Raindrop Rally 2002

A relaxing Sunday TSD Touring Rally run entirely on paved roads.

This year we be started in the Tacoma/Fircrest area and heading across the Tacoma Narrows to the Kitsap Peninsula.  We visited exotic locales such as Purdy, Dewatto, Gig Harbor, and Belfair State Park. 

Date: Sunday, April 28, 2002

Rallymaster: Steve Willey, 206-240-4882

Start Location: Tacoma Community College Park-N-Ride.

Rallymaster's Comments: 

The start was at the Tacoma Community College Transit Center Park-N-Ride, chosen primarily for it's immediate proximity to a pancake house. The Odometer Transit took the rallyists over the Tacoma Narrows and on the Kitsap Peninsula ending in Gig Harbor. From there, alternating sections of TSD and Transit consumed the competitors next two hours culminating in a mid-day stop at Belfair State Park. After this short break, we headed into the Mason County portion of the peninsula for both fast and slow paced rally competition. The rally ended in Port Orchard at the Godfather's Pizza.

As a novice rallymaster I had no idea of what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised how smoothly everything went. Much of the credit for this goes to the workers who knew what to do and didn't need much from me. Rainier Auto Sports Club has been putting on Raindrop Rally for twenty years and other events like it for longer.

Raindrop 2002 built from previous Raindrop rallies (1990 and 1995) that visited the Kitsap Peninsula. The three state parks, the very popular Dewatto Monte (rally transit zone), and other portions are all borrowed from previous events.

I'd like to thank the workers who made this year's Raindrop Rally a very successful and enjoyable event: Gretchen Jones took on the Registration chores with a minimum of fuss (she knew vastly more about the methods and operation than I'll ever learn). Eric Horst helped with details, and dragged his parents out to work checkpoints, as well as his own. Pete Shelton and Amy Wolf spent a lot of quality time with the raw wood that became pretty decent trophies- 24 of them!

Mark Nolte gave me his notes from the 1990 and 1995 Raindrops, which made layout easier, plus some guidance on how it should work. Dave Smith volunteered to do checkpoints; practice for the Alcan in August. Kim Prater and Mike Gervais rounded out a proper number of crews for a 4 hour rally.

Special thanks to RASC president Mike Jones, who kept me inspired to keep to schedule, then found a few errors on the checkout that made the rally you ran go smoothly.

I hope to see you all on down the road, whether it's as sunny as this Raindrop was or more in keeping with it's name.

Pictures:

Dan Comden's pictures (uh, thanks Dan, I think :)
Kim Prater's pictures (includes some taken on one of the checkout trips)
Some pictures Steve took along the way

Results Summary:

Detailed results