six hundred miles

[totient]

Inspired somewhat by frotz, I want to put on an endurance rally in the late spring of 2006 or 2007. Start is in Gloucester, finish is in Provincetown, and the route goes through all six New England states. Run time is two days, with an overnight in the Berkshires. Hotel rooms, meals, and return to the start by chartered ferry are included in the registration fee. The rally will incorporate features of other New England rallies, so for example it will traverse the longest covered bridge in the US.

Tonight I sketched out a possible rough route for the rally. The original idea was that the route would be 500 miles long, but it's been obvious for a while that I can't pull that off. But looking at the roads, I think I can probably keep the total distance down to 600 miles or so, and not need a third day.

Comments

[muffyjo]

Sounds like a lot of logistics. You can call it the "You think you know New England?" rally.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

i am .... intruiged.

on the other hand

[wren13.livejournal.com]

I think you are insane - maybe if you wait until 2007 (and let yourself recover from Arisia '06 first...) After, that, sounds like fun!
Sorry if I'm sarcastic, right now driving for more than an hour is exhausting.

[hotpoint.livejournal.com]

Goodness -- the checkpoint crews will have their work cut out for them trying to go from checkpoint to checkpoint ahead of the drivers! Best of luck with staging it!

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

yeah, I'm not entirely sure what to do about that. Other endurance rallies use all run-work crews. Two lead cars and a sweep car; the lead cars take turns setting up controls and fixing signs, and the sweep car goes from one control to the next (taking shortcuts along the way) so that run-workers don't have to wait as long for stragglers. For the inexperienced crews, I can have them *and* an experienced car work the control, so they can learn by doing. And teams who get lost a lot won't have to work as often (or at all) since it's the first car into a control that works. But this all only works if I get no more than about half novices, and lately the number has been more like 3/4.

Maybe some of the novices will be scared off by the length. Or maybe some out-of-region folks can be attracted if I make it count for National points or something.