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General Impressions, Random Observations, Whatnot
Well that was fun!
The weather for 2008 The Road Not Taken was rather ideal: a decent
temperature and no precipitation, but still moist and fairly dust-free
from recent rains.
Serious potholes were generally easy to spot, as most were water-filled.
Potholes were a nuisance this year, being more common and meaner than
usual, probably because winter hung on late in the mountains and held up
the road repair scheduling.
Although quite a bit of de-potholing occurred during the weeks before the
event, some of the remaining holes worsened—and the combination of
repairs and deterioration made a frustrating task of trying to nail them
down in the Routebook for contestants.
Logging operations also caught us all by surprise.
Long piles of huge culvert pipes along the road edge startled some
contestants; and just after that, our primal
fears were
triggered by a crane-like monster sleeping right at the
outside road edge, around a blind corner.
Man, that machine was huge and ghastly!
It was instinctively obvious
that it had gotten there by supernatural means.
It made me put
a finger to my lips and whisper, "Shhh..." as we tip-tired by.
The U.S. National Forest Service had advised us of one area where
logging operations would span the TRNT date, and we had talked with
that logging company to assure that roads would not be blockaded during
TRNT—a technique we had been warned is often employed to secure
logging operations at night.
It turned out that the logging operations in the area we had been
advised of were
actually done and gone before August.
On the other hand, we were not
expecting the full-scale logging operations we did encounter
during the event.
(After all, the USFS is a large
organization, with lots of different departments.)
We are grateful that the logging crews did leave the roads open.
Perhaps it was the same logging company, and they remembered our
concern about night-time road blockades on August 2.
Our apology to those who were expecting each Checkpoint to disclose the
CAR ZERO time for the instruction following the Checkpoint—a new
feature that the Generals had promised.
We are embarrassed to confess that in the scramble to get things together
for printing, that feature didn't make it into the event.
(To deepen the red of our
embarrassment, none of us organizers noticed its absence until a
competitor inquired about it after the event!)
Winners and Losers
Check the results for the numbers.
Some detail commentary on those results will appear here later, in an
update posting.
Special Award
The Road Not Taken recognizes that a team's final score does not always
represent the actual merit of the team's performance: so we created an
unnamed Certificate Of Spirit which we can freely award to as many teams
as might merit.
Paula Terp designed and produced the classy certificates, one for driver
and one for navigator, which are personalized and signed by the organizers
and enclosed in a classy cover.
Our one tangible and unalterable eligibility requirement is that teams
which win a trophy will not receive a COS, no matter how deserving they
might otherwise be.
On 2008 The Road Not Taken, the following three teams earned a COS:
Jacob Terp and Jeff Nason, Geo Metro, Car 36.
Although Jacob (the sole son of organizers Paula and Todd) has worked
The Road Not Taken a number of times in various capacities, neither he
nor Jeff had ever competed on any rally.
No doubt both of them were vigorously wielding their riding crops in
order to get that Metro up all of those hills—some of which surely
are steeper than "code".
They flogged that Geo all the way through the event and finished their
first rally.
Finished far from dead last, in fact.
In fact, they finished just one place short of a trophy in the most
populous class on the event!
All of which adds up to "impressive enough, but not quite COS worthy".
What tipped Jeff and Jacob into the COS realm is that they attained one
of the dozen+ 0's among the 240 Checkpoint scores in the
results.
That, in a Geo Metro, on their first rally, in Stock class!
Terp's dad reports that, despite decades of attempt, he has never seen
a lone 0 on his scorecard—a fact which might spice the
family's rally banter at the Thanksgiving table this year.
Patrick Darrow and Terra Darrow, Subaru WRX Wagon, Car 50.
Patrick and Terra, on their first TSD event after "making the move from
the glorified lawn job that is rallycross", demonstrated a spirit of
perseverance on several occasions during the event; and perhaps the most
notable occurred at the unplanned ten-minute delay that occurred because
the Pace car got themselves off-course when the unearthly rapid growth of
shrubbery made an intersection look like a road.
Pace cleared some shrubbery, planted a reflector post, wrote a note,
and passed the note to Car 2 when it arrived.
The note instructed competitors to sign the note, pause ten minutes,
pass the note to the next competitor car (or Sweep), and to not
continue until they had passed the note along.
At the time the note was written, Sweep was mere moments behind the last
car—but by the time that note had been passed to the Darrows,
Sweep had fallen very far behind while assisting a crippled car.
