..The first NEOKLA Region’s RoadRally of the 2006 season is now history, and it was a very good vintage. This was the second year for the Vintage Spring at Hallett GTA (Game/Touring/Adventure, aka gimmick) RoadRally. The date fell on April Fool’s Day (what could be more appropriate for a rally?) this year but I’m not aware of any pranks associated with the rally, unless Ken Frake’s encounter with a small town’s version of Barney Fife might qualify. It seems that the peace officer wanted to hassle Ken over his vanity plates and neat looking 350 Z. The rallymaster kept the shiny-side up on his wheels this year. The weather was great. Hallett Motor Racing Circuit was loaded with vintage sports cars doing their thing on the track. Everybody found the checkpoint at the track entrance.

..There were two starting locations this year, one in Oklahoma City and one in Tulsa. Jim Duea of the Oklahoma Region started 4 cars from Glass Auto Works in north Oklahoma City while 12 cars started from the traditional IKON 71st and Riverside location. Each group followed a nearly 100 mile route for about 2 hours to arrive at HMRC for an afternoon of enjoying the Corinthian Vintage races. The rally was scored on a variation of the Average Joe scheme pioneered by our RoadRally Chair Gary Deaton. This time the average speed was used. The entrant with an average speed closest to the average of the field’s average speeds scores the best. To their embarrassment, Gary and Robin Deaton somehow scored the best, only 0.031 mph off of the field’s average speed of 47.0021 mph. The full results are below.

..We have a new points and award scheme for this year’s rally season. Entrants are classified as Tyro (novice), Rallyist or Experienced. The intent is to place emphasis on the Tyro participants. The Experienced Deaton’s win put some pressure on this scheme at the awards presentation, but since they had left before the awards, we gave their Best Tulsa Starter award of wine from the Drumright Oklahoma Tidal School Vineyards to the second place overall and first place Tyro team of Phil and Shelia Dooley of the Austin Healey Club. The other wine award for the Best Oklahoma City Starter, fourth overall and second place in Tyro went to Karl and Deborah Bergman in a 200SX. Third overall went to the Experienced team of J. Malcolm and Barbara Joyce in their Toyota Tocoma from Bartlesville. Fifth overall and taking the third place Tyro award of magnetic plaques was Eric and Haley Oyler team in a 350Z.

Midwest Divisional RoadRally Series

Meet in the Middle
March 11, 2006

The first of the 2006 MiDiv Divisional RoadRally Series rallies was the Meet in the Middle Regional Touring TSD Rally put on by the Kansas Region on March 11. Rich Bireta and Albert Weaver collaborated on an excellent rally with starting points in both Topeka and Wichita, with the last 4 of 6 legs being in common and ending near Emporia. 8 Teams started from Wichita and 17 from Topeka for a total entry of 25. The Bob Strattan / Ken Olinger team represented NEOKLA, but they ran into a buzz saw of good rallyists. They managed to eke out a 7th overall and 1st in Stock Class with Ken’s Curta calculator spinning like mad. Besides being beaten by the only entries in Equipped and Limited Class, they were beaten by 4 in Novice Class.

Road Dog
March 18, 2006

The next MiDiv Series rally was the Road Dog Regional Touring TSD Rally by the Wichita Region on the following Saturday. You can read the rallymasters tale of woes in the Witches’ Wail online at wichitascca.org, but the bottom line is that it was won by the pros from the northeast of the Jayhawker state with only 4 entries. No one from NEOKLA made the trip.

NEOKLA Region RoadRally Series

We have changes to the points system for our Regional RoadRally Series this year. Entrants will be classified as Tyro (novice), Rallyist or Experienced based on their level of accomplishment. We have the old-timers classed as Experienced, and almost everyone else will start out in Tyro until they establish a winning record, when they will migrate to Rallyist. Points will be awarded based on overall finishing positions using the same scale as in previous years, but rankings will done within each class for year-end awards. We really want to get a lot Tyros involved and give them recognition for their participation. The April 1 rally was the first of 6 rallies scheduled for the series. The Five Tribes on June 10 is the next. The detailed series rules and updated points tallies will start appearing on web posting soon.

