GBES Navigational Rally 2006
This was our first rally of any kind, ever. We were planning to ask some questions and get some practice at the scheduled “rally school” on Friday afternoon, but things were running so far behind schedule that it was cancelled. And so our first rally experience started with us being sent off into the night, with scarcely any idea of what we were doing…
After driving the wrong way up sandy washes, down to dead-end fenced roads, driving up to checkpoints from the wrong direction, etc., things slowly began to click. We finished the night course with only about ten minutes(?) before we would have timed out.
The day rally on Saturday was a little better, although we took a massive detour and backtracked several times when we were halted by a private road sign and weren’t certain that the offshoot trail wouldn’t also be trespassing.
Confusion reigned for some time after that, but then we were off and running and did relatively well until the end of the rally when we made a wrong turn to get back to the finish line at rally headquarters. In the end, we placed 9th overall, which was far better than we deserved!
Great fun, despite the chaos and confusion…