Ryan,

I wanted to drop you a note about the NOWR to indicate how enjoyable it really was and to say thank you for organizing it.  The rally was very well thought out and was carried off perfectly.  I thought you mixed in just enough navigation with some very fine road selection.  The mirror tulips were very nicely done and had me convinced there were errors in the instructions.  (It turned out that it was a good thing I was following the route on my topos or the short excursion off route for missing the flipped tee would have cost us dearly.) There was also a sting in the tail of the event which I very much liked in that the navigation here required you to stay alert and, in fact, I think a lot of crews came undone in the final sections.  The combination of not really being able to work ahead in the road counting section along with the 'forced right' certainly made the end sections more exciting.  Just locking up the truck for the right onto Thunder Bridge Road, backing up 10 feet and starting up again made us .3 late into the control we could see was there.  I very much like it when the organizer makes the event just challenging enough to let the competitors make all the mistakes that are needed.  You certainly did that.

I know how much work and effort goes into making a rally happen and, when you add the extra 'wonder if anyone will come to support this' factor, it is nice to see it work out so well.  I was wondering how you would create an event with running in daylight and early evening on a beautiful winter day combined with some very challenging roads.  How would you manage the speeds to make it fun, but safe for everyone in the event and the public.  I was very pleased with how it all turned out.  I know Bryn and I had talked about how to run the event and some of those roads.  We had decided to stay well away from hitting a snowbank or pushing anywhere beyond a very safe comfort zone and take what penalties came our way.  (Our biggest penalties came from my very avoidable errors: timing error into A3 (.3E), timing stupidity into B1 (1E), timing brain fade into B4 (.6), not knowing the rules for route controls into B5 (.5E)and route self doubt in B9 (.6).) One of our penalties (B11-.6) came from challenging route following (road counting with close intersections), quick speeds, crossing over, onto then off, a busy road, and no recovery time before a control and all the other penalties came from simple odo differences and normal difficulty in using a curta into controls with 6 second windows.  Even running almost at the very end of the field saw us pass exactly one vehicle on the road (the pick up truck on a very challenging ET section leading to the route control) and one who found a ditch on the outside of the exit to a right clearly shown on the map section 10 (just south of 121).

Bryn and I had a great time.  Thank you once again.

Terry Epp