Included in this month’s issue (this is shared with RReNews and the Northern New Jersey PCA publication) are the results of the 2021 Dreyfus Rally, the 60th anniversary running of the event. Sixty-four teams came out to explore Morris, Hunterdon, and Warren Counties and discovered the charming, little-used scenic roads of Cherryville Station and Franklin Township, which lay west of Route 31 and south of Clinton, New Jersey.
In 1960 Rene Dreyfus donated a trophy cup to NNJR. This coveted cup is the award for the most prestigious rally of the NNJR season. The 1st place rallyist gets to hold the cup for one year. Rene Dreyfus was a French driver who won the Grand Prix of Monaco, drove the Indy 500, Le Mans, Sebring, etc.—driving a private Bugatti, beating the highly regarded Bugatti team, and winning 26 races in his career. He also owned the famous restaurant, “Le Chanteclair” in New York, the meeting place for the world’s most famous racing drivers. The 2021 event was a Question & Answer gimmick-type rally, continuing our successful family-friendly event format. All family and friends can participate without restrictions regarding age or number of people in the car. HOWEVER, to qualify to claim the Dreyfus Cup, you must be driving a Porsche, and both the Driver and Navigator must be NNJR members. Non-members and non-Porsche drivers are encouraged to attend and join the fun and may receive other trophies. $60 per carload got you into the event where you met other rallyists looking for a fun ride in the country, answered joke questions, followed by a gourmet feast (included in entry fee) and trophy awards at The Inn at Glen Gardner. Due to the popularity of this destination used in August’s Run to the Stone Walls Rally, it was chosen for our most prestigious rally.
In addition, this was the last rally in our 2021 Rally Series in which Driver and Navigators individually compete to win the series cup in two classes: Expert and Novice. Awards are presented to the best Driver and Navigator in each Class. Only NNJR Members can earn points in the series; 10 points for First Place in Class and 8 for a second, then the points decrease by one down to 9th place, only 1 point. 10th and below are not awarded any points towards the series. Your best four out of five rallies count towards the series year-end standing. A Rallymaster will be awarded 8 points for putting on an event, and a Checkpoint/Pre-check Worker gets 5 points to keep it fair for the event organizers. But they can only count one worker event towards the best 4 out of 5 that go into the series standings. Winners of the series awards must show consistency by placing well in their respective classes. They compete as either a Driver or Navigator in the entire series to accumulate points for the respective award and not change classes between Novice and Expert to focus their series points in one of the four award categories. Unlike an individual rally where the perfect score is Zero (low score wins), the perfect score for the Road Rally series is 40 points (10 points for each of the four events that count in the final standings).
The rally got off to a late start at 12:15 pm due to the high volume of entries on a sunny fall day. The club did a great job advertising the event, with ads in social media, Porscheforus, and distribution of flyers at the NNJR Pine Barrens’ Off-Road’ Excursion sponsored by Paul Miller Porsche. In addition, High Marques Motor Cars, the starting location of the event, distributed flyers to their 1000+ mailing list of Porsche enthusiasts.
The first question of the rally was only a little over a mile into the route, where contestants were asked to identify the Weight Limit on Picatinny Rd. The correct answer was just as you turned onto the road and was an easy-to-see “Weight Limit 5 Tons.” Only one team got that answer incorrect; maybe the Navigators did not read ahead or read the question to the Driver after passing the sign. It is always good to know what is coming next in the rally by reading a couple of questions or instructions ahead, so you are not caught by surprise.
Question 2 was the third most incorrectly answered question on the rally. The question was: Hey! This is not a Big Toy! The sign says please keep off __________. Since we were passing the Morristown New Jersey National Guard, the obvious but incorrect answer was “Tank.” Yet if you read the whole clue that Rallymasters Eric and Pat Sjogren were looking for, it was what on the sign at the bottom of the tank, the word “display.” A little under 50% answered that question incorrectly.
