The best thing about Northern New Jersey Region’s Octoberfest Road Rally is the food! It’s not that the rally itself is second best, but some members (including myself) look forward to our annual visit to the Black Forest Inn in Stanhope, N.J. The Black Forest Inn, located on Route 206, just north of Interstate 80, is home to some of the best German Continental Cuisine in the area. John Vogt organized the September 26th event, which started at High Marques Motors in Morristown and first headed west toward Califon before turning north through Lebanon and Mansfield Township.
With Eric and Pat Sjogren, Rallymasters for the first three events in this year’s rally series on vacation, Peter and Joanne Schneider put their Rallymaster’s caps back on. They designed a short course to take the contestants on some of the club’s favorite roads to the Black Forest Inn.
Little towns like Middle Valley and Mt Bethel were featured. The twisty roads of the Musconetcong River Valley were utilized for our members to enjoy the driving experience of their Porsches.
The route visited the Port Murray Historic District in Mansfield Township, Warren County. Port Murray was a vital transportation location on the Morris Canal and the Morris and Essex Railroad. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996 for its significance in community development, architecture, and transportation from 1828 to 1915 and skirted Saxton Falls and Waterloo Village on the way to the Inn.
Waterloo Village is a restored 19th-century canal town in Byram Township, Sussex County. The community was approximately the halfway point in the roughly 102 miles trip along the Morris Canal, which ran from Jersey City to Phillipsburg. Waterloo possessed all the accommodations necessary to service the needs of a canal operation, including an inn, a general store, a church, a blacksmith shop (to service the mules on the canal), and a watermill. Waterloo’s geographic location would have been conducive to being an overnight stopover point on the two-day trip between Phillipsburg and Jersey City for canal workers.
In looking over the questions used on the Octoberfest rally, they ranged from some simple, easy to answer to some slight trickery ones.
One question asked, “WHAT DID YOU GET? A SMILEY FACE OR A FROWNING FACE?” and it had no “one” correct answer. Chester Township had placed a radar monitoring device along Furnace Rd, which displayed a smiley or frowning face depending on the speed you were traveling when the radar ‘pinged’ your vehicle. The strange thing was that while the speed limit on the road was 35 MPH, the radar device displayed a frowning face to anyone that exceeded 25 MPH, which was the suggested (yellow sign) speed due to the curve shortly before the device.
Based on the number of individuals that got Question 3 wrong, the trickiest question on the event was, “WHAT MIGHT YOU DO AFTER YOUR DOCTOR GAVE YOU GREAT SERVICE?” The correct answer was TIPMED, located just before Oakdale Rd and North Rd in Chester.
The second most incorrectly answered question made us wonder how many people had passed their driver’s test, or maybe it was time for a refresher course. “WHAT SPEED IS SUGGESTED FOR THIS ROAD?” Over 40% of the teams got this question wrong. In New Jersey, as in all states, signs displaying a speed limit with a yellow background color are suggested, while those with a white background color are required. We could not believe so many people wrote down 35 MPH vs. 15MPH.
In acknowledgment to those that serve our community and that not all superheroes wear capes, one of the last questions on the event was “WHAT KIND OF HEROS?” and the answer was HEALTHCARE HEROS WAY.
We hope that everyone enjoyed the event and that we get a great turnout for the Region’s last event of the 2021 Series, the annual Dreyfus Rally, on November 14th. The highest placing team driving a Porsche on the event will have the honor of having the Dreyfus Cup Award for a year and have their names engraved on the award for all to see.
Here are the Octoberfest Rally standings —
