On the beautiful North Texas Sunday afternoon of February 20, 2022, the Texas Region of the SCCA put on the seventh edition of the Sweetheart Ride Road Rally (SRRR). Typically SRRR has been run on the Sunday before Valentine’s Day, but this year’s event was pushed back a week due to a “little football game” (Super Bowl LVI) moving to that date. The NFL’s addition of an 18th game to their seasons now puts the Super Bowl on the second Sunday of every February, so future SRRR dates may also be affected.
While scouting for roads for SRRR, I came across a narrow road with a concrete bottomed ford that had shallow water standing across most of it. Since the road was just a loop off of the main road, it was evident that it could be used as an optional side trip for participants interested in a little extra adventure on the rally. Planning for that led to the idea of taking pictures of the enthusiastic participants as they splashed through the water. Unfortunately, inquiring around among Texas Region members didn’t turn up any photographers who were free the day of the event. However, Misty and Ethan Wiseley, colleagues on the Rally Committee, were planning to run the rally. They were also willing to start a little before everyone else, stop at the ford, take pictures, and fall in behind the last car through.
As the lead car, I was supposed to take their picture as they came through the ford, but I totally botched it and didn’t get anything but an initial image of the ford. It didn’t occur to me to shoot multiple pictures as they progressed through the ford, and the one-click I attempted failed to work. Thankfully Misty and Ethan thought of taking multiple photographs, but while Misty clicked away, Ethan shot video footage. The result is a wonderful set of pictures and videos that participants who elected to make a splash can now download from roadrally.page to commemorate their fun at the ford. If you enlarge the closest-up photos, i.e., the last one of each vehicle’s set, you can see huge smiles, victory signs, etc., in many of them. Nineteen (19) out of twenty-three (23) starters elected to make a splash. One driver was game for the ford but, to protect his beautiful, low to the ground car, wisely elected not to make a splash while crossing.
Just like last year’s Game/Tour (Trial/Torment/Test/Tease/Torture)/Adventure (GTA) rally, this year’s Sweetheart Ride featured the use of the Competitor – Richta GPS app. The app was used for timing and signaling upcoming turns and other route instructions. The timing duties were timing a leisurely time-speed-distance portion in each section (scored at one point per full minute off), recording each section’s start and end time, and displaying the “remaining-cushion” part of the day’s total time limit. The rally was just over 90-miles long and included a rest break.
The GTA puzzles also featured a high-tech approach as each section’s puzzles were presented in a Google Form. Participants recorded the solutions they found by tapping on the form’s “Found” spot. All four possible solutions were defaulted to “Not Found.” The General Instructions explained that zero to all four possible solutions might be found along the course while the puzzle was active. The main idea of using Google Forms was to automate the scoring. It worked very well last year but not quite so well this year. I made the mistake of making copies of the previous year’s forms then updating them. It turns out that Google’s way of storing a Form may contain, intact, every update to it. Opening my forms thus seemed to bring up the original copied material first, then replace it, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, with the product of all this year’s updates.
Participants who downloaded the form onto their tablet or phone at home before coming to the starting location ended up with this year’s information in the forms. Those who waited to use the Wi-Fi at the starting location somehow ended up with last year’s information not getting replaced with the new year’s information. While this might have cleared itself up on its own in a few minutes, I assumed that something had gone wrong with the links on the web page and attempted to fix it on the fly by creating a copy of each form and changing the links to link to the copies.
Everyone did end up with this year’s information, yet because two different links were used, those who downloaded the forms from home had their responses and “scores” tucked away in a separate Google location than those who downloaded the forms at the starting restaurant. Not realizing this, in a rush to pull together the results at the end of the rally, I asked each of the thirteen (13) teams whose scores I couldn’t find to assist me by showing me their copy of their scored Google Forms. Several errors were made in that process, but I was able to sort them all out the next day when I found the “lost” responses related to the links to the first Google Forms.
Jennifer White and Jo White, last year’s Overall winners (and no relation to me), repeated their winning ways this year with a score of 43. Close behind them and in second place Overall (for the second year in a row) was Joshua and Amy Masseo with 45 points. Cross and Jessica Kirchmeier, whose splash is featured above, were in third place Overall at 46 points and repeated their third-place finish of 2021. Craig and Lynn Sims were in sixth place Overall and first in the Novice Class with 52 points. Leading the First Timers Class at 61 points (eleventh overall) were Stephen and Anne Guest and Niki and Tim Cogburn, a tie. To see all of the results, click on this link or go to roadrally.page, which also has all puzzles, solutions, GIs, etc.!
Back to that puzzle format mentioned above —
As they started down the first backroad of the rally the puzzle above became active. The very first sign was all words too small to meet readability requirements but at the bottom of the sign was a “watching eyes” graphic that grabbed your attention. Since representations of objects could be used, and since homonyms could be freely substituted, one of the graphic eyes needed to be counted as the “i” solution. Fifteen teams figured it out and marked “i” as “Found” while eight (8) teams didn’t and received a penalty point. Another rule allowed the first or last part of a word to be split off and used so teams might look for a “welcome” sign for the “we.” Alas, there were no houses or businesses on that stretch of road so “we” didn’t occur. There was however an arch indicating the driveway under it went to Young Ranch. The homonym and word splitting rules would have let teams use the “you” for “u” however the arch came after the Competitor app beeped to end the puzzle. Four (4) teams marked it anyway and each received a penalty point. The “policemen” solution was thrown in just to remind everyone to stay legal.
Another puzzle said: “The cowboy did a good job with his “_____.” The quotes indicate that sign message information must be used. Spurs, harmony, horse, and plow were the possible solutions. To count as found the plural “spurs” solution needed a “spurs” sign, or two (2) “spur” signs. Cars were on Harmony Spur Rd and on a fence parallel to it was a sign with the house number and street name. Also, as they passed Harmony Ct there were both a street sign for it and one parallel to Harmony Spur Rd with its name. “Spurs” therefore needed to be marked as “Found” as did “harmony” due to any of the three (3) signs that included it. “Plow” and “horse” didn’t occur. Actual or representation forms of them did occur later in the rally. “Not Found” solutions often came from earlier or later occurrences of objects or sign messages. This not only ensured they were plausible but delightfully reinforced that plausibility to observant participants.
Wrong answers counted toward a team’s score. Fifty-eight puzzles meant there were 232 (58 X 4) “scoring opportunities.” One hundred eleven correct solutions were findable, and 121 plausible solutions should have been left marked “Not Found.” Note that since more than half of the given solutions were not available to find, simply guessing as to which solutions should be marked as “Found” was a losing proposition. Not only that, but seven puzzles had zero findable solutions. Guessing just one answer for each would result in seven points against the team. This design is intentional and hopefully also discourages turning around and going back to look for a solution that may not exist. Everything that could be found was found by at least one or two teams, and only a few findable solutions were found by every team.
Thanks to everyone who came out to play in their vehicles in the Brazos River Valley. A special thanks to Ethan and Misty Wiseley for the wonderful photography and videography. A big THANK YOU to John Poulos, who does so much to make the Texas Region RoadRally program successful but didn’t get to run.
Jerry White, Rallymaster
