Ramada/Laughlin #2
After much deliberation, Kris and I finally signed up to work at the Laughlin/Ramada Express Rally. It was a bit of a hearbreak not to actually drive in the event, but we figured we’d show our support and go out there to help with timing controls. Kris had signed up as a hopeful stage captain, both of us already having experience working events both this year and last (and Kris with more experience from ice racing and such), but with one stage unfortunately canceled, and so many other experienced people, this was not what happened.
We did have a good time, meeting some people uninitiated to the sport of rally, and other long-time workers. We caught up with a bunch of people (too many to list them all here) when we got there Thursday night, and re-discovered the lack of alarm clocks (or clocks at all) in the hotel rooms. I know it’s a casino, so they want you to lose all sense of time - I’m just glad I had my watch.
I’ll post an extra story on rallynotes on “How I ended up codriving at Ramada” on rallynotes.
On Friday, we worked the start and then turn-around finish of one of the new stages, Cane Springs. We found out there was a buffet up the road a bit, put on by Scott and Carrie Fischer. Their home is new to them, the old house of Dom Laughlin, the guy who established the town. It’s a HUGE, ENOURMOUS Ranch house, from what we saw of it - we mainly stayed in the nice warm kitchen where the food and hot cocoa was - but that was apparently the maid’s quarters back in the day. It was extremely nice of them to A) Let the rally use their roads, B) That they invited us all in not only for food, but also C) as a spectator location. I think it was unfortunate that the last part wasn’t used as much as it could have been, but the potential was exciting. As explaination - the end of stage 1/start of stage 6 basically went around their corral, easily viewable from several spots, namely their back porch, and they’d invited us all to come by their house anyway! Hopefully this is something that will be continue to be utilized in the future of this rally. We ended the day driving behind sweep down stage 6.
Saturday was an even earlier day, out to the Hualapai Nation down Route 66. I’m almost mad that we made this same portion of Route 66 a required drive for our initial move out west, since it is a place we’ve traversed many times now. How could we have known though? Well, this time it was start of stage 10 and finish 13, Black Canyon. This is apparently a very well-known stage, which has been snow and ice-covered in the past. It was pretty cold out there (happily I had brought my ski gear and layered), but NOT snowy. We lucked out with nice, sunny weather all weekend. The worst part of the day was an unfortunate “I have to go to the bathroom outdoors, but I’m a girl” incident, but again we had a good time. My hands were near frozen after writing all the stage times on the cards (since we had spent the previous evening timing in the car), but again it was great seeing everyone.
Sunday, got to “sleep in” a bit. Ended up codriving - see entry on rallynotes. Got back after both Kris and I almost falling asleep at the wheel (on seperate instances, and no, it was not dangerous, we were both able to find a convinient rest area to switch at). Then it was time to unpack and start re-packing for our Christmas vacation trip back East.
