[williaty]

Summary: The Central Ohio Rally Club will have its first rally of the 2008 season on Saturday, April 26th. The rally covers 100 miles in Union, Logan, and Champaign counties in Ohio, running up and down off the Bellefontaine Outlier and into the Mad River Valley (former site of the SCCA Hillclimb championships). The start and finish are both in Marysville, Ohio. The rally is in TSD format with an emphasis on challenging driving and straight-forward navigation. This is an excellent first event for someone thinking about getting in to road rallying.

When: Saturday, April 26th, 2008. Registration 4pm, Driver's Meeting soon thereafter, FCOC right after that.

Cost: $20 per car (we don't care how many people per car). This goes to insuring you and printing your copy of the route book.

Where: Registration and the start are in Marysville, Ohio in the large empty parking lot behind Monroe Muffler on the south east corner of US-36 and Watkins Rd. The finish is approximately 2 blocks west on US-36 at the Applebees.

What: This is a TSD road rally. This means that you will be given a list of instructions about where to drive and how fast you should be traveling. Your job is to figure out how to apply the instructions to the road in front of you to arrive at the correct place at the correct time. The instructions range from the simple (turn right onto US-33) to the bizarre (turn left at cow). However, this is not a trick rally. The emphasis is on straight-forward navigation to give first time rallyers experience with many of the ideas used in TSD.

So what do I need? The minimum requirements are a road-registered car, a driver, a navigator, and a watch with seconds. A clipboard and a calculator will be very helpful! Because of this rally's focus on driving, a car with a low center of gravity and a performance suspension will be more fun to drive.

Wait, TSD, aren't those horribly slow and boring? Not this one! The speeds for the route are set to the maximum permissible by the rules with two exceptions. The average speed for gravel stretches has been lowered to protect people's paint and the average speed in one neighborhood with lots of kids was reduced. Otherwise, you're going to be going as fast as I can let you go! The course is full of blind 90 degree off camber turns, s-turns over significant elevation changes (think the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca), and tight hairpins. You'll have fun driving this one. Additionally, but the time you're driving the course, staying on speed, and trying to figure out the instructions, you'll have NO interest in going any faster!

So you mentioned gravel, are there any jumps? There are several places where becoming airborne is a certainty if you're traveling at full speed. Because of the sanctioning rules, the speed is reduced in these areas in the instructions. Let me repeat that you're going to be told exactly where you can get airborne if you don't slow down for safety reasons.

So you mentioned gravel, are there any chances for drifting? For safety reasons, the average speed on the gravel sections has been reduced to prevent accidents and to save people's paint. Remember that there are two ways to average a speed. You can maintain that speed exactly, or you can go as fast as the law allows to try to make up time (if you're behind) and then slow down later to get back on-time.

So is this going to be good driving or not? Well, I think so, and several members of Central Ohio Subarus have driven this route a number of times and have loved it. One was even inspired to give up street racing!






OK, so that's the promo. It should be obvious that I'm the Rallymaster for this rally. I tried to make it as interesting as possible for you guys to drive. Draco, Paktinat, BigNicklz, msingell, and Thorne have all been on this route and loved it. With all the sand still on the roads from winter, there's going to be some very exciting moments if you get lost and are trying to make up time as you get back on course.


If I can get enough interest from you all in this, two things will happen: 1) I'll hold a TSD 101 class for COS member to give you guys an advantage over the other people in the Novice class 2) I'll try to get a Subie vendor to kick in a prize for fastest subie.

[williaty]

First post amended with exact cost and start time.

I ran the course with some of the CORC top brass today. I was able to increase the speed in the twistiest bits but had to decrease it on the fastest straight line bits. Turns out that the straights on some of the roads are bumpy enough that if you have a higher center of gravity than a Subie, like this guy's Tacoma, it'll keep trying to go sticky-side-up at full speed.

[williaty]

UPDATE! Turn In Concepts has announced they'll be providing a little enticement in the form of a $100 credit at TiC to the winning Subaru in Novice, SoP, or Unequipped!


Thanks TiC!

[krisinchi05blacksti]

You may want to link to this in the Midwest forum. It looks really fun. Are the local authorities really allowing you to run the cars a little faster than the speed limit?

[williaty]

No, it's all legal speed limit-10%. However, I picked as many roads as possible where you wouldn't be able to maintain the legal speed limit if you had to. For instance, one section is 55mph, yet balls-to-the-wall in a fully built Impreza with sticky summer tires comes out to an average of about 35mph.

[williaty]

OK, I had promised a TSD 101 class if people were interested and it looks like I'll go ahead and do it. I'm going to combine it with this week's COS car meet.

We'll meet at the Alum Creek State Park Below Dam Area at:

5905 LEWIS CENTER ROAD
Lewis Center OH 43035-9215

There are grilling facilities, bathrooms, and a big parking lot. We'll go over some basic terms, the basic timing procedures, and how to get through your first TSD. Should be a good time for all.

If the weather actually turns rainy, the fallback location will be the Caribou Coffee at:
3080 Tremont Road
Upper Arlington, OH 43221

I will post here Friday sometime if it looks like we're going to have to use the rain venue. If you have any questions, you can call me at 614-286-3904. If I don't recognize the number, I likely won't answer, but if you leave a voicemail, I'll call right back.

[krisinchi05blacksti]

How many people typically participate?

[williaty]

Historically, it's not unusual to see up to 50 cars or so. Lately, that number has been down significantly to about 15-20. I'm trying to get that number built back up by getting the Subaru crowd interested. Roadrally is something a lot of Subie guys would like.

[krisinchi05blacksti]

[kessler89]

damn it!!!!!!!!!! cant believe i missed this, i live 20min from bellefontaine, SOAB... please tell me there will be another one in the area...

[williaty]

May's is in southern ohio, April's is back in central ohio (can't remember if it's Dublin or New Albany that month).

[williaty]

And the only pics I had time to get since I was rallymaster and working a checkpoint:

[krisinchi05blacksti]

Looks awsome!