2010 New Egland Rally
09-05-2010, 09:04 PM
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Qucik Sliver
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2010 New Egland Rally
Hey guys,
So this yrs rally has pasted. i have done this 3 yrs now and its one of the funnest things i do with the 8. heres a write up of this yrs rallymaybe i will see more rx8s join next yr.
The New England Rally. With it’s tagline of “1500 miles, 6 states, 3 days” you know its going to be fun. However, preconceived ideas have nothing on the actual thing.
2010 marks the first year any of us have participated in the rally, and at 2:45 Thursday afternoon when Bryan got to NH to pick me up and head back to CT we were still largely underprepared. We spent the evening preparing as best we could, rotating tires, bleeding brakes, buying snacks, whiteboards, nerf guns, anything we thought we might need. By Friday morning, after a restless night, we still weren’t sure we were ready. But no matter, It was too late to worry, and we were due at SubiMods.
As the teams started to arrive a sense of chaotic organization overtook the SubiMods parking lot. People dug through piles of vinyls to find their numbers and set of sponsors stickers, scrambled to apply them with some sense of professionalism, and make sure they were ready for the 10AM start. A brief “cover our asses” speech later and we were piling into our cars, on our way to the first checkpoint, Ocean Drive State Park in Newport RI.
I should stop here for a second and explain for those that are unacquainted, what this rally is all about. Every year Sean Conrad organizes a 1500 mile poker run spanning all of New England. The event serves as a way to see New England, finding places you didn’t know were there, while raising money for the Boys and Girls club of NH. The location of each checkpoint is kept secret until you reach the preceding one, and you’re provided no route, just a destination card that tells you to “show up here”. At every checkpoint you draw a playing card, and at the end of the rally the team with the best poker hand is deemed the winner. The event has grown every year, and improved as well.
Back to Newport. Since we were carrying the spare wheels for the Lotus Exige we decided to stick with them. After a brief separation at some tolls we met back up at the checkpoint, a beautiful overlook of the sea. With little fanfare we drew our first card, the ace of spades, off to a good start. With A wide smile plastered on our faces and a destination card reading “Plymouth Rock” in hand, we jumped back on the road, this time with me behind the wheel.
After a longer than planned lunch in Newport we left the parking lot of the restaurant, only to have the Exige immediately pointed to the side of the road by a police officer. Turns out the uppity people of Newport weren’t fans of the mob of stickered cars invading their town and had filed complaints. No worries, since we were leaving anyway. We were among the last of the cars to arrive at Plymouth Rock only to find that the checkpoint worker had crashed her motorcycle and wasn’t there. (We later learned that she was fine, thankfully.) Once everyone was accounted for Sean gave us the next checkpoint verbally. “Mt. Greylock in North Adams. See you there.”
120 miles of highway and some traffic later we decided enough was enough. We turned off the Mass Pike, and enjoyed some excellent back roads following routes 9 and 7. Close to Mt. Greylock we stopped for gas, and completely made a local’s day. Apparently Evos and Lotus covered in stickers don’t often grace this part of the state. I switched seats with the Lotus’s co-driver for the ride up Greylock. Along the drive to the base of the mountain the two cars got split up and the GPS in the Lotus, proceeded to find the only dirt road around, a logging road up half the mountain. Leave it to the Lotus to go off-roading. A glorious reuniting with pavement led to some amazing roads up to the peak just in time to catch the after effects of the sunset. The ascent also brought us past the first of 3 accidents we’d see on the rally. In this case it was some unfortunate teenagers (unaffiliated with the NER) that had lost a car over the ledge of the road.
We grabbed our last destination cards of the day, drew the Jack of hearts and headed back down the mountain. We stopped at a McDonalds to grab dinner and debate the best route to get to our next destination, Bolton Vally, VT. With it being so late already we decided to take the boring highway route of I-91 to I-89, but first we had a short stint of rt 8 to VT rt 9. Somewhere along rt 8 the twisty nature of the road got the better of Bryan’s cautious nature, and a call came in from the Lotus to inform us that he was “finally driving like a man.” The back roads of western MA and southern VT will definitely do that to you. As Friday ended and Saturday began we arrived at the Bolton Valley Resort, and drew the 5 of clubs. With a 5am wakeup call ahead of us we crawled into bed for a nice 4 hour nap.
Saturday brought excitement and as soon as we received the destination cards confirming that our next stop was Team O’Neil Rally School, we wasted no time tearing down the access road from the resort back to the highway. Team O’Neil is located in Dalton NH, deep in the woods. In order to get there, we had to once again venture off the paved road. A steep downhill slope leading to the school brought us past the second accident we’d see on the Rally. A random KIA had apparently not fared well with the hill and driven into the brush on the side of the road.
