TeamD Adventures

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. It was free of traps, mostly free of traffic, and full of sweet roads and magnificent scenery.

Seventeen teams made the start this year, and our early e-mail registration had earned us the #1 slot. But a mix-up of some kind delayed the registrar’s arrival on site, and as a result the route books weren’t distributed until the driver’s meeting was underway. We’re not comfortable running without some pre-calculated time checks, so having some time with the route book before the start is non- negotiable. Still, deadlines are deadlines — and we left on the odo transit just about on our minute, with the navigator still furiously calculating and swearing under her breath. RRRIIIPP! went the transit instructions from the route book, and my driver tasked to run the transit without my help. He uttered an occasional, “Oh, I know this area; we’re turning on Firetrail Rd.” to reassure me.

Still, I was barely able to calculate the section times before the beginning of the first regularity, Section #2. Even with the absence of traps, the TSD sections seemed more technical than last year. Nearly every instruction had a CAST, sometimes with a very small increment; and there were far more turns and pauses than in Sno-Git IV. Last year’s rally saw a three-way tie for First Overall, and I suspect the rally master was cranking up the difficulty a notch to get some spread in the scores. All the navigators must have been busy in this one. Nevertheless, Section #2 went well with no mistakes, slow cars or surprises. The threat of “not enough time for calcs” turned out ok.

The next regularity, Section #4, didn’t go so well. Oh, we managed to miss the bulk of the riders in the cycling event in the Stilliguamish flats, and never saw the freight train that stopped other teams — but it was our turn for mishaps. We missed the last DIYC sign, located ½ mile before the end of the section, and didn’t realize it until we reached that end. We could have guessed at the DIYC time, but we’d not passed any controls in that last half mile, so we spun about and buzzed back to the previous turn, passing car #2… #3… and #4. We wheeled about at the turn again, frantically adjusted the computer, and tore off in the right direction again. If you’re wondering, “Yes, there was a major moment of tension in the car.” But we found the sign, and cut a TA, and it all turned out ok.

The subsequent transit was short, and the time allotted for it was tight even without our delay. We arrived at the out cone for Section #6 more than two minutes past our out time. We pulled in front of car 4 and left ½ minute before they would. I quickly recalculated all the reference times for the upcoming section. We were slightly rattled, but it seemed things were back to normal. Then, at the last turn instruction in the regularity, I CAST at the turn, then activated LAST CAST + ADJUST ORM to correct the mileage. For some unexplained reason, while still holding LAST CAST, I then hit TRUNCATE. This invoked an undocumented feature (bug?) of the box. It advanced the last CAST point to the point where TRUNCATE was depressed. At least that’s what I think happened now. At the time I thought: NOOOOOO!

My driver said excitedly, “Something is wrong. I’m now 20 hundredths down”.

“Just drive the ..expletive deleted… CAST until I…CHECKPOINT!” There was marked quietness in the car. “Well, we’re out of the running. Let’s just try for some zeros the rest of the day.”

At the break, the rally master collected our DIYC and TA sheets. He said was accepting all time allowances because of the bikes and trains on the course, so we didn’t have to try to justify our “missed sign” TA. Hey, a small break! And more: Car #2 reported that, since they’d run as lead car for section 6, they were first to encounter a group of people and dogs and children and puppies and leashes and big wheels… god knows what else… spread fully athwart the road and stunned into immobility by the arrival of one of those new-fashioned motor carriages! The rural folks had stopped Car #2 very near the spot where we had the TRUNCATE problem a few minutes later. Car #2 was down 10 seconds once they got past the congregation, and CHECKPOINT! We realized that, had we been in the lead car, we’d have been the motor carriage that amazed the road blockers. So my bobble was not as bad as it could have been (4L in the end), had we been in the car #1 slot. It all turned out ok.

After the break, the route went up the slough, down the Skagit river, and across the fields to La Conner. After more curves and lovely views, we traveled over the Deception Point bridges to Whidbey Island for the last handful of regularities. The rest of the rally was uneventful. The final transit brought us to Anacortes and the pizza parlor, to wait for scoring. We knew we were out of the running, but we wanted to stick around and see how our friends did. ORCA’s tech folks did a spiffy job of getting the provisional scores up on a projector for easy viewing.

Our score was 918, but our TA had not been applied. The low score was 22, held by the Mannistos in car #11. Once our TA went in, our score dropped unbelievably to 22 as well.

OH, YES! Hey, we’re tied for first with car #11! OH, NO! A tie breaker, just like last year: highest number of 0s, 1s, 2s, etc. then earliest entry. Hee-Hee. 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. There was a final call for inquiries….

Oh wait, a TA is missing for car #17.

Once the TA was applied, Car #17′s score dropped to 23. Smiling hugely, Ron Sorem and Max Vaysburg took first place, unlimited and overall (yeah!) with their new computer. We held onto second, benefitting from the tie-breaker. Steve Perret and Kathryn Hansen took first SOP, and Tom Daily and Mike Palidar took first Equipped. It all turned out ok.