Looking for a pleasant yet adventurous way to get away on a Sunday afternoon?
Be a road rallyist!
What Is A Road Rally?
- A Road Rally is not a race.
- A Road Rally is not illegal.
- A Road Rally does not require special equipment.
- A Road Rally is an amateur event.
- A Road Rally encourages novices to participate.
- A Road Rally is a lot of fun.
In a Road Rally, each team of two people--a driver and a navigator--is given a
set of route directions to follow, and the speeds at which they should travel
the route. The route will generally consist of rural and quieter back roads.
At the very least, you'll have a nice drive in the country!
The goal of a Road Rally is to travel the correct route at the correct speeds,
and arrive at ``checkpoints'' precisely on time. You are scored on how closely
to the correct time you arrive. A Road Rally is not a race, and no rally will
ever require you to drive in a reckless or illegal fashion. Arriving too early
at a checkpoint hurts your score, as does arriving too late.
Novices are especially encouraged to participate in Road Rallies. Novices
compete within a special Novice Class, and not with the more experienced
rallyists.
To participate in a Road Rally, you'll need to know the rules for understanding
the route instructions. For example, the course-following instruction
Turn right 1.00 miles beyond ``Dairy Queen''
is perfectly straightforward, but you won't know where to execute the
instruction
Left
unless you are familiar with the course-following rules. But don't worry.
If you fail to stay on course, you're still okay since Road Rallies are
failsafed (meaning that the rallymaster anticipates your mistakes and plans
for them) and you will soon be placed back on the correct route--often without
your knowing you were ever off-course!
Fortunately, learning how to drive and navigate a Road Rally is simple and fun.
Here are some files that will help you learn.
- A tutorial on road rallying.
- A ``rally diary'' chronicling the
adventures of Bob Glickstein [former CMU student & staph member] and
his partner in the March, 1989 ``Night Owl'' rally.
- A sample, do-it-at-home ``Armchair Rally''
- Information about the Blue Ridge Mountain
Sports Car Club, a TSD rally club local to the Pittsburgh,
Pa. area.
- The BRMSCC schedule.
- Articles written for the BRMSCC newsletter, "The Checkpoint," on
Working a Rally, How
(Not?) to Write A Rally, and a road trip to a rally in Delaware.
- The BRMSCC helps put on the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix
Kick-off Rallye, the first event of each Vintage Week.
- Pittsburgh is home to the
Steel Cities chapter of the Sports
Car Club of America.
- Information and the archive of the
Rally-L, the mailing list for Rally enthusiasts.
- Checkpoint is a board game
of rallying that offers an online rally with a big $$$ prize. Their
example rally puzzles
are not for the novice!
- Rally Central, Clint
Goss's rally resource pages.
To Esther's Home Page.
What is Road Rallying?/moose+@cmu.edu
Originally from documents created by Bob Glickstein and Barb and Rick Lerner.