Road Rally

MoHud welcomes our new Rally Master, Ken Relation

Ken takes over from Trish Bucci, who with her husband and RE Jim, have retired and are moving to the land of the never-ending racing season: Florida.  We thank Trish for her years of service to the members of MoHud. We are planning on holding two rallies a year; one in the Spring, and one in the Fall.  Look for information to be posted for 2021 when it becomes available.

2020

Ken, with help from his wife Michelle, held a very successful season-ending GTA rally on Sunday, November 1st.  The “How’d We Get Here?” GTA Rally had 21 participants who visited 8 check points from Niskayuna to Troy, and ended at the Dinosaur BBQ restaurant in Troy.  Tales of the day and some good food and drink were shared, and prizes were handed out for the top 3 teams.

2019

From our friend Jim Bishop, he asked us to share some information from “Road Rally eNews” July 2019 edition:

The current event (our second year of the revival) includes 3 days of rallying, October 24-27, 2019. Day 1 will start in the Capital District of New York State and run Northerly thought the center of the Adirondack Park to Lake Placid; the site of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics with lodging at an exclusive inn.

Day 2 of the event will include a loop from Lake Placid North and West to the Saint Regis and Saranac Lake Regions and will end back at our exquisite host inn. Day 3 will see us traveling East through the High Peaks and Keene Valley to Lake Champlain where a short ferry ride will take you across the lake to Vermont. 

The last leg of day 3 will take us South through the Western edge of Vermont and the Green Mountain Forest, including a number of the infamous ‘gaps” that traverse the Green Mountains. The culmination of the rally will once again end at Hemmings Motor News (our host from last year) with a scoring and a reception in the museum.

Mileage for the 3 days will be approximately 500 miles. (mileage subject to change based upon final reconnaissance runs.)

With lodging constraints, the event will cap out soon (if it hasn’t already gotten there)! Click here to checkout some of the team bios for this year. To view the registration page, click here ! And keep tabs on their progress and updates on their Facebook page.

2018

It’s time for another fun MoHud road rally

Join us for the Fall Back Rally

  • Date: Saturday, November 3, 2018
  • Time: 3:00p.m., registration; first car off at 4:00p.m.
  • Start Location: Sunoco Gas Station
    4005 NY Route 2
    Cropseyville, NY 12052
    (across the street from the Tamarac Middle/High School)
  • Cost: $20/car

What you need to know: this is a family-friendly rally that will require some
simple math calculations for time and distance. The only equipment you need is a street legal vehicle with an odometer that measures to the tenth of a mile, and a method of keeping track of time to the second. The rally is starting in the late afternoon but will continue after dark, so a flashlight might come in handy, too. The instructions are straightforward, no tricks or traps. There are dirt roads but no car-breakers.

2017
Announcing the “Highways to History” GTA (Game, Tour, Adventure) rally for Saturday, November 4th, 2017.

*Note: there will be a driver’s meeting at 2:30pm during which instructions/information will be given out and teams will have from the conclusion of the driver’s meeting until 3:00pm to plan their attack.

Anyone is welcome to participate. One person in the car needs to be an SCCA member, weekend memberships will be available at registration and are free for this event.

This is a gimmick rally, not a TSD – no complicated math to calculate average speed, just a driver and a navigator working together to plot the most efficient course to a win. Your automobile must be street legal. Each car needs a driver and a navigator. Feel free to bring your kids along to help out.

Local map(s), GPS and/or your smartphone are encouraged for this rally. You will also need a means of taking digital photos as you visit several historic destinations.

The rally will end at a local restaurant where we will enjoy food, drink and, if history does in fact repeat itself, plenty of rally stories. And of course there will be trophies!

Questions? Contact Rally Chair, Trish Bucci: trimar71@gmail.com or 518-728-8943

** For non-SCCA members, free temporary memberships will be available at registration. **

2015
Announcing the “Into The Autumn Woods” GTA (Game, Tour, Adventure) rally for Saturday, October 24th, 2015.

Plan on exploring rural Rensselaer County.  This will be a fun road rally suitable for all so bring the whole family along to help navigate and observe. The route should take about 2 hours to complete and it will end at a local restaurant where we can order dinner, socialize, and present prizes.

** For non-SCCA members, temporary memberships will be available at registration. **

2014
A fall GTA (Game, Tour, Adventure) rally is planned for sometime during the fall of 2014, so look for details here and in future editions of the Knock Off.

2013
A “Bridges of Washington County” GTA (Game, Tour, Adventure) rally was held Saturday, October 19, 2013. We had a good turn out and a lot of fun!

Q: What is a Road Rally?

A RoadRally is traversed over public roads within the legal speed limit. The challenge is to drive on time, arriving at points along the route neither early nor late (it’s NOT a race). Each team needs a simple watch which can be synchronized to match official time, as well as something to write on and with. Interior lighting (map lights, a flashlight, etc) is also a good idea for night rallies.

After receiving and browsing the route instructions, cars start at one minute intervals. The first section, a short 10-15 mile route, is called the “Odometer Calibration Zone,” and is used to calibrate the rally car’s odometer to the official mileage used to measure the course by the rallymaster. After this section, the competition really begins, as you must follow the course using the instructions in the route book, as well as the general instructions that govern the rally. Meanwhile, you must also stay on time, based on the average speeds given in the instructions at various points through the routes.

MORE AT: SCCA.com >> RoadRally

MoHud has in the past sanctioned two to three TSD (Time-Speed-Distance) rallies per season, occasionally in conjunction with a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute rally club. These events don’t require specially prepared cars or fancy rally computers. They are fun events open to all. Tour some of the most picturesque countryside in upstate New York, or spend a pleasant few hours at a checkpoint along a beautiful county road for a truly memorable experience.

Past events have included the Snowflake, Spring Fever, and Halloween Ramble / Fall Frolic / Great Pumpkin Challenge Rallies.

Related types of events:
COURSE RALLIES – A more complex version of TSD
GTA RALLIES – Historic known as gimmick rallies – fun and games with little or no TSD component
PERFORMANCE RALLIES – [AKA PRO RALLY AND RALLY RACING – SPEED EVENTS ON CLOSED ROADS] are not sanctioned by the SCCA at this time due to safety and insurance reasons. See forum discussions for occasional information about such events sanctioned by other organizations.

Rally links

Does your nearby club organize TSD rallies? Let me know and I’ll add your link here!

READ: The History of the NEDIV PRO Rally Series

In the Beginning

Performance rallyists comprise a small, close-knit group of enthusiasts who labor mightily for little reward save their own satisfaction. From this hearty breed have come many-time National Champions, a bevy of legendary performances and near-misses and some nose-to-nose clashes with courses which zigged while the driver zagged. All are normal outgrowths of the nature and beginnings of the sport, which was anything but normal.

In 1957 nearly no one had heard of a performance rally in the United States. SCCA conducted a National Rally Championship but it was exclusively for time-speed-distance, route following events, a “gentleman’s” social gathering on sunny Sunday afternoons. But the Press On Regardless, which had been run beginning in the early ’50’s, was another country heard from. Detroit Region of SCCA kept this initial U.S. Performance rally alive and in 1958, for the first time SCCA’s involvement became more than superficial. The 1958 POR was run with full SCCA sanction and used the TSD’s National Rally Regulations wherever applicable.

Marge Corbett at a rally checkpoint in the mid-1960s, Joe Corbett Archives

The cover of the booklet that contains instructions for the Windham Mountain top Rallye, MoHud’s premier event of the 1950s.

© Mohawk-Hudson SCCA 2024. Powered by WordPress