October 31, 2025
by Ed Sain-South Jersey Region
Once upon a time (a couple of weeks ago), in a land far, far away (northeast Ohio), a gallant and heroic Jersey father and son rally team set out on their quest to conquer the 2025 United States Road Rally Challenge events. Their subsequent successful results will forever live in the annals of SCCA history and Jersey folklore. To read their fascinating story about this 1,400 mile journey, click here.
The first USRRC we participated in was in 2023 and jointly run by the Northern New Jersey and Philadelphia Regions. It was close to home and we decided to give it a try. It was a combination of tour and course events. We won the one tour event but not the two course events. Due to variety of reasons, we did not make the 2024 USRRC in Southern California. In preparing for the 2025 USRRC, serviced the family car with the 120,000 mile requirements (also worked on cleaning the faded acrylic headlight covers due to the potential night driving), loaded the car with the recommended safety items in the Road Rally Rules Handbook (and added air compressor, tool box, jumper cables, tie down straps—believing in the philosophy of better to have and not need than need and not have), and associated rally equipment (GPS odometer, clipboard, etc). A short 488 miles and eight and a half hours later, we get to the Comfort Inn rally headquarters in Canton.
Johnny Appleseed was a well run and really organized traditional tour event. The Rallymaster had a Zoom call in advance to answer any questions and provide information to the novices and first timers. I was extremely pleased the registration started at 11:00 AM and the FCO was 12:31. After a long day of driving yesterday, the ability to sleep in and have breakfast at a leisurely pace was certainly welcomed and well received by contestants that came from all over the country. Somehow, we ended up being car #1 for the event. [In the really, really old days before Richta, you wanted a car number between 6 and 10—the manned control might not be quite ready for the first few cars and after the first ten cars, locals might have a tendency to become upset on the use of their roads.]
The route instructions were great for the driver! The size of the font was easily readable from a central reader, had a tulip drawing for each instruction and contained an official mileage to each instruction. The Rallymaster helped the novices with elapsed times from restarts (and in hundredths of minutes rather than seconds). The event used “flying restarts” so you could set your own out time at the various restart points and compete at your own pace.
There was lots of gravel roads (can’t remember the last time I saw a gravel road in Jersey). A few of the uphill, washboard gravel roads were a bit of a challenge but not unreasonable. One competitor did complain about the lack of notice regarding unpaved roads, but apparently it is well known that Ohio events use gravel roads. [Everyone should prepare for the worst and expect the best in any event]. After seeing the dust kicked up while driving the dry unpaved roads, glad were in the front of the pack and not eating dust all day. Had a blast driving on the gravel!! The use of transit zones was very liberal. The general instructions also stated no controls would exist in areas where the CAS was an even number (28, 30, 32, etc)—which was a little different and we treated those CAS areas as additional transit zones.
The Rallymaster correctly pointed out the delays associated with the Algonquin Mill Festival—the event had a huge turnout with associated traffic and traffic control issues. However, the delays did not matter since at the end of that transit zone was another flying start at whatever time you wanted. Although the Rallymaster indicated the potential for disruption from logging operations, utility road work or Amish horse carriages—we never saw any of those issues during the day. The overall event results were posted promptly. Don’t recall any protests regarding timing or any errors. The event ended at the Comfort Inn in Marietta—also the start of the next day’s Milk Run event. We did manage to finish the event in daylight so never did use the night lighting setup.
Overall, the event was 175.343 miles in length and had 73 timed controls over 14 legs. The longest leg was 17.365 miles; the shortest leg was the very first one at only 1.868 miles. The event winners were Mark Stone/Marc Goldfarb in Class E with 18.9 points (which equates to an ungodly 0.3 seconds per control- every control under a second!), Satish Gopalkrishnan/Savera D’Souza in Class G with 28.7 points, Ed/Doug Sain in Class L with 160.6 points, Donn Arthurs/April Awrey in Class S with 249.6, and Charles Cowap/Charles Cowap VI in Class Novice with 819.4 points (driving a 1973 Triumph TR6).
Ohio Milk Run was another well run traditional tour event. Registration started a little earlier than the Appleseed rally with FCO at 10:01. No big deal since everyone running the USRCC was already on site and ready to go from yesterdays Appleseed rally. The route instructions were a nice sized, bold font in written instructions (no tulips today). There was a mileage to each instruction and the Rallymaster did provide some elapsed times for the novices.
This event also used “flying restarts” so you could set your own out time at the various restart points and compete at your own pace.
