On May 21st we participated in a Murder Mystery Rallye put on by the Brandywine Valley Chapter of the Austin Healey Sports and Touring Club. This was not a TSD rally, but a gimmick rally. The flyer said "run the rally, solve the murder" and that was the challenge that drew us across the state.
We'd left the day before, taking leisurely drive down to Delaware via Lancaster. Jenny was aiming for dinner at a place she'd been before, which unfortunately was closed for dinner until Tourist Season. We lucked out on a diner that had great food. Jenny chose it, based on the sign out front that said "Welcome Retreads." Esther needed the explanation that this referred to the over-age-55 biker's club and not the tires on the NoVa.
Despite Esther's map reading (in)ability, we eventually made it to our Motel. After we checked in we went off to find the start of the rally, which was at a Park-N-Ride. We found it quite easily and all was gliding along quite smoothly, even the NoVa.
The next morning we headed off for the noon registration. Surprise! Tons of construction at the intersection near the start point. They were paving the center of the intersection, with all traffic having to turn their respective rights, whether they wanted to go that way or not (we didn't). What a mess! Eventually we got where we needed to be.
We were, it turned out, one of 14 cars. There were, of course, Austin Healys, MGs, a clean white Rolls Royce, a Miata - even a new Subaru - and then us, in the NoVa.
The rallymaster, Carol Skinner, was delighted that we'd come out all the way for her rally, but everyone else decided we were nuts. The only people who'd come out further was two friends of the club president. They'd come out from Ohio, but they flew.
After receiving our instructions (which came with a sealed envelope with a map in it, breaking of the seal meant you couldn't win), Esther asked questions of Carol: "Does spelling count? Does spacing count? Could you clarify your definition of 'jog'?" Carol answered all questions gamely, but looked at her oddly and said, "You've done this before, haven't you?" It seems that TSD rallying in the Delaware Valley is all but gone; there are maybe 2-3 rallys a year and few of them are ever TSDs.
The rally had you driving round and obtaining the names from signs or objects along the course. You were to take a particular letter from the name, along with a letter to be given out at each checkpoint, and then, at the very end, you were to be given 15 minutes to unscramble the letters. In the event of ties, mileage would be the tiebreaker. Your starting odometer reading was written down at the beginning; at the end, you could turn in any odometer reading you wished.
Our misunderstanding of how 'instruction' was defined caused us to make a wrong turn and come back through a checkpoint backwards, which got us a RED slip to tell us what we did wrong and get us back on course. Unfortunately, the instruction number mentioned in the leg slip didn't jive with the instructions themselves, so we spent about 10 minutes in a good fight trying to figure out what to do. Then we got lost. We got very, very lost. We were trying to find our way back to the last checkpoint.
Eventually we got back on track and made it to the end, a nice tavern in a cute little town we probably couldn't find again without running the rally. It had seating on the roof, where our group was, some leaning over the railing chanting "Pittsburgh! Pittsburgh!"
When they gave out awards, they went all out. There was a prize given to the team who'd gone the most miles -- rubber rings with "Rally 'Til It Hurts" on them. We received the prize for those who'd come the farthest for the rally, much to the chagrin of the folks from Ohio, who flew out, so it didn't count as much. The prize was a bottle of car wax (for the NoVa??!?!?) but Jenny talked them into trading for a bottle of carb cleaner. Other prizes varied from mugs to cans of WD-40.
One of the rally workers -- each checkpoint had it's own team! -- declared that at next years rally there would be a competition just for checkpoints. Apparently many were jealous of the folks who'd set up beach chairs, a big umbrella and a wading pool.
All in all it was a fun, but exhausting excursion. We tied for third. After the traditional post-rally festivities, which seem the same from place to place (but Esther had to introduce them to the concept of "The Noose", which all but the rallymaster liked), we drove back to Pittsburgh. The next day, Jenny had to be flying off for business, and Esther participated in the regular BRMSCC rally.
Esther Filderman/Jenny Ladd May 1994