WELL DONE COLIN! Another gem. It brings back a lot of memories of
past rallies.
Back in college, this had to be '69 or '70, I was part of the Boston
branch of the Jamaica Plain Sports Car Club, which was heavily
populated with Northeastern University students.
Anyway, we were planning a night rally for a fall Saturday evening.
The course had been measured several times, instructions checked six
ways for Sunday, the printing was done, and we were ready.
Well, we thought were ready, until the final run through on Saturday
morning. There was this one minor little problem. One of our roads
was gone. Not just blocked. Totally gone, down to the earth itself,
replaced by backhoes, stacks of concrete pipes, and surely every metal
horse with the orange flashing lights in the possession of the DPW.
All flashing, mocking our plans.
Thankfully, I was not part of the team that somehow managed to rewrite
that section, and get it into print by the 7:00 PM start, but I wasn't
completely off the hook.
Al Ross and I were to man a checkpoint in front of a new development,
on a lightly populated road. We took up our positions after dark, and
the competitors began arriving, nearly on schedule. After about half
an hour of servicing our visitors, we suddenly heard two cars
accelerating toward our checkpoint, from opposite directions. These
were heavy American cars, not the MG's an such that we were expecting.
The drinkin' boys? Were we in deep s**t??
Then the blue lights came on. It was a raid! A neighbor 200 yards
down the street had noticed the extra traffic, seen our flashlights,
and assumed we were up to no good whatsoever. It seems that the
club's guiding lights, overburdened by the last minute rewrite, had
neglected to notify the local constabulary of our plans.
After a few minutes, we were able to sort things out, but their
investigation did foul up the times of several cars.
Thanks again, Colin. I hadn't thought about this for years.
Stu Brennan
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