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Straight Arrow Rally by Jack Wales Knuckles white on the wheel, tires squealing and with the Driver fighting to hold the car on course, the Navigator chants a litany of directions to the Driver. Okay, maybe since this was our first Rally event, perhaps, we were just a tad bit excited about it. We might also have had expectations from watching events on the television that didn't quite apply. Meeting at Cozymel's for a bit of lunch before the event, we listened to the event coordinators, Teri Davis and Mark Gluck, give a short class on how to do a road rally. Since out of the seven cars in the event, six of them had never run a rally before, this was most informative. After covering what the general road rules were, and how to use the Numbered Route Instructions, they led us all outside to give us the pages of Numbered Route Instructions. From looking around at the blank looks on other navigators faces, and having the feeling that same look was on mine, I was suddenly worried about even finishing the event, much less sticking to the instructions for more than a few minutes. I leaned over to one of the other navigators and ask him if he understood the second instruction, he look back at me and whispered, "I haven't gotten that far yet!" As we lined up ready to depart the parking lot, a local Grapevine police officer pulled past, quickly circled into the parking and and sat, staring at a line of Porsches. I wondered if there were dollar signs in his eyes as one by one the cars rolled out of the parking lot, proceeding to follow the directions on the list. OUR TURN! Away we went, I gave the turn instruction to Darron Shaffer, being careful to keep a lookout for the answers to the questions we would need to fill out,reading ahead a couple of instructions trying to figure out what to tell him -- ok is that next stop light the one we need to turn left at? Or is it the one half a block further? One would be the correct way, the other would lead us into a wild goose chase. How to decide the placement? Mileage? Time? Well this was not a Time/Distance event, so maybe that wasn't the best way to do it! Then Mark had a moment of insight! Ahah, that entry misspelled a word! Great they are in third, OOh that one had extra punctuation! Great, now its easier to put them in the order! After the plaques for placement were passed out, everyone went outside and chatted for a bit. I know Darron and I both decided this was an event that we would like to do again. It seems ALL of the Novice teams decided this was something that they could get in to and pestered those in charge to let them know when the next Rally was to be. All in all, perfect weather, good driving, lovely scenery, and a bit of fun with the instructions made for an event that all who participated will have fond memories of for quite some time! I would like to thank the organizers Teri Davis and Mark Gluck, and the course designer, Carey Spreen. Straight Arrow Rally Final Results: Class Driver / Navigator Errors / Tie Breakers Exp. Don & Taxi Breithaupt 0 7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Novice Dave Frick / Jean Frick 0 7 Novice Darron Shaffer / Jack Wales 0 6 Novice Mike Stafford / Clyde Stringer 0 5.5 Novice Adam & Mohammed Muheeb 1 7 Novice Brandon O'Neill / Mike O'Neill 1 0 Novice Brad Neal / Kim Neal 1.5 0 Photo by Dave Frick Rally participants showing off their hard-earned awards After only a few turns, we both realized the instructions were really quite clear,but only when you came to the point you need to use them. Okay maybe it was the top down driving through a beautiful day, the flowers just starting to bloom, the amazingly clear instructions that had at first seemed so arcane and confusing, but this turned into a most amazing drive the the countryside. Only at one point did we have a problem, and that was in noticing the goats on top of some guy's house, we almost missed a turn in the route. Not sure if that was what the people that laid the course out intended, but it worked well. Other than that, it was quite a fun drive, following the instructions, looking at the scenery, looking for the answers to questions, watching for the signs we needed to keep track of, writing down all the cities we passed through and their populations, okay and did I mention watching the very pretty countryside? Oh yeah and Darron watched the road! We all found the ending point, filled out the sheets, turned them in and waited for the results. Seemed like a very long time, only to hear Teri Davis muttering to herself that she had never had this many all correct answers. 11