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I am a member of the Westchester Sports Car Club and we sponsor a few rallies during the year and I thought I would post the information on the various sports car forums I belong to. I think there may be some interest in a scenic drive through the upper Westchester area. These rallies are low pressure/fun competitions involving following directions and observing posted "rally signs" along the route. Generally you drive approximately at the posted speed limit and you are penalized for arriving at the finish early or late.
One word of warning, I was surprised to learn that there are still some public dirt roads in Westchester and they are sometimes included in WSCC rallies. I had no problem driving my sports car on these public roads but some people freak out if their shiny cars come anywhere near a dirt road. You decide if that matters to you, any street legal car is welcome.
Westchester Sports Car Club - 2016 Halloween Road Rally
Saturday October 29th, starting in Mt. Kisco, N.Y.
WHAT IS A ROAD RALLY?
These are events in which a driver/navigator team follow written instructions at specified
speeds (always within the speed limits) over public roads. These events usually are 50 to 70 miles
long and take two to three hours to complete. WSCC sponsors several rallies each year including
one of the oldest consecutively held rallies in the United States. They are fun oriented
time-distance rallies in and around Westchester County.
In a Road Rally, each team of two people--a driver and a navigator--is given a set of route
directions to follow, and the speeds at which they should travel the route.
The goal of a Road Rally is to travel the correct route at the correct speeds, and arrive at
“checkpoints” precisely on time. You are scored on how close to the correct time you arrive. A
Road Rally is not a race, and no rally will ever require you to drive in a reckless or illegal
fashion. Arriving too early at a checkpoint hurts your score, as does arriving too late. To
participate, you'll need to know the rules for understanding the route instructions. Some
basics will be discussed at the Driver’s Meeting and you are encouraged to “study” the General
Instructions that you’ll receive upon registration.
RALLY PREPARATION: Entrants should have a light for reading route instructions, a watch, paper, pencil, a four
function calculator and maybe a clipboard. NO AUXILIARY LIGHTS ABOVE HEADLIGHT LEVEL WILL
BE NEEDED OR ALLOWED. (NOTE THAT NEW YORK STATE LAW PROHIBITS SUCH LIGHTS.) There
will be no alcoholic beverages allowed before or during the rally. MORE THAN TWO PEOPLE IN A CAR
WILL BE APPROPRIATELY PENALIZED. DUE TO SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS, NO DRIVER ONLY
CARS WILL BE REGISTERED. CARS WITH "COMPUTER" or “NAVIGATION SYSTEMS” WILL BE
INELIGIBLE FOR OFFICIAL RESULTS RANKING.
THE START: will be from the Grand Prix New York parking lot, 333 North Bedford Road (Route
117), Mt. Kisco, N.Y.
THE FINISH MEETING: will be at Applebee’s Restaurant, 195 North Bedford Road (Route 117),
Mt. Kisco, N.Y.
REGISTRATION: opens at 5 PM and continues to 6:30 PM. There will be a drivers’ meeting at
approximately 6:30 PM. Cars will be sent off at 7:00 + the car number in minutes (i.e. Car 35
leaves at 7:00 + 35 minutes or 7:35). Entry fee is $20.00 ($15.00 for WSCC members) per car. A
$5.00 late fee will be charged for anyone registering after 6:30.
TROPHIES: awarded to top 10%. (To qualify for an award, the team has to finish.) A WSCC
Credit Certificate (good for free entry at any WSCC event) may be chosen in place of a
traditional trophy. Dash Plaques will be given to all entrants.
First off, thanks to Ken & Frank for helping coordinate and a special thanks to Dave Trezda for cold running the rally. Without a cold run to vet out and have fresh eyes, there is a good chance our rallyists could come back swinging….nobody wants that!
Secondly, despite our best efforts to advertise, we had a total of 15 cars participate in the WSCC 2016 Halloween Rally. This is a low turn-out. Please like our Facebook Page and spread the word (“WSCC.ORG”). We had 2 cars rank Did Not Finish (“DNF”) and 2 additional cars rank DNF but these 2 met us at Applebee’s to turn in their answer sheets. Even if you did not make it to the checkpoint, please come back to Applebee’s to turn in your answer sheet for scoring and compare notes with your fellow rallyists. It can only improve your game.
