We ended up 4th in the beginner class, out of 22. There were 44 cars there. It kind of sucks, because I had to stop to use the bathroom, and we ended up being 3 minutes late for the last two checkpoints. If I hadn't had to stop we probably would have won.
They start out and give you a little packet with a map and directions. They'll usually say where the standoff is, what road the checkpoint might be on, what direction you should be going when you get to them, and some sort of a hint. You go to the standoff for each checkpoint first, and they sometimes will tell you or show you where the checkpoint is. The goal is to go through the checkpoints at the right time in the right order. If you roll across the hose on the right second, you get a 0 for that stage, for every 1/100th of a minute off you get a point. Points are bad.
The lowest number of points anyone had was 3. not bad. We zeroed two checkpoints and got 2 points on another, were a minute early for the first because we didn't really know what was going on. Then the last two screwed us over.
This rally lasted 3 hours, about. The next one is 6 hours, and later in the year they'll take up a whole weekend or something.
Here are some pics:
My navigator had a rough night and had to take a nap before the start. He threw up on the side of the road on the way to orientation.
My sweet tripod setup. We forgot to start it recording for the first part, and then the auto focus went crazy and it was crooked for what we did record. I tried some manual focus adjustment on the way back and it looked better. Next time I'll try to put up a video clip or something.
There were tons of Subies there. Here are a few lined up. The focus and lancer behind them were in the rally, too:
EVO and M roadster at the start, through the mirror.
Someone getting ready to start
The view was nice before it got dark
blurry shot on the road
Our route map:
The route is worked out so you should be driving the speed limit the whole way, and I still found myself hauling ass through some twisties. Although, I was 7 minutes early for the first checkpoint and had to creep for a long way and pulled off the side to talk to some other people who knew they were close. I was car 21 and the guy I talked to was 15. I don't know how I got ahead of 6 cars. I didn't pass any. Also took a wrong turn because I followed car 20 for awhile before my nav realized they were going the wrong way. Still managed to get to the standoff and the next checkpoint on time.
There are more pictures here that Rapid_Roo from nasioc put up.
This is the results page. The 100 points we got for CC2 is a mistake.