Raindrop Rally is a leisurely paced touring TSD event with fine driving roads, minimum traffic and wonderful scenery. The rally is geared toward the novice entrant with no traps and mileages for every instruction but precise timekeeping will still be required to score well. This year's event is under 100 miles on all paved roads.
Date: Sunday, April 21, 2013.
Start Location: Dirtfish Rally School (7001 396th Drive SE Snoqualmie, WA). Directions from exit 27. Directions from exit 25 (goes by the Starbucks).
Finish Location: Bruno's Restaurant, Eatonville, WA. (http://www.eatbrunos.com/).
Rallymaster: Ed Rachner
This year's event was a slightly over 100 mile scenic tour of King and Pierce counties. The start was in Snoqualmie at the DirtFish Rally School facility. Aside from being inside out of the rain for Registration, the entrants were able to tour the rally car museum or sit at the electronic race consoles and play stage rally driver.
The odometer check took the event south over Tiger Mountain and toward a long lunch break in Enumclaw. After the lunch break the rally was intended to allow a quick stop at Mud Mountain Dam Park; however the Park had not yet opened on the weekends. After coming down off Mud Mountain the route meandered further south with the last TSD section featuring 4 closed checkpoints in an 8 mile stretch along Ohop Lake before finishing at Bruno's Restaurant in Eatonville. The scenery would have been more spectacular except for the on and off rain for which the rally is so aptly named.
The event was well received by the entrants. Twenty one checkpoints in just under 60 miles of TSD sections still managed to allow one unbreakable tie for third place in the unlimited class. All the novice entrants finished and the competitors seemed to enjoy the rally and food at Bruno's. One entrant remarked that the food at the restaurant "sure beats pizza!"
The Rallymaster thanks the club members for their overwhelming support: Marvin Crippen for mentoring a person un-accustomed to the NW nuance of rally, Steve Richards taking on the onerous task of directing workers out to their checkpoints, Eric Horst for running Registration, Steven Mats Mats for doing sweep and scoring at the finish, and Jim Breazeale for the unique trophies.Many members came out for the club checkout of the rally as well as manning checkpoints during the event. My thanks to all of them for their support in putting on this year's Raindrop.
| Car # | Competitors | Vehicle | Class | Total | O/A | Tie (overall) | by Class | Tie (by class) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Pat Biggar & Jack Heppes | Subaru WRX Wagon | Unlimited | 8 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 4 | Michael Daily & Steve Pfau | Ford Explorer | Unlimited | 10 | 2 | 2 | ||
| 2 | Curt Thompson & Lonna Thompson | Honda CRV | Unlimited | 14 | 3 | T | 3 | T |
| 7 | Kevin Poirier & Chris Hale | Mazda 3 | Unlimited | 14 | 3 | T | 3 | T |
| 1 | Steven Roberts & Greg Hightower | Mazda RX-8 | Unlimited | 16 | 5 | 5 | ||
| 10 | Sue Colisch & Bill Colisch | Nissan Altima Hybrid | Equipped | 44 | 6 | 1 | ||
| 6 | Donald D Gibson & Mike Workman | Subaru Forester | Unlimited | 79 | 7 | 6 | ||
| 11 | Debbie Sjodin & Ardis Dull | Ford Escape | Seat-Of-Pants | 88 | 8 | 1 | ||
| 5 | Dave Sacry & Kathy Sacry | Ford Mustang | Equipped | 114 | 9 | 2 | ||
| 12 | William Reus & Sherry Reus | Porsche 911 | Vintage | 125 | 10 | 1 | ||
| 15 | Steve Crawford & Buddy Phillips | Ford Mustang GT500 | Novice | 225 | 11 | 1 | ||
| 8 | John Neumann & Scott Bolin | Ford Mustang | Vintage | 329 | 12 | 2 | ||
| 16 | Mark Solberg & James Solberg | Mazda MX-5 | Novice | 457 | 13 | 2 | ||
| 9 | Roger Greene & Quincy Greene | Subaru Outback | Seat-Of-Pants | 588 | 14 | 2 | ||
| 19 | Marvin Weaver & Robert Koback | Chevrolet Camaro | Seat-Of-Pants | 679 | 15 | 3 | ||
| 17 | Michael Hammond & ? | Audi TT Roadster | Novice | 746 | 16 | 3 | ||
| 20 | Justin Kwong & Denver Niles | Saab 900 | Vintage | 807 | 17 | 3 | ||
| 14 | Kelda Senyohl & Robert Finley Laitman | Toyota Matrix | Novice | 873 | 18 | 4 | ||
| 18 | Richard Ranhofer & Delores Ranhofer | Porsche Cayenne | Novice | 1465 | 19 | 5 |