I did not invent the Dirty Rat. No, it was blatantly stolen (with “permission”) from expert RallyMaster Simon Levear, one of the best out there. After a series of relatively high-level trap-free rallies, someone put some traps into our “Friday Nighter” series. Simon responded with the first Dirty Rat, a 3-page long rally with 12 pages of trap explanations handed to you at the last checkpoint and a critique slip. And if you quickly read to the bottom of page 11, you will see something like this:
“Your final critique slip directed you to do a U-turn then proceed to Abbey’s Pizza in Sherwood [everyone knows where that is and how to get there] via some simple instructions. I hope you proceeded to the next INTERSECTION to do that U-turn not just the real wide area just past the checkpoint where you were observed off course… and oh, when you got down to the DIVIDED HIGHWAY, even though the next NRI was “LEFT” [first opp], and you know SHERWOOD and ABBEY’s PIZZA is LEFT on that highway, PROTECTION forces you RIGHT on that highway, and then your first left into the ON-COURSE route control….”
rallymaster simon levear
And so, after “maxing” 6 of 9 checkpoints and calling the RM a “Dirty Rat,” the Dirty Rat Rally was born for me.
Yulia and I have been doing the Dirty Rat Rally for the Alfa Romeo Owners Club of Oregon (AROO) for four years. It is a non-points event in the fall that lets us think up the most devious bits we can for the enjoyment and education of our devoted rallyists. We will put ONTO and OR traps into the ODO LEG that give unknowing off-course cars a SLIGHTLY different ODOMETER reading at the end than ON-COURSE cars (or just toss in an OBS control, or both). We do nested ITIS and OR instructions where you are looking for eight different things, and then, when you finally find the [airport graphic], the plane is facing the wrong way…!
We like to put in “blackjack” ROUTE CONTROLS where you arrive at an intersection while TOWARDS one landmark and ONTO a road. You see a control of some sort down each of the three roads (in OUR club, ONTO and TOWARD carry EQUAL WEIGHT (ONTO is not the priority), so you drop to PROTECTION or CENTERLINE or STRAIGHTMOST to get you into the correct control…the checkpoint workers get a chuckle.
And, of course, we have thrown in the “ODD CAR” / “EVEN CAR” route instructions at the start of Regularity 3 after a long break and in sight of everyone, where CAR 1 goes LEFT around a loop, and CAR 2 is SUPPOSED to go RIGHT around that loop, which makes for good fun as Car 5 tries to figure out which way he SHOULD go…we time to the nearest minute.
So if you can’t make it out for our “bucket list” Northwest Classic Rally over August 3-6th, plan for October 1, 2023, for our next edition of the Dirty Rat Rally, starting in Portland, Oregon. Check out the Alfa Romeo Owners Club of Oregon for more info!
