How Not to Win a Road Rally

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then again, I had a cold pint of Bass Ale in front of me, so I guess I would have been agreeable to just about anything. And thus were the seeds of our road rally adventure sown.

A local pub, Logos, was the sponsor of this first ever event. And while the entry charge of $25 a person seemed a bit steep, it came with the promise of a t-shirt and a party after the race. And, almost nearly as important, it came with the possibility of big, fat cash prizes. Five hundred dollars for first place, $300 for second, and $200 for third. Not only would we be winning back our entry fees, but we'd be making money on top of it.

With three weeks to go before the rally, I boldly made my way back into the pub and plunked down the $100 for our entry fee. Me, Ken, Mac, and a participant to be named later were officially car number 1. We were, in fact, the only car in the rally at that point. The odds were looking good. Very good.

If you know nothing about a car rally, then you know as much as we did. All we were told was that it would require navigation to certain points, in a certain amount of time, and that we would need to collect historical information as well as a bunch of scavenger hunt items. But all of that was neither here nor there. The important thing was that we had a kick butt car to drive in. Mac has a 1955 Chevy, painted bright yellow with flames running down the side. No matter what, we would look good.

As the date of the rally approached, we talked strategy whenever we could. And the more we talked, the more apparent it become that the prize money was far from a sure thing. Mac, the official "driver," enlightened us to the fact that although the car looked good, the speedometer did not work. Our original choice for navigator lived in Michigan and wouldn't be able to make it, so that left me, who doesn't know his right from his left, in charge of getting us from place to place. And although we had our "runner" in Ken, we were still without a "spotter" and were having a hard time thinking of anyone who wasn't too cheap to shell out the 25 bucks to join our team. And, perhaps most importantly, we were no longer the only entry. There were now 16 teams in the rally.

Finally, after weeks of absolutely no preparation on our part, Rally Day arrived. We found a spotter in Pete, a friend up for the weekend from southern Maine. We all diligently signed the waiver in which Logos stated they in no way advocate drinking and driving, picked up the official instructions, wasted precious time posing for pictures, and piled into the mean yellow machine. As we took off, a newspaper photographer snapped our picture. Perhaps we would not be rich, but we would be famous.

Navigator I was, and navigate I did. Through the IGA parking lot, past the designated fire hydrants, up the hill, and into the cemetery. We were instructed to get the birth date off of an "obelisk." Only problem was, the cemetery was full of "obelisks." This was not apparent to everyone, however - after the rally, we found out that one team resorted to calling friends so that they could look up "obelisk" in the dictionary and tell them what it was. We settled on what appeared to be the most obvious obelisk, dutifully took note of the birth date carved on it, and jotted it down on the instruction sheet. Well, that's what would have happened in a perfect world, anyway. I had nothing to write with. Mac had nothing to write with. Ken had nothing to write with. Pete had nothing to write with. Five minutes into the race, and our incompetence had already reared its ugly head. Driving to a store to buy a pen would be too risky, since the odometer reading was an important part of the rally. So I took off on foot for the nearest store, a couple of blocks away. Despite the fact that I was in a desperate hurry, I could not bring myself to ask someone where they kept the pens. I am a guy after all - I have my pride. When I did finally find them, for some inexplicable reason, I then spent more of our precious time comparing prices. Did you know you can pay as much as $8 for a single pen at a drugstore? Can't have that, now can we?

When I finally got back to the car, the second car in the rally had already caught up with us (cars were being started at 10 minute intervals). This was not a good sign, but at least we had a pen. Through the cemetary we went, noting who was buried under the big rock, what was depicted in the stain glass window on a particular crypt, and how many cannon balls there were next to the cannon (I'm not really sure what a cannon is doing in a cemetary). Throughout all of this, I made the mistake of slamming the car door whenever I got out to check on something. This resulted in one pissed off driver/car owner. By the time we got out of the cemetary, I was learning to not slam the door, but the learning was going slowly.

The next leg of the rally took us by Ken's house, so we took advantage of the situation to stop by and collect as many of the scavenger hunt items as we could.We were able to quickly knock off the dried dog poop, a pair of panties, a string bean, and a house from Monopoly. Of course, car #2 took advantage of this little diversion and passed us up. But that was okay, because we knew that they'd have to stop and get their dog poop somewhere on the course.

I doubt that many people in town knew about the road rally, much less realized how it was helping to stimulate the local economy. Specifically, it was stimulating the economy of Jack's Grocery, a little corner store that had the good fortune to be on the prescribed road rally route. One of the scavenger hunt items was a bottle cap from a bottle of Moxie, a rather disgusting (don't sue me, that's just my opinion) soda that has a small but loyal following. Suffice it to say that Jack's had a run on Moxie this day, with frantic rally participants grabbing bottles from the cooler and throwing their money on the counter without bothering to wait for change. Jack's should seriously think about co-sponsoring the next road rally.

The course also took us in close proximity to my house, so we took advantage of that situation to pick up a few more scavenger hunt items - an empty toilet paper roll, the obituaries from the local paper, and a live mussel. To be more presice, Ken and I took advantage of the situation and ran down to my house - Mac and Pete sat on their lazy butts in the car.

Other teams, we came to find out later, had other ideas on how to go about collecting the live mussel. They stopped into a local seafood restaurant and asked to purchase a single mussel. The restaurant would not sell a single muscle, but was happy to sell them a two pound bag. Needless to say, fresh mussels were served at the after-race party.

After about an hour of driving, the course took us back to Logos. We managed to collect all the historical information and record it on our sheet, but we were still without two of the scavenger hunt items - a live house fly and a butterfly. Throughout the rally, I suggested that we find a catapillar and use it for our buttefly entry - they would just have to be patient and watch things develop. But we weren't able to find either a catapillar or a butterfly. That made us even more determined to find a house fly. After searching the immediate area unsuccessfully for a ripe dumpster, we happened upon a garbage can outside of Logos that had managed to entice a single house fly. Picture, if you will, three grown men hovering around a garbage can alternately trying to catch a fly with their bare hands. It was not a pretty sight. In the end, the fly won and we decided that it would be best to officially "finish" and not lose any more points due to a slow time.

We did end up being the first car to finish, so all was not lost. Now came the painful wait for the others to finish. It was pure hell having to sit around drinking cold beer and eating pizza while waiting for our well-earned prize money.

Alas, when the time came to announce the results, we fell into the category of "close but no cigar." We ended up somewhere around 8th place. Car #2, which we had been playing cat and mouse with the whole rally, ended up taking third place. They managed to come up with a fly and butterfly. Still no word on if the car from Connecticut has ever found their way back.

The rally went so well that Logos is planning on having another one on Columbus Day weekend. We're already refining our strategy - we're planning to bring a pen and everything.