surprising_skoda
RMS Regular
Firstly, here's a little background. I'm a member of the Ulster Vintage Car Club (UVCC). It's a competitive club for people to muck about with pre-war sports cars. I used to compete at most of the events but a lack of working car and increase in the demands of work have kept me from "playing" much over the last couple of years.
About three and a half years ago the Competition Secretary of the club (yeah they have names like that) asked my dad and I, in a pinch, if we wouldn't mind putting together the Autumn Rally (October 2013 then, I think), and, oh, could it be done in three weeks? Actually, what happened is we heard it was going to be cancelled as nobody had come forward to organise it. At that time my Austin was broken (as per usual) and we said, how hard could it be? Well, pretty hard, but once Peter the C.S. had heard those words we were handed all the paraphernalia and told to get on with it...
Which we did. And set a fairly involved navigation rally complete with running in sections, regularity section, an opt-out package for the less competitive drivers to escape the harrowing afternoon section, and even organised venues and menus for breakfast, lunch and an evening bite to boot (something that wasn't actually required but we decided to aim high).
So recently, whoever it was that had said they were going to plot the Spring 2017 rally pulled out... with 5 weeks on the board. So Peter phoned me and put it to me... and I said I would talk to my dad and we would think it over and let him know that weekend. He saw my dad that weekend and buttered him up ("came to the rescue before... ...ran with military precision...") and I was up for the challenge anyway so we talked ourselves into it.
It's taking place on May 6th and rallies go to this format: they are on a Saturday, usually from around 10am-4pm give or take an hour either end. There's from 15 to 25 entries, split into classes. The classes are A - pre 1931 non-sporting cars, B - pre 1931 sporting cars, C - 1931-1939 sporting cars or modified class A/B, D/E - anything built before 1951 to the same design as a pre-war, i.e. MG stuff, or Dellows which are a strange Ford Y based thing, or any other oddity. One guy used to bring out a Fiat Topolino in class E.
They are always navigation rallies, run on open public roads adhering to all normal laws, and before anyone asks, totally insured, and logged with the MSA.
That all said (written), here is where we are up to:
We are running around the same areas as before but keeping it much tighter, and it crosses over and over itself. Partly the plan is to have them all criss-crossing and on top of each other, and partly to make it easier on us to set and manage.
The first thing to do is to roughly decide where to start, finish and stop for lunch. Those are half planned but the finish point we used last time, a local roadside inn/hotel, has new management and the previous owner that I knew has moved on. So the new ones wanted to charge room hire on top of looking guarantees of numbers for an evening meal (also paid for) on top of having the bar open... they were sticking the hand in basically, so I told them as much (politely). So new venue required to finish off.
In the meantime we plotted the checkpoints along the road at safe places so that wherever the gathering hole is for lunch or the end, the distances and plotting points wont move so we can get on with setting that.
About three and a half years ago the Competition Secretary of the club (yeah they have names like that) asked my dad and I, in a pinch, if we wouldn't mind putting together the Autumn Rally (October 2013 then, I think), and, oh, could it be done in three weeks? Actually, what happened is we heard it was going to be cancelled as nobody had come forward to organise it. At that time my Austin was broken (as per usual) and we said, how hard could it be? Well, pretty hard, but once Peter the C.S. had heard those words we were handed all the paraphernalia and told to get on with it...
Which we did. And set a fairly involved navigation rally complete with running in sections, regularity section, an opt-out package for the less competitive drivers to escape the harrowing afternoon section, and even organised venues and menus for breakfast, lunch and an evening bite to boot (something that wasn't actually required but we decided to aim high).
So recently, whoever it was that had said they were going to plot the Spring 2017 rally pulled out... with 5 weeks on the board. So Peter phoned me and put it to me... and I said I would talk to my dad and we would think it over and let him know that weekend. He saw my dad that weekend and buttered him up ("came to the rescue before... ...ran with military precision...") and I was up for the challenge anyway so we talked ourselves into it.
It's taking place on May 6th and rallies go to this format: they are on a Saturday, usually from around 10am-4pm give or take an hour either end. There's from 15 to 25 entries, split into classes. The classes are A - pre 1931 non-sporting cars, B - pre 1931 sporting cars, C - 1931-1939 sporting cars or modified class A/B, D/E - anything built before 1951 to the same design as a pre-war, i.e. MG stuff, or Dellows which are a strange Ford Y based thing, or any other oddity. One guy used to bring out a Fiat Topolino in class E.
They are always navigation rallies, run on open public roads adhering to all normal laws, and before anyone asks, totally insured, and logged with the MSA.
That all said (written), here is where we are up to:
We are running around the same areas as before but keeping it much tighter, and it crosses over and over itself. Partly the plan is to have them all criss-crossing and on top of each other, and partly to make it easier on us to set and manage.
The first thing to do is to roughly decide where to start, finish and stop for lunch. Those are half planned but the finish point we used last time, a local roadside inn/hotel, has new management and the previous owner that I knew has moved on. So the new ones wanted to charge room hire on top of looking guarantees of numbers for an evening meal (also paid for) on top of having the bar open... they were sticking the hand in basically, so I told them as much (politely). So new venue required to finish off.
In the meantime we plotted the checkpoints along the road at safe places so that wherever the gathering hole is for lunch or the end, the distances and plotting points wont move so we can get on with setting that.