The 1996 ROAV Mid-Atlantic Rally

I'll let the other 'net denizens fill you in on the rally. Yup, it was pretty cold Friday night...folks down from New York said that they hadn't had frost up north yet. The only problem Friday night was that some bloody git left the tap open on the keg of porter. $50 worth spilled into the tub. :-0 And for those trying to find the site, the signs started disappearing early. By Sunday morning, *all* had been knicked.

The rally featured a number of competitions: teeter-totter, Aluminium Man Triathlon, blindfold obstacle course, we even had a slow race.

In the teeter-totter, the winners were:
  1. Eric Bautz, 14 seconds
  2. Greg Wilson, 37 seconds
  3. David Stauffer, 50 seconds

The Aluminium Man Triathlon featured a mechanical task (timed spare/road wheel swap), the trails course (complete with a written trivia test at the end), and as we were running late, an orienteering run Sunday noon to locate control points by compass - and then identify the parts.

  1. David Ryan
  2. Jeff Berg
  3. Jared Silbersher

The blindfold obstacle course had the navigator communicating to the blindfolded driver by UHF radio. (The second place winner was guided by his 10 year old daughter!)

  1. Stuart Moore
  2. Jeff Ham
  3. John Ryan
Most Functional Vehicle: the "St. Johns Ambulance"
Peoples Choice: Bob McCullough's '67 Forward Control
Slow Race: Bob McCullough, again.

Greatest Distance Traveled: Pat Parsons, up from Miami Beach in his 110. (Sorry Dixon, Miami is at least 2" farther away..on the map that is.)

Someone ripped into the feeley-meeley box and took out all the parts, so that competition had to be abandoned. However, the dinner and movie at the drive-in went well (in keeping with the 'fifties' theme of the event) with 81 vehicles in attendance, and the band back at the farm sounded *great*.

There was a nice article and photos on the front page of Monday's Charlottesville paper, including Jared at the wheel of his 101. There was also a nice close-up of David Bobeck's green beastie.

Dixon counted 133 vehicles. We had 132 registered, and that did not count my two, Mike's 88 (nor his "fleet" of project vehicles scattered about), the Camel Trophy Disco, nor the several vehicles from LRNA or Land-Rover Richmond. Including several who snuck in Sunday, the total was probably 145. Incidentally, if anyone left/lost a male tabby kitten that was discovered in cat-hater Jared Silbersher's 101, let me know.

Many thanks to the sponsors who donated prizes or made contributions to the event: