Anybody put on or participated in a car rally?

[my72vette454]

I think it would be fun to put on a car rally for the local vette club this fall. I havent ever participated in one before so I dont know anything about doing one but what I was thinking is making it an all day "fall colors" drive and have it end at someplace that evening for dinner with a lunch stop and some fuel stops along the route. It would not be a race but a timed event driving the speed limit to see how close anybody could come to my time driving it. I have read a few thing online about setting one up and doing clues to find different roads, turns, ect. Anybody have any pointers on how to organize something like this?

TIA
Mike

[Tucks69]

I have participated in 1 and my wife organized 2 of them. I was working during the second one. It was a fun day! Hers was a rally and scavenger hunt. The cars were started 1 minute apart. We were given a envelope with the directions that we could only open when we started. The directions did not have street names it had clues for the name of the street! The first clue read turn on the road named after a pretty lady (Fox Rd.)! It also told the speed to drive on certain segments, it also had places for you to stop for certain amount of times. We had a driver and navigator for each car. Her is a link to a thread I put on here.

https://www.pro-touring.com/showthread.php?58012-Road-Rally-at-the-ROCK-October-2-2009&highlight=road+rally

My wife said if you give her a call at work she will give you all the info. Just ask for Emily when you call, her number is in the attached thread.

[David Pozzi]

A more relaxed event would not include mandatory speeds, - which would require accurate timing equipment &'people to run them. Give "interesting" route directions, or better yet, give them a list of questions they need to answer by observing things along the route. It is a lot easier to tally up the winner this way.
I would make the destination clear before starting, so if someone gets lost, they know where to go.

[jerhofer]

I agree with David. Many people get intimidated if you start talking about timing them and participation may suffer. We have run a number of rallies over the years and the ones that were the most fun were pretty low key. Of course, if TSD rallies are your thing, you won't be happy with a more casual rally.

It is also fun if your route has the entrants circling back and meeting the other rallyists. Adds a bit of uncertainty as to whether or not they are on the right path.

Be sure to run through your entire route the day before your event. Roads can be closed, signs disappear, etc. At least if something has changed, you can bring it up at the drivers meeting and, hopefully, avoid confusion. To make sure everyone knows where the rally ends, give them a "panic" envelope only to be opened if they are lost with the penalty being no points scored on the rally.

Rallies are great fun...if you are doing well. The driver and navigator then get along very well. However, marriages have been known to suffer if things go terribly wrong.

Hand made trophies are always appreciated more than store bought ones. Be creative.

Here are some trophies my wife made for a rally we put on years ago.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/07/trophiesforgimmickrallysm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/07/trophiesforgimmickrally3sm-1.jpg

[Tucks69]

Jerry what you have described is the way the rallys were run that my wife helped with. The timed sections of the event were mainly to keep people from speeding and breaking state and local laws. After all the times were tallied the person that averaged 66 mph won the event. My wife helped with the event so I did not want to win, but at the end of the day I had a 66.5 mph average. Luckily I forget to pick up one of the scavenger items so I was disqualified! The event started at the dragway and ended at the round track in rockingham. They told us we could make 3 laps around the track at moderate speed, you can imagine how that worked!

David I agree the event took several days to set up as it had to be run several times to get consistant times. We had several stops along the way and we were fed a meal at the end. It was a fund raiser for the local Chamber of Commerce. There was everything from my 68 Camaro to a Real Estate Box truck! We all had fun but it is alot of work.

Oh yeah and to make it interesting she had a decoy car to mess with the participents.

[Twentyover]

Put on a rally known as Great Western for the Long Beach MG Club between 1993 until 2009.

There are a couple things that can make it more relaxing- timed legs broken up by Transit Zones (no time). Think the first thing you need todo is get a set of Generals- general instructions for the rally including definitions, how the route is to be run, etc.This is followed by the RIs, the Route Instructions, The RIs actually define the route, timed and transit zones, speeds.

If you have any questions, I'd be pleased to forward a set of Generals the MG club uses, along with a recent set of RIs for a rally Ive written, and can answer questions.