My First Friday Nighter of 2010 is a success!
My rally bud, Joe Akerman and I got together this last Friday, the first Friday in March to run Santa Monica Sports Car Clubs First Friday Nighter Rally.
The Santa Monica Sports Car Club has continued the FFN for many years, and you are always guaranteed a great time!
Tonight was different in that my car was not ready to run Class A with a computer and Joe’s car had my old Alpha Elite in it and no reader board. A few days earlier Joe had asked me to rig up a reader board on a Ram Mount so we could mount it to his windshield with a suction cup. Well by the time Friday night came about, a large stone had severely cracked the windshield in Joe’s WRX. So we opted for a clipboard instead. (The best decision of the whole rally)
What this did, was force Joe and I to communicate better. It allowed me to concentrate more on driving and being on time, and Joe more on the instructions and traps. I really think this system works better. As long as I knew what the next instruction was, that is what I was concentrating on, and not a few steps ahead. Sometimes when you are thinking a few steps ahead in a TSD trap rally, you zone out on the current tasks/traps. By doing this, we went through the entire rally and properly executed each instruction and did not fall for any of the traps. This is always a difficult task when Jeanne English is the rally master.
A quick note for Jeanne and the SMSCC gang. Great Rally!! You guys put on a great event. The roads on this rally where in the mountains outside of Santa Clarita California. Great roads for some spirited driving!
After catching each of the traps, which not only tested confidence, but knowledge of the rules, Joe and I managed to score an eleven. Meaning we were eleven hundredths of a minute off for the entire 2+ hour rally. Not perfect, but good enough to pull a 1st place win in Class A. It had been a while since Joe and I had run together and won. It was a good feeling!
The other nice part about this rally, was the attendance! There were 20 cars/teams running this rally. I hope this is a sign that the economy is turning around and people are starting to get out and enjoy themselves more! It sure was nice to see new and familiar faces at this event.
So if you are in the Los Angeles area on the 1st Friday of the month, bring a friend, a car and a watch to the corner of Devonshire and Sepulveda in Mission Hills, where behind the BofA you will find die hard and newbie rally enthusiasts gathering to enjoy their Friday night without the TV, without the bars, but with good friends and awesome roads.
Don’t be shy either, if you have never done something like this before, they have a beginners meeting to tell you how to do it before the event starts.
March 7th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Hi, David, and congratulations on your win last Friday! I echo your sentiment about what a fun event it was; the roads were great to drive, and it was nice to have a very full field of competitors. This was my seventh or eighth TSD rally, and my first as a driver (as well as being my friend Andrew’s first as a navigator.) We fell into every trap available (as well as inventing one of our own) but came away with a score of 423…not bad for a couple of relative novices, I think!
Hopefully, we’ll be back again in April with a fuller understanding of the GIs!