The Sports Car Club of America is the premier grass roots motor sports organization in the world.  Events like the Kansas Rally Weekend can not occur without a significant volunteer effort on the part of many people.  I mentioned these folks after the events, but a “Thank You” bears repeating to:

Adam Miller and Derrick Carpenter for serving as safety stewards for the

Events and working checkpoints;

Albert Weaver for working checkpoints, helping with registration;

Bruce and Charlene Bettinger for running the start of the event in an orderly manner;

                        Dan McConnell for another great job in pre-event promotion;

                        KCR SCCA and the Heartland Miata Club for a great turnout;

                        National SCCA competitors Carl and Kate Westberg for travelling from    

Minnesota, Ron Ferris from St. Louis and SCCA national points keeper Bruce Gezon, who made the trip from Murraysville, Pennsylvania;

Digo Rajbhandari who, after being told he could not run Saturday’s rally

because he had no navigator, chose to stay and help run checkpoints and

took some really great photographs.  Check out the KC Region SCCA

Facebook site to see his work.

The Road to Lexington Rally

A total of 24 rally teams started Saturday’s event, the Road to Lexington Rally in Oak Grove, Missouri.  The rally route used all paved roads featured all new rally roads.  Following an odometer check to Wellington, the route went through Lexington before turning north.  The route then went northwest to Lawson for a mid-rally break before running east and south back to Lexington, past the Lafayette County Courthouse (complete with cannonball imbedded in the column from the 1861 Civil War battle), where the rallyists and workers gathered for meal and drink at Riley’s Pub in Lexington where Dorothy was kind enough to close for our event (as we pretty much filled the place!).

There were a few problems with the event:  The target times I put together were just flat wrong as I read the wrong line from my spreadsheet.  There was a technical error on the very first instruction at the end of the odometer check that affected one car whose score was adjusted according to their (correct) interpretation of the rules.  Checkpoint 4 was supposed to be at the same location as Checkpoint 1, but the wind blew away the “Impassible during high water” sign between the time the first crew left and the second crew arrived.  (It was about 20 feet beyond the curve arrow sign in the lead photograph).  Albert and Digo recovered nicely and set up a new checkpoint location and I measured the extra mileage and scored the leg according to the new perfect time before I arrived at Riley’s.

Saturday’s Winners

Congratulations to Clarence and Kate Westburg (green Mini), Land-of-Lakes SCCA members who won first overall and first Equipped class.

Congratulations to Ron Ferris, St Louis Region SCCA, and Bruce Gezon, Steel Cities Region SCCA,  for winning the Limited class.

Congratulations to Lori Goetsch / Martin Courtois (red Mini), Kansas SCCA members from Manhattan, Kansas for posting the best overall score in the Sportsman category.  (Shameless plug:  Marty uses rally software on his handheld device to perform the time-speed-distance calculations.  See www.richtarally.com for more details).

Congratulations to Georgia and Frank Finks (black Miata), for winning both the Stock and Novice classes.  Second and third place in both classes went to Scott and Chris Peterson (Honda Accord) and Alicia and Johnny Bunton, respectively.  All are members of the Kansas City Region of the SCCA.

Road to Lexington Scores

East to Easton Rally

On Sunday 16 rally teams returned for the East to Easton Rally.  This event featured some of the better paved roads in Douglas, Jefferson and Leavenworth Counties. 

Following a start at the Grant Township Community Center, the odometer check went south then west to the Coon Point campground on the Oregon Trail. The route went north to Perry for checkpoint 1, north to the Battle of Hickory Point historic site for checkpoint 2, before heading east to Easton, Kansas and back west for a rest break in McLouth.  The route then headed south to checkpoint 3 at the Leavenworth County Fishing Lake where rumor has it one team made an early u turn so they could drive the twisty section again.  The last leg went south to checkpoint 4 on Stillwell Road followed by a short transit to the original Johnny’s Tavern location in Lawrence on the Kansas River.

Sunday’s Winners

Congratulations to Clarence and Kate Westburg (green Mini), Land-of-Lakes SCCA members who won first overall and first Equipped class.

Congratulations to Ron Ferris, St Louis Region SCCA,  and Bruce Gezon, Steel Cities Region SCCA,  for winning the Limited class.

Congratulations to Cheryl and Randy Gregg (white Explorer), Kansas SCCA members from Topeka, Kansas for winning the Stock class.

Second place in Stock class (and best score by a daughter of the Rallymaster) went to newlyweds Devon and Jon Shipman (blue Civic).

Third place in Stock class, first in Novice class and rallymaster’s choice for prettiest car (silver Porche) went to James and Jessica Graven.

Second place in Novice class went to the Mini Chix:  Johnna Perry and Sheila Butler (re Mini).

Third place in Novice class went to KC SCCA members Michael and Megan Schulte (white Honda CR-Z).

Thorns and Roses

It’s a tradition in the Boy Scouts following an adventure to review the areas that have gone well (roses) as well as some items that could be improved for the future.  Here is my list for the 2011 Rally Weekend.

Roses:

1. The turnout.  24 Saturday and 16 cars Sunday is he largest field for a Road Rally Weekend since we’ve started these events in 2008.  There is a logistical limit somewhere in the range of 30 and we almost found it again Saturday.  Dan McConnell did another excellent job on getting the word out about this event.
2. The Kansas City SCCA turnout.  For a club whose interest is primarily autocross and club racing, it was gratifying to see 12 cars turnout from the KC Region.
3. The Miata Club.  I think that if rallying is going to grow in this area, its participation is going to come from the participation of clubs like the Heartland Miata Club, whose members are looking for some fun roads on which to drive their cars, with some sporting competition and post-event socializing thrown in for good measure.
4. The start.  Thanks to Charlene and Bruce Bettinger from the Wichita Region SCCA for stepping in at the last moment to send the cars off from the start in an orderly manner.  It would have been chaos without the help from them.
5. Speed of scoring:  I scored the event during down time between checkpoints and had the results announced within 15 minutes of my arrival at the restaurants.

Thorns:

1. Registration could have gone more smoothly.  Next year I plan to use motorsportsreg.com and ask competitors to pre-register.
2. Checkpoint procedure.  Next year I plan to experiment with a process that will not require the cars to stop after each checkpoint.

Thanks to all the competitors who came out.  I hope to see you at another event in 2012.  I am thinking about having the next rally in the Spring, perhaps late March.

~Rich Bireta