TABLETOP RALLY 2

Philip and Rosemary Bayne-Powell organised this second Table Top rally for us in conjunction with the Inter Register Club (IRC) to which the MG Car Club is affiliated. Things had been pretty inactive for the past months, so another Table Top rally was felt ready to keep people interested.

We had nearly as good a turnout this time round as last time, with 29 entries (32 last time), with many teams returning for a second stab.

We had six MG virtual entries, as did the Austins, while the Rileys fielded seven entries, and won the team prize.

As before, the entries were broken down into Novices and Experts, who were anyone who had come in the top three in any previous rallies. We had more Experts this time (18 No.), some of whom had been promoted from the ranks of the novices, after having done well last time. 

The set up was the same as last time, with the clues being given out at 10am for the novices, and 30 minutes later for the experts, with a finish time of 12.30, thus giving the novices half an hour more that the experts to produce the answers. These were e-mailed back to the organisers, with a one point penalty for being every minute late, just like the real thing. The Novices were given help to locate the starting points, while the Experts had to do some map hunting, to find such things as a terminus near a viewpoint, or where two railways cross. 

The 15 section instructions started off easily using spot heights, grid crossings (both numbered and compass directions). Coloured roads and road numbers were also used, as well as compass turnings at junctions. 

The later sections left the roads and followed the course of a river, boundary line and an electrical power line to add interest and to give the experts a challenge, which didn’t seem to faze them, as the scores came in much higher than last time, with over half getting more than 100 points (only eight managed it last time); either the instructions were easier, or the entrants had got the measure of the organisers!! 

As the Autumn Gathering had been brought forward and thus clashed with the Table Top rally, we gave people the opportunity to tackle the TT rally in the preceding days, and thus could join the others in the final scores. This might be something we offer another time. 

The scores were much better this time with three people over 130 points; the winners with 138 points were two girls living in Italy! They were related to family members also taking part. The MG Car Club team did well to come second (out of 6 teams) to the Rileys, largely helped by Bob Blackstock (M-type), David de Saxe (MGA) and Jeremy Bayne-Powell (Midget). 

If the lockdown continues to restrict real events, we may instigate another TT rally, which many entrants have asked for. Meanwhile we have a real scatter rally coming up on Sunday 4th October which we hope will entice people out with their MGs.

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