In a word, Team O’Neil is amazing. It is a simple place with a main building serving as both workshop and classroom. Scattered around the building in various parking lots is the last remaining fleet of Audi 4000 quatros, BMW E30s, VW Golfs, and a brand new fleet of green Ford Fiestas. Team O’Neil features a network of narrow gravel roads that run through the woods, meeting at a few patches of open land, and the course is comprised of a special dirt blend that becomes super slippery when wet.
As the grills were fired up we got a quick classroom lesson of basic rally maneuvers from rally legend Tim ONeil. Afterwards Tim and a second driver took control of an Audi and a BMW and offered rides. You wouldn’t believe what these little cars can do. Fully loaded with 4 people these cars flew over the gravel, jumped, rotated, and tore through the course. The BMW left it’s tail hanging out the whole time while the Audi managed unbelievable speed with four wheel drifts and pivots. We could have stayed there all day, but unfortunately we had more places to visit. Before Departing we drew the 2 of hearts as well as the 3 of diamonds for the Plymouth Rock checkpoint.
The next checkpoint was a bit on the surprising side. The Loki Clan Wolf Refuge is located on the New Hampshire-Maine boarder and serves as a place where wolves and wolf-dog hybrids can be brought if they are captured or were already in captivity and could no longer be cared for. It is a huge place with various enclosed pens in the woods. Getting here proved both exciting and sobering. The quickest route brought us through Hurricane Mountain Road, a very narrow, winding and steep road up over Hurricane Mountain. The road is both exhilarating and terrifying. It urges you to drive faster while reminding you that there could be a car coming around that blind corner. After a terrific climb up the mountain we reached a sobering site. A fellow Rally car, a 350Z convertible, had lost control over 2 consecutive humps, and rolled over. Thankfully no one was hurt, however it was a reminder that things can go wrong fast, and the rest of the ride down the mountain was relatively tame.
With our tour over we headed back down the road, grabbed our last destination card of the day, drew the Queen of clubs, and headed to Bar Harbor, Maine. Shortly into our 4 hour drive we discovered a serious problem with Maine. Apparently they have a vendetta against 93 octane gas. While this may seem like a trivial problem the Evo is tuned specifically for 93, and anything lower will cause engine knock under load and cause the wastegate to open prematurely. After 6 stations we gave up trying to find 93, filled with 91 and added some octane booster. The car ran, but it wasn’t happy, and we weren’t able to get onto the boost the rest of the time the Maine gas was in the tank.
After 12 miles of following people doing 10 mph under the speed limit on single lane roads into Bar Harbor we finally reached the Hotel and drew the 2 of hearts. We were staying at the Regency Hotel at Bar Harbor, a beautiful place on the water with multiple buildings. We were all in the smaller side building, but the main building contained a dining room with an ocean view, and a smaller event building housed the dining room we used Saturday night. We knew the night was going to be excellent when the first police officer showed up in the parking lot.
Turns out the officer was just looking to learn what was going on with the insurgence of stickered cars, and once we explained what we were doing and the charity our rally benefitted he was completely cool. Shortly following the remaining two of the three on duty Bar Harbor police officers showed up, apparently all of them gear heads. We spent the next hour or so showing off cars, learning about all the technology inside the cruisers, and generally enjoying ourselves.
Following dinner and a few drinks Bryan and I promptly passed out from exhaustion. A glorious 7am wakeup call and breakfast prepped us for the final leg of the rally. A 9am departure from Bar Harbor saw us heading towards Synaptic3 Engineering in Candia, NH. Partially because we had been on the highway so much and partially because we wanted to enjoy this final leg of the journey, we stuck to the back roads, taking route 202 the entire way. This provided a wonderfully scenic, twisty, and generally enjoyable drive.
Among the last of the participants to arrive, just ahead of the Lotus, RSX, and modded Subaru (who had stopped for gas allowing us to overtake them) we were greeted with a full parking lot, some food and an amazing shop. We were allowed to discard one card and draw a final one. We discarded the Jack of hearts and drew an 8 of spades. Wonderful, still could not best our pair of 2s. We knew it was over when the luck of the draw improved the Lotus drivers full house, kings full of queens, to 4 kings. The last order of business for the 2010 New England Rally was the raffle, with all prizes donated from the sponsors and all ticket sales going to help the boys and girls club of NH. Bryan managed to have 3 of his numbers drawn, grabbing a set of HID headlights, a road safety kit, and a bottle of car detailer. I had two tickets pulled and grabbed a free year of AAA and a free oil change.
If you’ve made it this far you know the route we took, but you can’t know the rush from the whole weekend until you attend the rally yourself. This event is unlike anything else you will ever do. The miles just melt away as you tear across New England, discovering places, chatting on the radio, and knowing that as cliché as it is, you just got a huge laugh out of Sean as you held up a white board bearing the message “Are We There Yet?”
