RASC - Wishbone Alley Gazette November 2002

Rainier Auto Sports Club

The Wishbone Alley Gazette

November, 2002

Late Braking news ( I always spell it that way) : The demise of the Factoria Billy McHale's forces a change of meeting venue. Café Velocé at TotemLake will host the October meeting.

Rally News

* Friday Niter by RASC- The weather held for a pleasant little rally. RM Eric Horst tried something new- a logic diagram page of Route Instructions. Those who treated it as a series of OR instructions weren't overly challenged. The rest were intimidated, fearful, and generally cranky.

A transit end/ start was more or less blocked by some cops discussing their 401K's… or maybe bad guys. Whether this was the only thing causing 12 cars to converge on the nearby CP at once is still being researched.

* Chuckanut presented their 21st Armegeddon rally on November 2. The Lingblooms laid out a wonderful course, then revisited a problem thay had in 1990 or so- the Finish restaurant wasn't going to stay open as long as the rally. Two hours were hacked out.

Claiming to try to make it more attractive to Oregon rallyists, the actual start was moved 30 minutes south to Mount Vernon. No one from Oregon showed up. No one from Canada seemed toi be in evidence, either. They got 25 cars, about right for a rally that featured the much dreaded "gravel".

The gravel was lovely stuff, the roads swoopy and entertaining. I only recall one unannounced hole in a road, and generally the pavement was just as rough in places.

Dedicated SOPer's that they are, the Lingblooms finished the 20-mile ODO check at the start of the next section, a gate that one may not pass until checking in with the gate guard. A better team would have cued their Odo before that, but I had Dave Folker in the right seat. This was about his 2nd TSD, and first time confronted by a rally computer. He was intimidated. It didn't help that a few of the minor training items got skipped on the trip north, such as how to change CASTs.

Gated and guarded roads present some wonderful opportunities; there was enough traffic that I suspect just about anybody can get in. We were trying to sync the odometer as the rally left the new roads. The never- overused roads on that range north of Hwy 530 and south of 20 were revisited.

Dave made a few mistakes, which I expected, although I should be able to recover from them and didn't. It didn't help thaty we were bracketed by noviced ahead and behind, who we caught and caught us, respectively, throughout the rally. The decision to pass the slowpokes ahead of us was delayed until we were 10 seconds down. There is some joy that Dave had managed the box correctly and we were exactly that late at the CP that timed us as we did the pass!

Besides the lack of a hard mileage within a mile of the Odo check, I got the impression that the layout was done in bright daylight. Some signs are hard to see in the dark. I sometimes wonder if this is done on purpose, just to add "spice" to the rally. As near as I can tell, the mioleages were OK.

When the scores were announced Pat Biggar and Geoff Case had an astounding 13 pts, followed by Steve Richards/Gary Reid at 36. Gary swears they scored more zero's than that, according to his Curta. A mere 1 point behind were the Sjodins.

Jim Hogan/Marvin Crippen were the only other RASC team, rewarded with the 2nd place trophy in Equipped class.

Club News

The election season is coming around, and RASC will hold it's own in November. The RASC method is to elect a Board, and officers are chosen from that group.

Nominations are made at the October meeting. If you wish to hold club office, please let the President know who will pass your name on to the Nominating Committee.

September meeting notes:

FOR SALE

* FOR SALE: 1993 GMC Vandura, 1-ton window van. This is a big one (12' from engine cover to rear doors), has 120k with a new trans at about 95K and new brakes this year. Great service van, well maintained, 350 V8, AT, 33-gallon tank. (Ex Seattle Times deliver van, Ex Alcan film van...)

Call Jerry (206-227-6343), it's a bargain at $2350.00!

* Single Axle car trailer

Contact Pete Shelton 206 783-5681 or email at paaz@peoplepc.com

* Wanted- Ring & Pinion for 2.6 Fire Arrow. , Mike Jones, 425-823-8329

NW Rallyists’ Calendar

• Call the NWRC Hotline (206) 256-9627 for latest info on Puget Sound TSD events.

. Start Alaska Ferry Terminal, exit 250 from I-5.