So when the car ahead of them completed their pause and continued on,
Patrick and Terra were left all alone in the dark, quiet forest.
For a really long time.
At some point they must have begun to wonder whether they had suddenly
become the last two people on Earth, or something.
They must have begun to wonder if Checkpoints were closing up and going
home while they were sitting there itchin' to pass that note to someone
and get back into motion.
When Sweep did arrive, finally, the Darrows were still dutifully waiting
as instructed.
The organizers appreciate and admire their difficult cooperation in that
situation.
In a sense, you could say that Terra and Patrick were awarded a COS for
their perseverance in doing absolutely nothing!
Rob Nesius and Gregor Richards, Subaru Impreza, Car 42.
This was Rob and Gregor's first rally, and in fact Gregor had been
conscripted just days before the event.
Rob borrowed his wife's car—and her digital kitchen timer—and the two
headed off to see what they could do on 2008 The Road Not Taken.
By Checkpoint Two, they had figured out what a Checkpoint looked like,
and that they needed to stop at them (we had failed to show off one of
the Checkpoint signs at registration, so they just blew on by Checkpoint
One thinking it was some fishermen or campers parked by the streamside
road).
But these guys do know how to learn!
By Checkpoint Five, they had it all down flat pat,
and if their first four Checkpoints had been at the same average as all
subsequent Checkpoints, they would have comfortably bettered even the
impressive performance of Stock class winners Bruce Tabor and John
Elkin!
Alas, their early steep learning curve held them to 7th place in the
13-car Stock class, thus making them eligible for—and deserving
of—a
The Road Not Taken Certificate of Spirit.
Right-footnote:
These also are the folks who provided the in-car video, which looks
and sounds remarkably good considering that Gregor just snuck out his
Canon Powershot, flipped it to movie mode, and hooked it to a sunvisor
when Rob wasn't looking (well, when Rob wasn't looking at what was going
on inside the car—so it really was no great feat of stealth on
Gregor's part).
Volunteers Make The Road Not Taken
It must take something more than 1000 volunteer man-hours, probably not
more than 2000 hours, to produce and present The Road Not Taken.
Since nobody has a paying job on TRNT, we all have to spend much of our
time at paying jobs and other requirements of life—which means the
event requires the efforts of quite a few volunteers.
This list will take some time to complete, so please don't get the
impression that this is a complete list, yet.
Kevin Poirier
has been involved in some form with The Road Not Taken
since its second running, and was a full-fledged official Twisty Roads
Rally Group member for several years (it was he who suggested the TRRG
logo design, therefore his influence shall forever remain visible).
The 2008 TRNT was probably triggered by Kevin, the SCCA Regional official,
and
Mike Nagle,
a prominent ORG member, who conspired to twist Twisty
Roads' arms to produce the event after a five-year hiatus.
Without that initial push from Mike and Kevin, we might still be saying,
"Maybe we should do another TRNT next year."
Knowing how dearly we dislike dealing directly with SCCA, Kevin assured
that we remained as insulated as possible from that experience—and
we are very much grateful for that.
Kevin also joined Chris Hale to measure and checkout the 2008 TRNT course,
which was a 12-hour task without even counting Kevin's substantial to-from
travel time.
Circumstances had 2008 TRNT not so fully fledged as we like before checkout
and measurement, so Kevin's and Chris' experienced attention during that
long day was crucial to the event's success.
As noted above,
Chris Hale
provided essential service in teaming with Kevin to measure and checkout
2008 TRNT.
Chris also provided complete scoring services, with the assistance of
his scoring team of Mark Tabor and Kevin Poirier.
Chris' diligence and attention led to identification of a calculation
error which would otherwise have escaped notice; and
TRNT organizers are grateful to have had 2008 scoring handled for us,
with competence and diligence.
With his team of
{tba}
,
Mikey Shade
provided the heralded Sweep services for 2008 The Road Not Taken.
In preparation, Mikey participated in the measurement and
checkout, spending a long day driving the course—and doing his own
navigating, no less—to familiarize himself (we all had radioes, and
Mikey stayed mostly within sight anyway--but we knew he really was paying
close attention because when a couple of extraneous instructions appeared
in the Routebook, he immediately was confused by them).
The organizers and at least a couple of competitor teams very much
appreciate the excellent work of Mikey Shade and his Sweep team.
