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!