Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Autocross and Open Track KS Region "Meet in the Middle" Road Rally, 11 Mar

Event Flyer

Don't know if anyone's ever tried road rally before. It's not the adrenaline rush of autocross, but it's a fine excuse to get a bunch of car nuts together. To be honest, this will be my first, so besides what I've read about it I'm not sure what to expect.

Event is open to non-SCCA members. Two people are required in each car, a driver and a navigator. Minor waivers are required, as with any other SCCA event.

Event is held on open public roads at or below the legal speed limit. This is not "stage rally" and therefore requires no car prep.

I've always wanted to do that, and I plan on hitting some locally this spring. I reccommend people give it a shot if you're in the area!

What a hoot!

25 cars entered, which I gather is some kind of record for KS Region. 8 cars from Wichita, some others from KC, Topeka, and even one team from Tulsa.

My Son and I ran "novice" class under "stock," meaning stock odo and speedo and non-programmable calculator. Did all of our timing control by "feel," using calibrated speedo readings.

Scoring was based on seconds, with one point given for each second off at each checkpoint. (Some rallies are scored on hundredths of a minute.) Our final score was 380 after 5 1/2 hours through 6 checkpoints. Not too shabby for our first time out (and a 10 year-old navigator).

Overall win went to a team driving a Subaru Forester (with better rally equipment) with a score of about 82. 5th overall were 2 guys in an MS6 (also novice) with 280. Not sure where that puts us in the novice class.

Best part of the day is that my Son had a blast, and wants to do it again.

Well, official results came back. Rally scoring is a rather complicated process. They had to throw out the first leg due to some complication with the route instructions, and there was another time when some incorrect info got passed out at a checkpoint, but otherwise... I will emphatically say that it takes a ton of work to put one of these events on and a few little mistakes on a local event like this are to be expected.

Anyway, our final score was 257, putting us overall 10th out of 25, and 7th out of 17 in SCCA novice. Top overall score was 56 (by an equipped-class WRX team), followed by an 88, 94, 138, and 153 to round out the top 5. Worst score by a finishing car was 796, to give you an idea of the range.

Notable for this crowd is that there were 4 entries representing the "Heart of America Z Club." I think it'd be neat to have a larger Contour presence at next year's event, or even at an event later this year. Wichita region SCCA hosts the "Witches Ryde" Rally Sep 30. Anyone interested?