“Not Even Close”
For more info on this go to www.newenglandrally.com
So this yrs rally has pasted. i have done this 3 yrs now and its one of the funnest things i do with the 8. heres a write up of this yrs rallymaybe i will see more rx8s join next yr.
The New England Rally. With it’s tagline of “1500 miles, 6 states, 3 days” you know its going to be fun. However, preconceived ideas have nothing on the actual thing.
2010 marks the first year any of us have participated in the rally, and at 2:45 Thursday afternoon when Bryan got to NH to pick me up and head back to CT we were still largely underprepared. We spent the evening preparing as best we could, rotating tires, bleeding brakes, buying snacks, whiteboards, nerf guns, anything we thought we might need. By Friday morning, after a restless night, we still weren’t sure we were ready. But no matter, It was too late to worry, and we were due at SubiMods.
As the teams started to arrive a sense of chaotic organization overtook the SubiMods parking lot. People dug through piles of vinyls to find their numbers and set of sponsors stickers, scrambled to apply them with some sense of professionalism, and make sure they were ready for the 10AM start. A brief “cover our asses” speech later and we were piling into our cars, on our way to the first checkpoint, Ocean Drive State Park in Newport RI.
I should stop here for a second and explain for those that are unacquainted, what this rally is all about. Every year Sean Conrad organizes a 1500 mile poker run spanning all of New England. The event serves as a way to see New England, finding places you didn’t know were there, while raising money for the Boys and Girls club of NH. The location of each checkpoint is kept secret until you reach the preceding one, and you’re provided no route, just a destination card that tells you to “show up here”. At every checkpoint you draw a playing card, and at the end of the rally the team with the best poker hand is deemed the winner. The event has grown every year, and improved as well.
Back to Newport. Since we were carrying the spare wheels for the Lotus Exige we decided to stick with them. After a brief separation at some tolls we met back up at the checkpoint, a beautiful overlook of the sea. With little fanfare we drew our first card, the ace of spades, off to a good start. With A wide smile plastered on our faces and a destination card reading “Plymouth Rock” in hand, we jumped back on the road, this time with me behind the wheel.
After a longer than planned lunch in Newport we left the parking lot of the restaurant, only to have the Exige immediately pointed to the side of the road by a police officer. Turns out the uppity people of Newport weren’t fans of the mob of stickered cars invading their town and had filed complaints. No worries, since we were leaving anyway. We were among the last of the cars to arrive at Plymouth Rock only to find that the checkpoint worker had crashed her motorcycle and wasn’t there. (We later learned that she was fine, thankfully.) Once everyone was accounted for Sean gave us the next checkpoint verbally. “Mt. Greylock in North Adams. See you there.”
120 miles of highway and some traffic later we decided enough was enough. We turned off the Mass Pike, and enjoyed some excellent back roads following routes 9 and 7. Close to Mt. Greylock we stopped for gas, and completely made a local’s day. Apparently Evos and Lotus covered in stickers don’t often grace this part of the state. I switched seats with the Lotus’s co-driver for the ride up Greylock. Along the drive to the base of the mountain the two cars got split up and the GPS in the Lotus, proceeded to find the only dirt road around, a logging road up half the mountain. Leave it to the Lotus to go off-roading. A glorious reuniting with pavement led to some amazing roads up to the peak just in time to catch the after effects of the sunset. The ascent also brought us past the first of 3 accidents we’d see on the rally. In this case it was some unfortunate teenagers (unaffiliated with the NER) that had lost a car over the ledge of the road.
We grabbed our last destination cards of the day, drew the Jack of hearts and headed back down the mountain. We stopped at a McDonalds to grab dinner and debate the best route to get to our next destination, Bolton Vally, VT. With it being so late already we decided to take the boring highway route of I-91 to I-89, but first we had a short stint of rt 8 to VT rt 9. Somewhere along rt 8 the twisty nature of the road got the better of Bryan’s cautious nature, and a call came in from the Lotus to inform us that he was “finally driving like a man.” The back roads of western MA and southern VT will definitely do that to you. As Friday ended and Saturday began we arrived at the Bolton Valley Resort, and drew the 5 of clubs. With a 5am wakeup call ahead of us we crawled into bed for a nice 4 hour nap.
Saturday brought excitement and as soon as we received the destination cards confirming that our next stop was Team O’Neil Rally School, we wasted no time tearing down the access road from the resort back to the highway. Team O’Neil is located in Dalton NH, deep in the woods. In order to get there, we had to once again venture off the paved road. A steep downhill slope leading to the school brought us past the second accident we’d see on the Rally. A random KIA had apparently not fared well with the hill and driven into the brush on the side of the road.