With that said, we had 11 cars that made it to the checkpoint and of which 1 car had an extra person and 1 actually came in the wrong way. Remember, you are point penalized for wrong way entry to checkpoint and extra persons in your vehicle. The extra person car did very well, but the extra points could hurt. I understood from this team that they were recruiting a newbie – so I like that. Please bring your friends along for the ride if you think you’re going to be able to recruit them for the next rally!!
Of the 11 finishers we had 2 cars score exact mileage, 1 car off by a 1/10th and 2 others that were within 4/10th. This shows me that we’ve either got great mathematician rallyists or they had little to no mistakes on the course – CONGRATULATIONS.
OKAY now the signs – WE actually put up 42, not 41 as posted at Applebee’s, and honestly there was not trick behind this. For some reason, I just did not record the “H” on my answer sheet. I think my daughter’s text message about going out Sat night distracted me!!!! But, it was there when we went back on Sunday and many folks recorded it. It was not “left over from a prior rally”, it was not “ghost implanted”, it just got missed… so sorry. I also heard a lot of bitchin how hard the signs were….blah blah, blah…..let me tell you, it’s no fun putting them up OR taking them down, plus day light vs night time changes everything. We HAD no idea how hard they would be, honestly…… BUT…….6 of the 11 finishers got 38 or better. So Ha! The extra person team got 40, but that 500 point penalty could drop them down in the rankings. 500 points is 10 missed signs….SO PICK YOUR POISON PEOPLE.
I did not hear of any complaints, just some moaning and groaning, but overall a successful rally. We hope you had fun, learned from your mistakes and can get out there again to play.
Is there any really of Halloween this year? because I have attended last year Halloween rally with my husband and we both enjoyed there, in fact I have decorated my car for Halloween, pic is shown below
I bought this prop and all Halloween stuff from The Halloween Spot Coupons, now just waiting for this rally.
Sorry, I neglected posting the last two rallies. I'll post the rally master's letter for the Bunny Run below and follow up with the Fall Rally when it is published.
Our fall/Halloween rally was October 12th but it was too early to feature costumes. Our next rally will be the Turkey Tour on November 23.
You can always check for updates at the club website: wscc.org
First, let me thank people who helped me put the rally together. I
want to thank Jesse Lipscher and Barbara Gebala for helping promote the
event with their efforts. Thanks to Co-Chairman Dave Trezza who cold ran
the rally, helped write a couple instructions I was having a problem defining
and helping me put up the Bunny signs. My thanks to former member Phyllis
Miller who cold ran the rally, too. Thanks to Debbi and Gary Kanzler for doing
the rally registration. Thanks to Ed McGuirh for coming to work and helping
us at the checkpoint. Thanks to Jesse Lipscher for helping me pick up the
bunnies on Sunday morning and taking my raw finishing data and turning it
into results.
Two of the 39 bunnies got turned by the wind and were not facing the
right way. They could not be seen by rallyists so were not counted in the tally.
That dropped the official bunny count down to 37. WSCC teams made a
strong showing with four WSCC teams in the top 7 positions in the rally.
Leading the pack were WSCC members Jesse Lipscher and Barbara Gebala.
They were the only team to nail the 60.1 mileage figure. In second place were
WSCC’s Mike Caroll and Tim Farrelly. In third place was the team of Bill and
Debby Michelotti. They are long time rallyists at our WSCC events. In fourth
place was the WSCC rally team of Don Mays and Mark Connelly. WSCC’s
Gary and Donna Proft finished in seventh place. The Kanzler team of Debbi
and Gary finished in tenth place and WSCC’s Diane Mays piloted her entry to
fifteenth place.
It was great hearing somebody say they remember when we used to
start the rally at the Kensico Dam years ago. Sixteen cars came through the
finishing checkpoint with the one car we did not see car having a flat tire
and could not get the lug nuts off the wheel. I know that some shops put on
the lug nuts with their guns making it extremely difficult, if not impossible to
get the lug nuts off. I was very happy to see the new set of tires being put
on my Suburban last month at Mavis with a torque wrench so I was not
going to have to struggle in the middle of the night trailering somewhere and
trying to get a flat off the truck in the dark. It was nice to hear a number of
people say they enjoyed the rally route, showing them some new roads and
new big houses.
We look forward to seeing you all at the Fall Rally on October 12 and
Annual Turkey Tour on November 23. Have a great summer!
10-27-16, 06:48 PM
