THE BATTALION
Wednesday, October 10, 1973
College Station, Texas
Page 3
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Rally Racers Cruise Up, Down, Around
By STEVE GOBLE
I knew we were lost when the
directions told us to drive straight
into a warehouse.
“We’re lost,” I said to Ellen.
There was no way we could
catch up in the rally after cruis
ing around Brenham for 30 min
utes, so all eight of us (four
teams) drove into a nearby Dairy
Queen to figure out where we had
g'one wrong.
“What kind of ice cream do you
have here,” I asked 1 the waitress.
Then we raced out into the
countryside to try to get back on
course.
Even in this day of gasoline
shortage, the popularity of driv
ing around on forgotten back
roads and getting totally lost is
increasing.
There’s even a bumper sticker
that says: “Discover America:
Get Lost on a Rally.”
If you see a bunch of tiny cars
bouncing down a back road some
afternoon, they’re probably on a
rally. Don’t ask them if they are,
though—part of the instructions
are to not let people know you’re
part of a rally.
No one would have suspected
us, anyway, as we were disguised
as a couple in a 1962 Buick Sky
lark.
The Texas A&M Sports Car
Club sponsors a rally about once
a month. Someone armed with a
bunch of county maps and a sa
distic sense of humor plots a wan
dering course of about 100 miles.
Each rally team gets a vague list
of instructions which will sup
posedly guide them through the
course.
To make things more compli
cated, teams are expected to aver
age certain speeds over certain
parts of the course. It counts off
if you’re too early or too late to
a checkpoint.
While the navigator is trying
to keep the team on course and
on time, he’s also supposed to be
watching for landmarks listed on
a sheet of questions. I still don’t
know how many yellow cylindri
cal things there are at the Brazos
Power Station, either.
Despite all this, Bill Williams,
president of TAMSCC, claims ral
ly attendance has picked up since
the rallies began two years ago—
up from 12 teams to 20 teams (40
people) enter the average rally.
The rally started off (about 1
p.m. on a Saturday) with a bad
omen—we missed the first ques
tion.
“Circle around,” I said to Ellen
Williams, my driver. “We’ll catch
up later.”
So we drove past the Sabre Inn
twice more without seeing whose
package store was there. Driving
out of town (now horribly late)
Ellen noticed a sign which said
it was Jay’s.
I crossed my fingers and did a
quick calculation. “If you go 120
miles per hour for the next four
minutes, we’ll be right on time.”
“Right.”
About 20 miles into the rally
course we were supposed to find
P. Zaragoze’s mailbox. This would
allow us to correct any errors in
our odometer.
Just to be sure we saw it, we
started looking about 18 miles
into the course. Unfortunately,
we had blown right past it about
two miles earlier. The rally-mas
ter set the course up in a car with
an odometer that was 20 per cent
off.
After 20 minutes more of furi
ous driving, I announced we had
picked up some time. Instead of
being four minutes late, we were
only 3 minutes late.
“Drive 103 for a while,” I sug
gested.
As it turned out, we were three
minutes early to the first check
point, at Washington-on-the-Bra-
zos, and picked up 600 points in
penalties.
We left the park and promptly
got lost.
We doubled back and got lost
again.
We doubled back and found a
landmark, congratulated ourselves
and rolled off down a narrow dirt
path.
Finally getting to a real road
again, we tried to make up lost
time, zoomed past our turn and
ended up in Brenham.
All this getting lost was quite
embarrassing since, as navigator,
I was supposed to keep that sort
:
of thing from happening.
Rally-master Cindy Wilke glee
fully explained later I had ignored
the main road rule, which reads:
“In the absence of an instruction,
follow the road you are on.” That
would be simple enough, except
that sometimes, to follow the road
you are on, you have to turn off
the road you are on.
To the unpracticed eye, the road
will appear to run straight on,
with another road butting into it
at 90 degrees. To a veteran rally-
ist (which I am not), the road
takes a right-angle turn. You
have to follow road numbers, not
common sense.
Incidentally, the rules also say:
“Common sense will help you stay
on course.” (Ha)
We found our missed turn and
drove on. By this time we had
given up all hope of calculating
time or distance. We just wanted
to complete the rally.
After studying the remaining
directions and a map, I concluded
the rally would end back in Bren
ham.
As we drove on, I saw that we
would finish in Somerville instead.
We finally stopped at a filling
station and asked directions, find
ing out that we needed to be in
Hempstead, 30 miles in the other
direction. Lost again.
In Hempstead, we asked an old
black woman, “Do you know
where Addie Gee Road is ? ”
“Addie Gee? She died a year
ago.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
We eventually found a land
mark, Groce’s Ferry, and Addie
Gee Road. We were elated until
we discovered we were going
down the course backwards.
We never did finish the course
(which ended near Sealy). As we
neared the final checkpoint, we
met Cindy, the rally-master, leav
ing.
Only three teams finished the
rally (the main road rule shot
lots of people down) and we won
fourth as the only team that al
most finished.
The winners had about 1,000
points. We managed 3,600.
We also got to see a lot of
Washington-on-the-Brazos.
I’m looking forward to the Hal
loween Rally—it’s going to be at
night. Shudder.
Intramurals
TENNIS
Class B: SqlO racked Sql5; F2
racked K2; E2 racked LI; Sq4
racked Sq5; B1 racked Sql; Class
C: Law racked White; Crocker
racked Milner; Puryear racked
Utay; Dunn racked Moore.
HANDBALL
Class A: Sq3 gloved Nl; Sq8
gloved lq2; E2 gloved 12&Sql4.
Scores from Oct. 2
FOOTBALL
Class B: W-Band beat Sq8 on
pen.; Nl beat Sql, 8-6; A1 beat
C2, 19-12; Cl beat Sql2; SqlO
beat II; Class C: Schumacher
beat Walton, 6-2; Legett beat
Puryear, on pen.; Class X: Saints
beat White A.C.; Vet-3 beat Phi
Sigma Beta, 8-0.
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