Summary: The Central Ohio Rally Club will have its first rally of the 2008 season on Saturday, April 26th. The rally covers 100 miles in Union, Logan, and Champaign counties in Ohio, running up and down off the Bellefontaine Outlier and into the Mad River Valley (former site of the SCCA Hillclimb championships). The start and finish are both in Marysville, Ohio. The rally is in TSD format with an emphasis on challenging driving and straight-forward navigation. This is an excellent first event for someone thinking about getting in to road rallying.

When: Saturday, April 26th, 2008. Registration time TBA, but it will be in the mid to early afternoon.

Where: Registration and the start are in Marysville, Ohio in the large empty parking lot behind Monroe Muffler on the south east corner of US-36 and Watkins Rd. The finish is approximately 2 blocks west on US-36 at the Applebees.

What: This is a TSD road rally. This means that you will be given a list of instructions about where to drive and how fast you should be traveling. Your job is to figure out how to apply the instructions to the road in front of you to arrive at the correct place at the correct time. The instructions range from the simple (turn right onto US-33) to the bizarre (turn left at cow). However, this is not a trick rally. The emphasis is on straight-forward navigation to give first time rallyers experience with many of the ideas used in TSD.

So what do I need? The minimum requirements are a road-registered car, a driver, a navigator, and a watch with seconds. A clipboard and a calculator will be very helpful! Because of this rally's focus on driving, a car with a low center of gravity and a performance suspension will be more fun to drive.

Wait, TSD, aren't those horribly slow and boring? Not this one! The speeds for the route are set to the maximum permissible by the rules with two exceptions. The average speed for gravel stretches has been lowered to protect people's paint and the average speed in one neighborhood with lots of kids was reduced. Otherwise, you're going to be going as fast as I can let you go! The course is full of blind 90 degree off camber turns, s-turns over significant elevation changes (think the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca), and tight hairpins. You'll have fun driving this one. Additionally, but the time you're driving the course, staying on speed, and trying to figure out the instructions, you'll have NO interest in going any faster!

So you mentioned gravel, are there any jumps? There are several places where becoming airborne is a certainty if you're traveling at full speed. Because of the sanctioning rules, the speed is reduced in these areas in the instructions. Let me repeat that you're going to be told exactly where you can get airborne if you don't slow down for safety reasons.

So you mentioned gravel, are there any chances for drifting? For safety reasons, the average speed on the gravel sections has been reduced to prevent accidents and to save people's paint. Remember that there are two ways to average a speed. You can maintain that speed exactly, or you can go as fast as the law allows to try to make up time (if you're behind) and then slow down later to get back on-time.

So is this going to be good driving or not? Well, I think so, and several members of Central Ohio Subarus have driven this route a number of times and have loved it. One was even inspired to give up street racing!