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Important: Due to SCCA insurance regulations, minors (age 17 or under) will not be allowed to participate (this includes just being along for the ride) in any event unless a current SCCA minor release form signed by both parents (or guardians) and witnessed by an SCCA member or Notary Public is presented at registration. The proper form (make 2 color copies) may be downloaded at: http://www.scca.org/_Filelibrary/File/minorreleaseform2.pdf
This kind of time and distance competition got the SCCA going more than 50 years ago. It's still going strong and easy to see why. All you need are the family wheels (be it sports car or pickup), and navigator and the urge to beat the clock. Rallies are run on public roads, and there are classes for everyone from beginners to mad-hatter experts. SCCA Road RallyQuestion/Answers about Rally, and the Road Dog specifics: > Is there any equipment or information my co-driver or I will need before doing this? We've never done it before. With a very few exceptions, almost everyone there will be new to rallies. That's why the Road Dog is deliberately written to be easy to understand, easy to follow. Of course some parts of it will be challenging - both for the Navigator and for the Driver - because we need to keep it interesting for everyone. This is a good event to break the ice with. Later on there will be rallies that are more serious but this one will get you started. Feel free to make as many mistakes as you like; you'll have plenty of company! As for equipment, most people won't bring any equipment but will instead try to reach the checkpoints at the exact time strictly by gut feeling. That's completely okay and we're glad to have them aboard. Others will want to get more serious about it and we're delighted to have them aboard too. Here are some tips: Each section of each road has its own measured distance and required average speed. The term for the average speed for a particular section is the "cast". Therefore if an instruction says "Speed Limit 45, Cast 42" then this means that you are to look for a sign that says "Speed Limit 45". The sign marks the starting point of a new speed cast. The cast is 42 so that means that your team must average exactly 42 miles per hour for all the upcoming instructions until there is a new cast. If all of the instructions from one cast to the next add up to 24.23 miles and the cast was 42 then you should arrive at the end of that section precisely in .576 hours, or 34.560 minutes. Part of the Navigator's job is to keep track of each distance and to constantly calculate what speed is needed to either catch up to the "perfect time" or to slow down so as to not arrive too soon. The goal is to arrive precisely on time so if the Navigator says to kill 2 minutes then the driver should pull over and stop for exactly two minutes. Likewise if your team is running late then the driver would have to speed up to catch up with the "perfect time". Great caution should be used as speeding is against the rules and may cause you to be disqualified. Hint: most seat-of-the-pants teams go too fast and arrive waaay too soon at the end. It's hard to keep the speed down to what is specified. There are penalties for both arriving too early and arriving too late at the finish. Thus if you arrive at Checkpoint #2 one minute 12 seconds too early then the Navigator should have the driver slow down in the next section so as to arrive at Checkpoint #3 exactly on time overall. Caution: Your driver's license will be sealed in an envelope and handed back to you at registration. If at the end of the event your envelope has been opened for any reason (typically because the nice officer wanted to see your driver's license) then your team will be disqualified. Keep things safe: don't speed. You can enter with nothing but your educated gut feeling about average speed and you will do just fine. In more serious rallies that would be the Stock class. The next step up is a clipboard, pen, calculator and other manual aids and that would be the Limited class. Finally there is the Equipped class where all sorts of high tech, computerized equipment is allowed. In major rallies it would not be uncommon for top Equipped entrants to finish a two-day rally within tenths of a second to each other. For the Road Dog Rally there will be only two classes: "Equipped" and "Everyone else". > My speedometer is off (I have a Miata, they tend to do that). Does
that kind of kill my chances of doing well?
Other things to know:
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Rally