2005 RoadRally Results

The final results of the 2005 RoadRally Season are available

The route started near 71st and Riverside and finished about an hour and a quarter later near 71st and Trenton. In between were tours of the 21st and Peoria area as well as 31st & Lewis and 36th to 41st along Utica. The last area visited was near 71st and Harvard where a display I call "the spiderweb" drew many comments.

The penalty time was based on the average time for the field of 1:19:45.

THE RESULTS

ENTRANTS

Ken Frakes/Lee Frakes

Mike LaForge/Micah Westbrook/et al

Bob Strattan/Ken Olinger/et al

Kevin Smith/Devinna Smith

George Walker/Carol Walker

David Rose/Jeanne Rose

Jason Peacock/Tonia Peacock/et al

1:17:57

1:17:30

1:16:35

1:16:16

1:16:12

1:26:40

1:27:06

1:48

2:15

3:10

3:29

3:33

6:55

7:21

November 2005 - by Bob Strattan

Ken Olinger and I wandered into the Ozark hills on October 29 to partake of the London to Paris TSD RoadRally. This is a somewhat annual traditional touring TSD rally put on by Lang Kirshberger and Keith Wheeler of the Arkansas Region. It is considered a home rally in the NEOkla Series as a way of encouraging participation. This year the date got moved on top of Wichita Region’s Witches Ryde rally which was the final event on the new MiDiv RoadRally Series calendar. To help smooth over the scheduling conflict, your rally board decided to count both of these rallys as home events for NEOkla points. Robin and Garry Deaton and Tonia and Jason Peacock headed to Wichita while Ken and I went the other direction. Gary will tell you about the happenings at the Witches Ryde. Ken and I had a much more pleasant drive through the colorful hills and valleys.

True to its name, the London to Paris starts at the city hall (perhaps town hall is more appropriate name) in London, AR and ends in Paris, AR. Some years they include a passage over Mt. Magazine, but not this year. We wandered over delightful twisty roads in both the White and Arkansas River valleys for nearly 200 miles. There were 6 checkpoints, only one of which was a DIYC (do it yourself control). One of the rest stops featured an authentic functional the-way-they-used-to-be Ozark Mountain outhouse. The Arkansas crew does a first class job of presenting this rally. Don’t miss a future version.

17 entries showed up for the event much to the surprise and pleasure of the organizers. There were only 5 entries at the previous running 2 years ago. Ken had his Curta calculator well oiled and did his best to keep me on time. We felt we did about as good a job as we could and it paid off with a first place. We had some tough competition, however. We were the only NEOkla entry, but another team from Tulsa was there in a beautifully restored Porsche 356-B. Hopefully we can entice them into SCCA. The voting for the neatest car went to a father-young son team in a slick TR-4 that also finished in fourth place. Demonstrating that any vehicle is a sports car sometimes, third place went to a team in a Silverado pick-up. The Rallymaster was driving a green Forest Service truck with a rifle in the back-window gun rack.

The results summary is:

Ten rally cars toured various historic alignments the “Mother Road”, Route 66, through the Tulsa Oklahoma metropolitan area on September 17. This was the third edition of the Route Sixty-six Ticks & Kicks touring TSD RoadRally. Previous editions have explored segments the Mother Road east and west of Tulsa. Besides being one of the NEOKLA Regional RoadRally Series events, the rally was included the SCCA’s MiDiv Regional RoadRally Championship series. The divisional competition helped to bring 3 of the entrants from neighboring Kansas. Our regional executive’s family swelled the entry with a mother-daughter and father-daughter family mini-series.

