Kilcoy Road Rally report
Starting at 8am, or thereabouts, Chris and I left Pine Rivers Park and wound our way around the northern outskirts of Brisbane before getting onto what is surely a Brisbane car-enthusiasts institution — the road from Samford to Woodford. Chris’ navigation was going well, though we missed the first five observation questions out of ignorace, until we entered a No Through Road, having forgotten the instruction that NTRs are deemed not to exist. I think we lost half an hour puzzling our way around that until we remembered the NTR rule. The first stage went well after that, though we were 51 minutes late.
The first motorkhana followed stage 1 and I didn’t hit a cone or go the Wrong Direction which was mostly what I was trying to do. Didn’t get a special time, though I wasn’t the slowest which is the best you can normally say for your first try at something.
Stage 2 was, um, challenging and we got lost again and were awarded 41 minutes late time, mostly due to not being able to find one question.
We did pretty well on times for Stages 3-6, being on time for each one, and were generally early, having to wait outside the major control until the correct time.
Getting the questions and Visual Route Checks right was another matter. Most of the VRCs we missed because we were either lost or on the wrong road. The difference between lost and on the wrong road is that when you’re lost you don’t know where you are and when you’re on the wrong road you know exactly where you are but you’re not where you’re supposed to be. On the whole we spent more time on the wrong road than lost, which is a testament to Chris’ ability to read maps and also his and my inexperience as we were often on the wrong road out of ignorance of the finer points of the skills of navigation. No matter, you need to learn somehow.
The other two motorkhanas I turned in fair times, but nothing spectacular. Note to self: Must try harder. I was never slowest, which is always a good thing, and I managed a few good handbrake turns and never stalled the car doing them (I have now, obviously jinxed myself and will no doubt stall every time at the next event when I try one.)
Other than that, it’s all a blur as I have clearly not yet developed the rallyist’s memory for each and every stage. Perhaps I’d do better with the roadbook in front of me but even then I’d be hard pressed as I rarely saw the maps we were working off, being more concerned with keeping the car on the road.
On the whole it was a great deal of fun and something I’m itching to do again, next time from the silly seat.
