February 4, 2025
On behalf of Neohio Region, SCCA, I would like to thank everyone for participating in last weekend’s Ohio Winter Rally. After a few years of unusually warm and dry winters, 2025 has reminded us of what can happen when there is a large expanse of open water on Lake Erie, and a cold northwest wind makes a visit. There’s a reason we call the northeast corner of Ohio the Lake Erie “Snowbelt”. A small, but enthusiastic, field of competitors turned out to drive around the backroads of Geauga, Ashtabula and surrounding counties.
Special thanks go to the following individuals who worked behind the scenes to make sure the rally was successful:
Seasoned OWR rallymaster Ken Swarm helped with course layout.
Bill Stewart did yeoman duty by performing the official course precheck (probably the most thankless, yet most important rally organizational task!), and running sweep during the rally. He also donated several door prizes.
OWR has enjoyed support from the local amateur radio community for many years, thanks in part to the efforts of longtime rallymaster Tom Kimball, KA8BZB, who passed away in early 2022. Pat Karl, N8ONI and David Andrzejewski, AD8G, drew up an “Incident Action Plan” (IAP), and
set up an amateur radio communications net across the entire course. “Hams” also helped with course opening and sweep duties. It’s a luxury for a rallymaster to have live progress reports from on-the-ground observers. Informal activations such as this serve as excellent training grounds for amateur radio deployments during real emergencies.
Ohio Winter Rally Official Results Summary
Ohio Winter Rally Final Leg-by-Leg Scores
If you are curious where the rally ran, here is a link to a Google Map of the course:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1hFU9HnPm_C475FIKsKYADHXoO1Sf6KQ&usp=sharing
A gallery of photos from yesterday’s rally can be accessed here:
We hope to see everyone who participated at OWR back at other Neohio events throughout the year.
Regards,
Greg Lester, AA8XN
Neohio Region, SCCA