MCNJ Results 2007

One Lane Bridge
June 24, 2007
Michael & Pepi Brooks - Rallyemasters,  John & Marge Groot - Advisors
Rallye Epilogue by Michael Brooks

One Lane Bridge — Epilog
Click on images in the write-up to expand

Back to the Pictures and Results - click here

 One Lane Bridge, the first rallye written by Michael & Pepi Brooks (with the help of rallye advisor John Groot), was a challenging event of about 100 miles over some great roads that twisted their way through forest and along creeks and rivers. There were 13 questions, nine photo clues and 15 traps. Fifteen cars participated on a spectacular June day; there were six experts, five intermediates and four novices.  

The rallye started at the Harding Rest Area located along the northbound lanes of Route I-287 and ended at the Clinton Station Diner just north & east of exit 13 on Route 78. The first trap depended on the rule that unpaved roads do not exist unless the factor that makes them non-existent is specifically overridden by the route instructions. After the route instructions placed participants on Treetop Road (unpaved), the cars reached Tall Pines Lane which was a paved right turn off of unpaved Treetop. The correct move was to leave the unpaved road and make the automatic right turn on paved Tall Pines Lane, which turned out to be a cul-de-sac, but you couldn’t tell that from Treetop. Eleven cars did it right and met John Groot who signed their scorecards (those without John’s signature were penalized 200 points.)  During the driver’s meeting prior to the start, a question about this precise rule was asked and answered—if that question had not been asked, it is likely that many more cars would have fallen into that trap.   

The next big trap caught eight cars and cost them 500 points each, plus two wrong answers to questions. The key route instruction was: “Checkpoint #2 at RIP “DEER PATH”, then L”.  The checkpoint was at Deer Path Road where cars found a stop sign at what appeared to be a T; to the left was a road that went over some railroad tracks, to the right was a road marked with a dead end sign. Because dead end roads do not exist under the rules, the correct move was to make the forced left turn at Deer Path and continue to look for the next left. Cars who counted the forced left at Deer Path as the route instruction turn fell into the trap. For the next several route instructions (basically a series of left turns), all rallye cars were on the same roads until they reached the Stanton General Store, but cars that had fallen into the trap were always one instruction ahead. They turned left at the General Store and went on a six-mile loop, whereas cars on course turned right and avoided the loop. Everyone, however, had an equal chance at missing the question: What year was the Stanton General Store established?  The answer was printed in huge black letters on the side of the store (it was impossible to miss), but since it was on the left and SOL was not used, the correct answer was a question mark (“?”). Seven cars missed this one. 

At the end of this leg, cars were met at an Exxon Station (a pit stop prearranged in the route instructions) by the rallyemasters who handed out special instructions that allowed cars to bypass a one lane bridge that had just been closed for repairs.

The next big trap caught four cars and cost about 430 points. This was an instruction that required either a left at “RIVER RD” or a right at “STOP”, whichever came first. The first available turn was a left across a one-lane bridge on Kiceniuk Road, but observant rallyists noticed a hard-to-see River Road sign high up, very close to the road and parallel to the direction of travel. Off-course cars missed a loop and traveled about 4 miles less than they should.  

The next trap that caught several cars was the question: “What animal is pictured on RIP “HEAVEN’S GATE”?  The animal was a horse, but the sign actually read “Heaven’s Gait”.  Six cars missed that one.

Three cars were off-course on leg #6 because they forgot that an “onto” instruction is not cancelled until the execution of the first action of the next numbered instruction.  

Six cars identified the name of the covered bridge (the name was on a bronze plaque attached to a small stone monument) even though they shouldn’t have started looking for the name until after they passed the monument and therefore shouldn’t have seen it. Whoops!!!  25 points.
 

Leg #7 was filled with straight-ahead and onto traps. Rallyists who were really lost could open a sealed envelope and find a map of the correct route along with instructions at a cost of 500 points—but no one opened the envelope!  
Only two cars found a picture of a locomotive painted high up on a building on North Railroad Avenue in Stockton and only three cars found the almost impossible-to-see .....

Lambertville Iron Works sign on a bronze plaque attached to the top of an iron one-lane bridge. Leg #7 was also designed to test the confidence of participants in their route-following abilities. After several route instructions requiring right or left turns without revealing the road names, participants found themselves on a major road looking for a stop sign for about five miles. Given the low probability of finding a stop sign on such a road, especially after driving on it for so long, the idea was to encourage participants to conclude they missed a turn and go back to check. Only two cars got 500 points on this leg, but three others clearly went on off-course excursions.  

The last leg (Leg #8) was easy and only one car missed a straight-ahead trap. 

Most of the experts did extremely well on a difficult rallye. The top three finishers were within 8 points of each other with scores between 126 and 134—talk about a photo finish. The best intermediate finisher came in with 259 points and the best novice with over 1400.