One Down, Two To Go.

Full day one of the Rally Appalachia and I am wiped out.  This stuff is totally intense!  Never in my life did I think that I would spend 8 hours and 350 miles, driving here and there, finding checkpoints and taking pictures all in the name of fun and fundraising.  We burned a tank of gas and did not leave the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Then, at the end of the day we all get together and talk about the checkpoints, what we could have done differently and how we could have shaved time off here and there. 

Just in the first day, there have been reports of getting pulled over, break downs and many, many miles of “wait, that was it back there, turn around, turn around!!”  I don’t have the full report, but I think we all made it to relatively Natural Bridge intact and we all managed to stay out of trouble on Skyline drive. 

We were told time and time again in the pre-rally meeting, that there will be speeding, no speeding, NO SPEEDING!  Clear??  If you are caught speeding on the Blue Ridge Parkway or Skyline Drive, there is a possibility that you and the entire rally will be kicked off the Parkway and Skyline.  Somewhere from the back of the conference room that we are all packed into someone says ‘Don’t Be That Guy’.  Brilliant; exactly.  Dude, don’t be that guy!  And thankfully, today there was no “That guy” on

Skyline Drive

today.

Finding the checkpoints and watching for the other rally cars really made you concentrate, which is exhausting.  From 8:30, when we pulled chocks in Winchester to coming down the hill into Natural Bridge at 4:30, was eight full hours of what’s the next checkpoint? What’s the speed limit?  When is my next turn?  Left, no right, no it’s right there!!  Stop, take a picture, get in the car, get on the road and hope that your navigator knows where the next turn/ stop/ checkpoint is.  Then watching for the teams; there goes Team Bentley, there goes Team CJ’s (he won the first day – Right on Mr. Cobra!!), we just passed one of the Capitol City GTO’s.  Then your mind starts to wander…”were they ahead of us or behind us??  Did they get the next checkpoint, or are they lost??”

We (mostly) all made it, from the first three to the hotel tonight, with a time separation of 51 seconds between the first and second, to Team RamRod; without any tickets or accidents, we completed day one.  Lets do it again tomorrow!

Rally North America Appalahia 2011

We are off on another adventure with the Mustang and we are so very excited about it.  In December 2010 Tommy was on the CJ Pony Parts website http://www.cjponyparts.com/Default.aspx and saw an promotion for the Rally North America Appalachia 2011 in July http://www.rallynorthamerica.com/.  He asked if I thought that we should do it and of course I said "Yes!!".  However, by the time we realized that there were only 80 cars allowed to be registered, all of the slots were full.  Boo... Hiss..

So fast forward to April of 2011.  Tommy is out at CJ Pony Parts in the Harrisburg area and there sits two, yes two, Mustangs that CJ's was sponsoring for the Rally.  So he comes home and mentions this in passing, to me.  The wheels began to churn in my head.  The next day, I went onto the RNA web site and saw the standby form.  What the heck I'm going to submit a standby form to be a part of the rally; why not. 

A week later, I get an e-mail from Tony, one of the organizers (genius masterminds) of Rally North America.  It simply read "There are two openings for the rally.  Please call me with any questions before you decide you want to commit to the rally." 


This is actually a rally that is benefiting the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund  http://www.fallenheroesfund.org/About-IFHF.aspx.  All of the donations went directly to the web site, they were not filtered through the RNA web site and administrators, so you know that the charitable organization is getting the entire donation.  Its a good feeling.

Back to getting into the rally. Each registered car has a driver and a navigator.  There are teams of best friends, co-workers, husbands and wives and families.  The cars participating are everything from a Mazda Miata and a BMW Z4 to an Audi A4 Wagon and a Firebird.  Everything from soup to nuts in the car world.

After I received the e-mail from Tony, I called Tommy in an excited frantic panic.  "Do you still want to do the rally in July????"  All he said was 'Well, Yeah.'  At that point I felt as though I had won the lottery, I was so excited.  I know, you may be saying to yourself - this is what would make you happy beyond words???  Yes, yes, it would.  There are a few times in ones' life that you throw caution to the wind and do something without picking apart the ins and outs and worrying about the what ifs.  You just make it happen- and that's what we are going to do.

So the Rally is in July; 18th to the 22nd.  We start in Winchester VA with a meeting about the course and the always required waiver.  Then the next day, on to Natural Bridge, VA.  If you've never been there, please take a day and go, its absolutely stunning and amazing.  Not only because it is what it says it is, but also because none of it was ever engineered by man.  Only the course of evolution has made the beauty that you will see.  http://www.naturalbridgeva.com/

Greenville will be our next stop, then finally ending in Charleston, SC.  This is a city that I will name the most beautiful on the east coast.  Not for the people, as Miami is always named, but because of the historical significance and the beauty of the city and landscape.  Please spend some time there; if you do, you will love it as much as we do.

Along the way the rally teams will be required to stop at various checkpoints, document yourself there with a date stamped picture and proceed to the next checkpoint.  Oh, did I mention that we are going to TWO race tracks and a drag way??  Yeah, this girl is beyond excited to go roundy round on the race track and to see what my reaction time is like.

Next up - Decals and tires.  Until then happy and safe driving!