights, and timing was not a factor.
I wanted to do my event as a timed TSD rally, yet I couldn’t come up with the means to have waivers signed under the SCCA sanctioning system. Scoring the event, with varying run times, was a concern too, and I still needed to address a sanction period that covers two weeks (or the open length of the event).
A part of the solution arrived four years ago with the advent of the Richta GPS Competitor App. Now, my teams could run when it was convenient for them, and their scores could still count in the final standings. Then Motorsportreg came along with the long-awaited SpeedWaiver program, which solved my need to witness them signing an SCCA Waiver.
I am curious to learn the pitfalls you may see with my plan, so I am sharing it here. For the discussion, here are some potential details:
The sanctioned event date is June 15th, and registration allows teams to register and obtain the route instructions anytime between June 1st and June 14th. Teams may run it as often as they wish to try their hand at rallying, yet they won’t have their official score until registering within the Richta GPS Competitor app. Rallyists new to the sport would have a chance to learn to navigate routes (and calculate should they wish) without the pressure of competition.
They won’t know the checkpoint locations, so their official score using the Richta App only happens once. Should they be unable to make the official running of the rally, they would have to complete their timed run of the course by midnight on June 14th.
On June 15th, the day of the rally, the Scoreboard App would reflect those who had already run the rally. At the end of the event, all scores would be final.
Please email your suggestions and perceived pitfalls regarding our alternative idea for the Richta GPS App to rrenews@comeroadrallywith.us. We’re getting ready to trial another use of the App, in a means, I am confident the developers had not intended. And Jerry White, SCCA Texas Region, has promised to work with RReNews to share his use of Richta GPS in an upcoming edition too!
Oh! The headline’s “Nothing new under the sun”? My seventh grand teacher, Mr. Richard Mundine, Anson Jones Junior High School, explained, “Many ideas that appear new aren’t really new at all.”
