TeamD Adventures

We ran the CGMGA Spring Warmup rally yesterday. It was written by a local rallymaster, Reid Trummel, who always delivers a well thought out rally. SOP only, calculators and rally sheets but no auxiliary ODOs or computers. There were 5 traps. We’d seen 4 of them before. And we still fell for 3/5 of them. Trap #1 – The old reliable ONTO Yes, the road REID just outside LaCenter, WA required a sharp left turn to stay ONTO. It was just after a curve, tucked neatly behind a little hill, right next to a dead end road. Well camouflaged, but we saw it. The car one minute ahead of us didn’t. Well – they were supposed to be one minute ahead of us. But they started a minute late at the beginning of the leg, so we were trying to occupy the same space ’til their miss led them away from us. Trap #2 – the ‘watch for deer next x.x miles’ trap 22. L at NE Lewisville Hwy; Search for DB Cooper next 1.6 miles; L at second “McBride” 23. Wait 1 minute 42 seconds at “Impaired Site Distance” ITIS 24. L at NE Lewisville Hwy McBride is a loop. The 1st 2 signs for McBride came up before the 1.6 miles were completed in instruction #22. Off course cars turned early and saw the impaired site distance sign and waited while on course cars did not. Score: We’d have gotten a 2 on that leg. But we took 28 points instead. Trap #5: Spelling Swedish Names For Fun And Points 19 R @ SRIP “NE LANDERHOLN” ITIS. <——You think there might be a trap here? The sign doesn’t say Landerholn, it says Landerholm. Navigator called it wrong the first time around, and the driver “confirmed” it was spelled right the second time by. BZZZT! Two rongs don’t make a wright. Maxed that leg: 300 points. Total score: 368, good enough for 4th place, but out of trophy range. 3rd place score was 329, 1st was 110. Another rally by Reid is coming up June 21st — strongly recommended.

During T-bird, we ran our own Timewise 798A rally computer for the first time. We noticed a few oddities. #1. Fortunately I had written the factor down. So I reentered it. Fixed the distance. I started checking the factor regularly. Marinus is going to look at the wiring changes since the firewall hole fix to see if that contributed to the problem. Each time the wackiness seemed to happen right after the car’s engine was started.

On the first regularity of Day 2, Thunderbird, a strange thing happened. Still can’t explain it. We waited our out time, 21 minutes after car 0. Take a look at this picture from Dennis; you can see us (the red car) just in front of the white car. At a stop in the transit, they complimented the way the iX performed in the snow.

We tried to get of photo or video of the GPS showing our location on the Arctic ocean but had no luck. who brought the big Chevy pickup.

Such a big word, ‘counterintuitive’. I know this theoretically, I have much empirical evidence, and I’ve had training in the practice. But when the moment arrives, when the car’s loose and the navigator notices it, when the space between us and a snowbank is shrinking, all from too much speed…