The numbers: 27 cars entered the rally, 22 finished. The total miles were 64.0 with a total time of 2 hours and 33 minutes. There were 52 on-course signs. One sign was not seen by anyone, so we did not include it in the calculations, it was camouflaged among florescent orange construction signs. There were 4 off-course signs and an off-course check point which was scored as an off course sign. Most number of signs seen by any one car was 48. Finish times were tightly clustered.
The rally took cars through a variety of roads and communities in upper Westchester and lower Putman County. It was originally intended to be the Tombstone Run as you passed nearly a dozen cemeteries over the rally course. When we started running it a night, it was nearly impossible to see the cemeteries so we eliminated the references. There was also a magnificent fountain at the base of a dam, a few people told me that they heard it, but, again it was not visible at night.
We wanted a relatively easy rally after the last few. This being a Halloween Rally, there were some tricks. Right at Lawrence and WEST got more than a few people. The signage changed with a new community but was visible. Most of you are now accustomed to the "no thru traffic" signs, but we had a few people question 'no thru trucks'. Well…. You're not a truck.
A couple people did not know how to interpret 'Left before overpass' even though we discussed things without quotes with each car. Since there was only one possible left in view of the overpass this was not intended as a trick.
There were a few complaints about the curve left arrow. There were 3 arrows in close proximity - a 90deg. left arrow, a curve left arrow and then up the road a 45 deg bear left arrow. Yes this was supposed to be a bit tricky. I had several navigators tell me that they were overruled by their driver who turned at the 90 deg. arrow rather than looking a bit farther for a curved arrow. We also had a 10 year old navigator who astutely looked at the 90 deg arrow and said "that's not the right one" (note: Shayne and her driver Stacy won the ladies award - congratulation and we hope to see you at more rallies).
We decided early on to assign an off-course sign penalty rather than a full off course check point penalty to those that made the right after the 90deg arrow. After calculating the scoring with the off-course sign penalty and without any penalty, there was no reordering of the top 3 places, ladies or husband/wife trophy's.
Pat Slaven & David Trezza