Goblins, Ghouls, Vampires, and other assorted nocturnal beasts? No, I’m talking about rally cars at Heart of Darkness (HoD)! Okay I suppose there could have been some nocturnal beasts inside the rally cars, I didnt vet all the cars personally for fear of my life. First in class (unlimited) and second overall, one second behind the Damms (first in historic).
Mountains To The Sea (MTTS) is a long running touring rally, offered by the Cascade Sports Car Club in Portland. It is the middle offering in the ‘Triple Threat Weekend’, a multiple-event contest with a Friday night trap rally, MTTS on Saturday, and a rallycross on Sunday.
Saturday we were up bright and early. MTTS starts in South Portland, and heads out to the Pacific Ocean. We we ran it two years ago as novices, and won our class. MTTS 2006 was our first day-long rally, and played a large part in getting us interested in TSDs. This year, we ran in the Unlimited class – our first time with the box in this club. Although we’ve benefited from some great mentoring, and some good luck with the box on other rallies, we pretty much dorked this rally right from the start.
Cascades rallies generally use stop control style checkpoints, rather than passage controls. But this year, MTTS followed a more SCCA-style of touring rally, using passage controls and CZTs. The supplemental instructions outlined the procedure. Novices Clawson and Hallquist won their class with 304.
We’ll make great Friday night rallymasters.
ORCA hosted the fifth running of the touring rally Sno-Git last Saturday. As you might guess from the name, it started at Marysville, in Snohomish County, and wound its way up through Warm Beach, Lakewood, Sylvania, Stanwood, Bryant, La Conner, Mount Vernon, and Oak Harbor before winding up in Anacortes, at the tip of Skagit County. Good thing I registered us in March.
We counted zeroes: 5 for us, 5 for them. Counted ones: we had one more. However, the last 2 passage control scores had not been posted. We waited anxiously. The last two controls came in — and we still matched scores with car 11 exactly. Now our scores were 26.
Last year, we borrowed a ’74 Triumph TR6 to run the CGMGA Classic Car Rally. Only sports-y cars made earlier than 1981 can enter. Our own vintage car was in the midst of a 15 month restoration project last year — but now the exterior work is finished. 
Although the interior still has much to be done, the car is ready to rally, or so we thought. Last weekend we drove it to Olympia for a family birthday party, just to put some miles on it. The problem: either the nitrophyl float was saturated and sinking, or the float level was too high. Even after we replaced the float, gas still poured from the sight hole while the motor idled. We cranked the wet float setting WAAAYYYY down past the dry setting. The excess fuel seems to be under control… our fingers are crossed that’s the only mechanical issue we’ll see. 
pssst! see the ‘D’ sticker? Update: The car ran well during the rally, good enough for 3rd place overall. The gas problem seems to be fixed.
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.
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