After leaving 41st & Garnett on an odometer calibration leg east of Tulsa, the rally route explored the twisty road past Redbud Valley to the first checkpoint and break at the entrance to the Port of Catoosa. The next leg (yes Heather, rallies have lots of legs, but no arms! Halley family joke) used SH 266 to get on Route 66 northeast of the port, then diverted to the original alignment on Cherokee through downtown Catoosa after passing the Blue Whale. After checkpoint 2 on 11th Street entering east Tulsa, the route then diverted to the pre-1933 alignment using the Mingo traffic circle and following Admiral toward downtown. Transit zones were used through urban Tulsa. The westbound transit zone ended on Southwest Blvd. after crossing the Arkansas River beside the 1916 bridge that carried the original Route 66. Following a do-it-yourself checkpoint in Howard Park, the rallyists found their way along the Southwest Blvd. original alignment to a checkpoint in the industrial park behind Frankhoma Pottery near Sapulpa. The route then turned eastbound on New Sapulpa road – modern and historic Route 66 - onto Interstates 44 and 244 and back onto Southwest Blvd. to follow the 11th Street transit zone route back through urban Tulsa to another DIYC at the Mingo and 11th storm-water park. The marathon final leg used the 11th Street alignment through the high density traffic at the Cherokee Casino intersection into Catoosa and then back to the end at 41st & Garnett via Tiger Switch. A slow train, roadside mowers and a hot-air balloon tangling in the power lines at the first break helped add to the excitement.

There was a liberal use of time allowances, with only a third of them being of any benefit and several actually hurting scores. After straightening out the rallymaster’s scoring difficulties, we arrived at the results. With Robin driving to Gary’s orders, the Deatons compiled a clear win with only 52 seconds of penalties over 6 controls. The experienced rally team of Albert Weaver and Rich Bireta from the Kansas City Region placed second with 145 points. Bruce (our MiDiv RoadRally DA) and Charlene Bettinger placed third with 281, edging out Judi and Keith Pfautz with 305 points. The Bettingers and Pfautzs are from Wichita Region. The remainder of the entrants was form Tulsa. The Mike-Heather team prevailed over the Mary Jane-Hannah team in the Halley Family Challenge.

Route 66 Ticks & Kicks Final Results

The team of Robin and Gary Deaton dominated over all others with less than a fifth of the penalty points of the second place team of Ken Frakes and Leon Bolen to win the 2005 version of the WARPATH REDUX TSD TOURING ROADRALLY. Although there were only five teams entered, three of the five teams managed to get at least one control into the single digit penalty point range, and second and third place was separated by only 6 points in the total making it a competitive event.

The event started and ended at the Whataburger on South Sheridan Road in Tulsa. It wandered through rural Jenks, Bixby, Leonard and Coweta communities and farm land before returning to the Whataburger, rallymaster Ken Olinger’s favorite morning coffee spot.
The team of Bob and Vada Strattan in their Toyota Prius hybrid-electric scored a 1 on the first of the 6 controls, but then faded fast with their only other single digit being a 3 on control 6, placing third with a total of 284. Bob’s calculator had a lose nut on the keyboard and their attempt at a time allowance to recover from a “pondering” delay on a tricky instruction in leg 4 wasn’t done with enough finesse to beat out the Frakes – Bolen Nissan 350Z mounted team’s total of 278. Frakes – Bolen managed a 6 on leg 3, and were never higher than a 101 on leg 2. The Deaton’s in their Ford Escort had a zero on leg 4, single digits on 4 controls, with their largest penalty of 27 being on leg 1, finishing with a total of only 53.

The team of Ron Fleming and Cindy Bolen in a Pantera battled the team of Trent Fowler and Mercedes Millberry in a classic Citroen DS21 for the fourth and fifth positions. Both had 4 maximums of 150 points per control, with the Fowler – Millberry team triumphing over the Fleming – Bolen team 689 to 700 for the final two places.
The rallymaster resurrected some really interesting roads and routes from his repertoire of many years of rally experience with the old Oil Capital Auto Club and the NEOKLA divisional rallies of bygone days. An equal dose of open controls and do-it-yourself controls provided a good mix of challenges while keeping the event on schedule with adequate rest breaks and few opportunities to get lost.

Warpath Redux Results

PEACOCKS EDGE BETTINGERS FOR FIVE TRIBES WIN

The team of Jason and Tonia Peacock edged out Bruce and Charlene Bettinger by three seconds to win the 2005 version of the FIVE TRIBES TOURING RALLY. Although here were only five teams entered, four of the five teams led the event at one time or another making it one of the most competitive events in a long time.

Read more and see results here