at the start - click to enlarge

 
the photo clues - click to enlarge

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Check out the Special Instructions - Check out the route instructions
Here are the answers

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Mike Szorentini and Diane Pseja at a Checkpoint with a "Treat"

The September Rallye was entitled Generally Speaking and General Stores was the theme. The Sunday morning was terrible in Wayne and I assume that was responsible for the poor turnout of only 9 cars. There were two first time teams. The Rallye included 12 pictures of General or Country Stores (two are shown in the pictures below). Six were located in the first half of the Rallye and six in the latter half. However, the one in Pottersville and the one in Taftville, VT were not on the Rallye route.

The cars started from the Burger King in Wayne and used the ride to Harter Road off Route 287 as the OD Calibration Leg. The traps started quickly. ETR 5 miles indicates there will be no clues or answers to questions for 5 miles. The next instruction was L on Childs Rd. at a SIG. In 4 miles the teams found Childs Rd., but that should not have been a valid clue. They should have continued another 1.2 miles and guess what - another Childs Rd. - the correct turn. Another trap was based on L FOPP after RR crossing. A  R X R sign is an illustration that should be considered an object. If you noticed it, you saved yourself about 150 points over those people who made the left after they crossed the tracks.

Now the General Stores started, Lamington, Oldwick, North Branch had additional instructions associated with them that affected the course and some self-correcting loops. In addition, if you followed the Route correctly you found Control 1 on Rockaway Rd. The route then took us to Old York Road in Readington. Some teams failed to notice that Old York turned and onto means you stay on that road. The route self-corrected but about 300 points separated the on and off-course routes as well as the location of the Readington store. The teams passed the Stanton and Stanton Station Stores and failure to notice the stores cost you mileage and a missed control (the Caddy in the pictures) near the Raritan River. Even the off-course had a chance to stay on-course by staying on Kiceniuk Rd. by name and avoiding an off-course control (see pictures).

The next trap was simple but a killer: Checkpoint at "STOP" at STOP, then L on Lilac Drive. The teams came to a stop at a T where the left arm was "NO OUTLET" and therefore not a STOP intersection. The correct STOP was 1/2 miles ahead. You may want to make a mental note of that.

Peter Schneider is arguably the most accomplished Rallyist in MCNJ. Some of us have been Rallying longer but Peter has had far more varied experience including TSDs, Stage Rallyes, as well as Fun Rallyes such as The August Rallye. Peter is a prolific Rallyemaster and is the founder of our Annual Charity Rallye; The Teddy Bear.

Twenty-five cars gathered at the Burger King in Wayne, NJ on one of the nicest days of the year. Peter had chosen a multi-format Rallye using Map, Stick-Map, Tulip and Clock Instructions. The OD Leg took the contestants out Route 80 to Allamuchy. After a CHECKPOINT at "YIELD", we were instructed to PU Route 517. However, PU means to go S as possible onto a new named or numbered road. Since you had to make a BR you could not execute the instruction there. You should have gone straight ahead and found an on-course control worth 200 points. Then the route took you to a passage control in Tranquility where the Rallyemaster could answer questions or explain difficulties. We began the special formats with Tulip Instructions. Tulips use pictorial representations of an intersection and Peter added extra clues to help. He also used delta mileages which although designed to help, made the unwary turn at the wrong place in a self correcting loop.

A map leg followed in which a short section of the route was highlighted on a blowup of an exxon map. Your task was to follow the route as shown through three small towns. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, the problem arises in the fact that these maps were originally drawn many years ago when the main road ran right through the center of these towns. In the intervening years, bypasses around the towns were constructed so that the main road no longer went through. In addition, all the roads are not shown on the ,map so that a sharp right on the map that shows no intersection might actually be a crossroad or a T where the other options are not shown. The way to navigate a map is to create a template from the mileage scale so that you can tell the mileage to each of the bends on the map. For example, the left off Route 519 that put you on a local road through Johnsonburg was shown as a just a bend to the left but using the mileage template it was easier to spot.

Clock turns simply give you a time. To translate that into a Rallye instruction, you draw the hands of a clock. You arrive at an intersection on the minute hand and leave on the hour hand. If the time was 4:30, that would translate to an AR. 4:05 would be a L. Peter made it a little easier by giving you predrawn circles on which you could draw the clock hands.

The final format was a stick-map. Picture an aeriel view of a rallye route with left and right turns. Imagine being able to grab both ends of the route and pulling it taught. The route would be a straight line with the roads not taken shown as offshoots. Take a look at the pdf file that explains it.  You'll need Adobe Acrobat® Reader.

If you like special formats, as I do, the Rallye was a lot of fun and challenging and most of the teams would agree - check the point scores. We had a lot of first timers and they did remarkably well. Congratulations. We hope to see you soon again.

Tom Marciniak came up with a novel idea for the July Rallye. Let the contestants write their own instructions. We'll not quite!

Twenty-one teams, including 5 first-timers started from the Burger King in Wayne. One difference is that Al Cohen and a photographer from the Record Newspaper were on the Rallye. The odometer correction leg brought the teams to Harter Rd. off Route 287. The first trap involved an Either/Or instruction but one of the choices was Old Hartar (sic) Rd. and that didn't exist. The second was a R at T but the first intersection was a Dead End on the left and consequently no instruction could be executed since it wasn't an intersection, rather it was a forced turn. An other notable trap was L at "STOP". As you approached a SIG (an intersection controlled by a tri-colored light), a "STOP" sign was quite visible so the instruction could be executed. If you didn't notice the "STOP" then you made a L at the next intersection (a STOP).

The cars came back to the Harter Road Checkpoint only to be told to drive the correct Rallye Route again, but this time to put down a sequence of other instructions that could have been used.

No one got all the lettered instructions correct but yet the scores were low and everyone got to the end.

Tom reviewed the traps and nine sets of trophies were awarded. Thanks to all the participants for a fun event.