In a word, Team O’Neil is amazing. It is a simple place with a main building serving as both workshop and classroom. Scattered around the building in various parking lots is the last remaining fleet of Audi 4000 quatros, BMW E30s, VW Golfs, and a brand new fleet of green Ford Fiestas. Team O’Neil features a network of narrow gravel roads that run through the woods, meeting at a few patches of open land, and the course is comprised of a special dirt blend that becomes super slippery when wet.
As the grills were fired up we got a quick classroom lesson of basic rally maneuvers from rally legend Tim ONeil. Afterwards Tim and a second driver took control of an Audi and a BMW and offered rides. You wouldn’t believe what these little cars can do. Fully loaded with 4 people these cars flew over the gravel, jumped, rotated, and tore through the course. The BMW left it’s tail hanging out the whole time while the Audi managed unbelievable speed with four wheel drifts and pivots. We could have stayed there all day, but unfortunately we had more places to visit. Before Departing we drew the 2 of hearts as well as the 3 of diamonds for the Plymouth Rock checkpoint.
The next checkpoint was a bit on the surprising side. The Loki Clan Wolf Refuge is located on the New Hampshire-Maine boarder and serves as a place where wolves and wolf-dog hybrids can be brought if they are captured or were already in captivity and could no longer be cared for. It is a huge place with various enclosed pens in the woods. Getting here proved both exciting and sobering. The quickest route brought us through Hurricane Mountain Road, a very narrow, winding and steep road up over Hurricane Mountain. The road is both exhilarating and terrifying. It urges you to drive faster while reminding you that there could be a car coming around that blind corner. After a terrific climb up the mountain we reached a sobering site. A fellow Rally car, a 350Z convertible, had lost control over 2 consecutive humps, and rolled over. Thankfully no one was hurt, however it was a reminder that things can go wrong fast, and the rest of the ride down the mountain was relatively tame.
With our tour over we headed back down the road, grabbed our last destination card of the day, drew the Queen of clubs, and headed to Bar Harbor, Maine. Shortly into our 4 hour drive we discovered a serious problem with Maine. Apparently they have a vendetta against 93 octane gas. While this may seem like a trivial problem the Evo is tuned specifically for 93, and anything lower will cause engine knock under load and cause the wastegate to open prematurely. After 6 stations we gave up trying to find 93, filled with 91 and added some octane booster. The car ran, but it wasn’t happy, and we weren’t able to get onto the boost the rest of the time the Maine gas was in the tank.
After 12 miles of following people doing 10 mph under the speed limit on single lane roads into Bar Harbor we finally reached the Hotel and drew the 2 of hearts. We were staying at the Regency Hotel at Bar Harbor, a beautiful place on the water with multiple buildings. We were all in the smaller side building, but the main building contained a dining room with an ocean view, and a smaller event building housed the dining room we used Saturday night. We knew the night was going to be excellent when the first police officer showed up in the parking lot.
Turns out the officer was just looking to learn what was going on with the insurgence of stickered cars, and once we explained what we were doing and the charity our rally benefitted he was completely cool. Shortly following the remaining two of the three on duty Bar Harbor police officers showed up, apparently all of them gear heads. We spent the next hour or so showing off cars, learning about all the technology inside the cruisers, and generally enjoying ourselves.
Following dinner and a few drinks Bryan and I promptly passed out from exhaustion. A glorious 7am wakeup call and breakfast prepped us for the final leg of the rally. A 9am departure from Bar Harbor saw us heading towards Synaptic3 Engineering in Candia, NH. Partially because we had been on the highway so much and partially because we wanted to enjoy this final leg of the journey, we stuck to the back roads, taking route 202 the entire way. This provided a wonderfully scenic, twisty, and generally enjoyable drive.
Among the last of the participants to arrive, just ahead of the Lotus, RSX, and modded Subaru (who had stopped for gas allowing us to overtake them) we were greeted with a full parking lot, some food and an amazing shop. We were allowed to discard one card and draw a final one. We discarded the Jack of hearts and drew an 8 of spades. Wonderful, still could not best our pair of 2s. We knew it was over when the luck of the draw improved the Lotus drivers full house, kings full of queens, to 4 kings. The last order of business for the 2010 New England Rally was the raffle, with all prizes donated from the sponsors and all ticket sales going to help the boys and girls club of NH. Bryan managed to have 3 of his numbers drawn, grabbing a set of HID headlights, a road safety kit, and a bottle of car detailer. I had two tickets pulled and grabbed a free year of AAA and a free oil change.
If you’ve made it this far you know the route we took, but you can’t know the rush from the whole weekend until you attend the rally yourself. This event is unlike anything else you will ever do. The miles just melt away as you tear across New England, discovering places, chatting on the radio, and knowing that as cliché as it is, you just got a huge laugh out of Sean as you held up a white board bearing the message “Are We There Yet?”
“Not Even Close”
For more info on this go to www.newenglandrally.com
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