Sometimes trying to figure out what the Rallymaster is looking for is just part of the fun. Question 8 stated: All in All, they’re just another cow on the wall. But how many are there? This question sounded like a lead into a popular Pink Floyd song lyric, so not knowing what to expect, we slowed down to about 5 miles per hour and kept an eye out for anything on both sides of the road. Maybe there were some wall sculptures attached to a barn in the back of someone’s yard 100 feet off the road? After all, this was the Dreyfus Rally, and it was supposed to be the most challenging rally of the year. But to our surprise, someone painted the entire side of their barn with a scene of a grass meadow with five 10-15 foot cows standing in the field. Easy to see if you were looking to the left at the right moment.
Further along the same road were two additional questions: Question 9 was “_________ Walk Trot Jog” and Question 10 was “The Ridge ________.” In addition, the route instructions had a Rallymaster note before Q9 that stated you should pay special attention to the distant view between the two grey buildings on your left. While you were looking at the distant view, your eye was drawn away from the sign in the foreground on a tree that read “Speed Limit Walk Trot Jog” in the “The Ridge Farm”driveway, which was the sign used to answer question 10 correctly. Both of these signs were less than 20 feet apart; maybe people were looking at the view and did not see the Speed Limit sign, or they were distracted by the ”The Ridge Farm” sign and missed the view and the Speed Limit sign. Still, Question 9 was the most missed question on the event, with 64% of the teams answering this incorrectly, while only three teams missed the “The Ridge Farm” sign. Questions are used during the rally to test your powers of observation!
The rally route headed west on US 22 to the area south of Round Valley Reservoir, which holds 55 billion gallons of fresh water and is the largest in the state. The Rallymaster stated that you could take all the “Dam pictures you want.” We were then treated to some great curvy, twisty, and narrow roads by making an acute left on Stanton Mountain Road before turning right at the Stanton General Store, built in 1837 and now serving handmade pasta and sauces. A little known fact for future events is that they also have public restrooms.
Question 12 had a little clean political humor “Hah! Found Him! So, this is where Hillary’s husband lives now ___________.” The answer was an easy-to-see sign that read “Old Clinton Rd” Only two teams missed that sign.
Question 13 just stated HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! (in decreasing font size). The answer was Echo Hill which was found on the sign along the route, pointing to Echo Hill Park, which is part of the Hunterdon County recreations facilities.
Keeping in the theme of the season, the rally passed a “Turkey Crossing” sign which was the answer to Question 15, followed by Question 16, “Look Quick! Really? No Puppies?” Just after turning on Lower Kingtown Rd, the answer was found on a sign on the left that reads “Senior Dog Sanctuary.” Only 5% got that question incorrect.
By now, we were on the scenic back roads of Franklin Township, an area we rarely use, but is full of great views, narrow bridges, and peaceful streams when heavy rains or a Nor’easter does not anger them.
The second most missed question on the rally was “BARN _____,” which was Question 17. At this point in the rally, you were traveling on West Sidney Rd, looking for no less than three questions at a time. The first barn you passed had a hard-to-see look back sign that read “Wo Barn Farm,” so this did not fit the answer because 1) it was a look back, which is not allowed, and 2) the question did not state “______ Barn _____.” The answer was “1,” which was found a couple of feet on the left before the answer to Question 18, which asked “Chicken _______” and located on the right—again, testing the rallyists powers of observation and creating a tie-breaker question.
The last question on the rally was a nod to John Vogt’s (the NNJR Region Rally Chair) unique sense of humor. Question 20 stated, “LOL (Easy to see)! Where does John get his Jokes and Gags?” The answer was a large sign along the road that read “Funny Farm.”
Overall, the rally was 66.15 miles (before using the Odometer Leg to adjust each car’s odometer mileage) and could have been driven in 2 hours, but my wife and I did it in 2 and a half. John allowed over three to complete the course. As you can see by the mileage scores, 15 teams were only off by a 10th of a mile from the Official Mileage. Three teams got all of the questions correct, and 25 teams got two or fewer questions wrong, which means that the questions were fair, with a couple of harder questions added to help add a little spice to the competition and help separate the teams.
Big thanks to Ellen Hays and Joanne Schneider for their help with registration and Ellen with scoring; especially appreciated because of the high attendance. Results and the winners of the Dreyfus Cup are below. I hope you are looking forward to the 2022 PCA Northern New Jersery Region Road Rally Season, which will start in the spring with the “Welcome to the Club” Concourse and Rally.