There were lots more gravel roads and it seemed the pace was brisker than it was yesterday. The use of transit zones was appropriate. The general instructions also stated no controls would exist in areas where the CAS was an even number (28, 30, 32, etc) for this event as well. The identification of timing controls in the route instructions was certainly helpful to the low scores achieved. The rest break at Miner’s Memorial Park was unusual. The main attraction is “Big Muskie’s Bucket” which is a 200 cubic yard, 240 ton drag bucket capable of lifting 325 tons of earth. It was in operation twenty four hours a day, 364 days a year between 1969 and 1991 to remove dirt covering high sulfur coal for the American Electric Power Company. As noted in the route instructions, I would certainly agree the rest room was primitive (really primitive). Unlike yesterday, we did come across several Amish horse and buggies on the road. (Although I associate the Amish community with those we come across on rallies in Lancaster County, PA.) The overall event results were again posted promptly. The event ended at the Comfort Inn in Copley for the overnight stay before heading into Cleveland for the Alley Rallye.
Overall, the event was 185 miles in length and had 50 timed controls over 15 legs. The longest leg was 17.944 miles; the shortest leg was 7.864 miles. The event winners were, Satish Gopalkrishnan/Savera D’Souza in Class G with 10.0 points (and they had a huge score of 1 second at one of the controls), R. Bruce Gezon/C. Robert Morseburg in Class E with 15.5 points, Ed/Doug Sain in Class L with 64.0 points, Merav/Jeremy Cronin in Class S with 222.1 points, and Joseph/Scott Harrington in Class Novice with 359.9 points.
Not sure how that happened but we beat the scores of three other equipped cars and two other GPS cars—must be the superior driving skills of Jersey drivers and the math skills of the navigator besting the computers!!
Cleveland Alley Rallye was a very unusual regional charity event that benefited “Slow Roll Cleveland”, a charity dedicated to community engagement thru weekly social bicycle rides. The event start was about 40 minutes from the hotel where the Ohio Milk Run finished. Fortunately, registration did not start until 11:00 AM with the first car start at 12:01 PM—lots of time in the morning to get to the start. The starting (and finshing) location was at Merwin’s Wharf, located at the Columbus Peninsula in the Ox Bow Bend of the Cuyahoga River. [I would note the GPS had a hard time finding the place] The general instructions provided for only one class with everyone using only their stock odometers and limiting calculating equipment to a four function calculator. [We ended up buying the last calculator in Best Buy for $9.99 plus tax the night before.] There was a special course following instruction to turn Right at T whenever that occurred. There were lots of T’s that had one way and no outlet signs as well. The Rallymaster provided the route instructions for the odometer check in advance. The odometer leg was 2.82 miles long (tough to tell with a digital reading tenths odometer- had to take the Rallymaster’s word on that) with 25 route instructions. The average speed was 13 MPH (with the exception of one “high speed” leg at 18 MPH) throughout the afternoon. [Note: The winner of the Boston Marathon ran the 26.2 mile race in 2 hours 4 minutes— or he ran the race faster than we drove!]. As it turned out, even at 13 MPH we had to take a time allowance on a missed alley turn that was blocked by a double parked truck—ended having to go around the block and enter the alley from the other direction—and of course with a fixed odometer, throws off all the mileages. Just one of the things you have to deal with on a rally!!
The rally was aptly named as we drove down lots and lots of alleys. There was one acute left that I was unable to make without jockeying the car back and forth a couple of times to get enough angle to make the turn. I thought it was humorous that a couple of alleys were so narrow that the pedestrian traffic had to literally step into doorways so we could get through. Apparently, some of the new cars proximity sensors went off due to the tight spacing to fixed alley walls.. We certainly enjoyed the scenery in some of the neighborhoods. I was really surprised at the lack of traffic in the city—thought there would be a lot more cars and traffic light issues. As we drove the route, some of the sights we got to see were (a) west bank of the flats, (b) Hingetown neighborhood, (c) Museum of Art’s Transformer Station, (d), Ohio city neighborhood, (e) west side market, (f) Tremont neighborhood, (g) steelyard neighborhood, (h) Cleveland thermal plant, (i) Jacobs pavilion concert venue, (j), soldiers and sailors monuments, (k) Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse-home of the NBA Cavaliers, (l) Gray’s armory (civil war militia), (m) Progressive Field-home of the MLB Guardians, (n) playhouse district , (o), Cleveland State University campus district, (p) the off site tailgating areas for the NFL Browns and Huntington Bank Field stadium, (q) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and (r )Great Lakes Science Center. The Rallymaster also provided a separate quiz sheet on the various items you would come across on the route.
Lot of stuff to see in an event that was only 26 miles long. There were 13 legs (all 1.14 to 3.13 miles in length) with a total of 16 timed controls. The overall winning score was 26 by Satish Gopalkrishnan/Savera D’Souza. We finished second with a score of 65. Third place was Bruce Gezon/Robert Morseburg with 229 (national champs in the equipped class that must have had a rough afternoon without the use of their computer). The event attracted 12 first timers (!!) and two novices with an event total of 35 participant teams. There were entries from 12 different states at the event. Great job in generating rally interest and participation!!
Cleveland Alley Rallye Results
Cleveland Alley Rallye Pictures
Due to the inclement weather forecast for the east coast, unfortunately we were not able to hang out and socialize in typical rally fashion. Covered the 489 miles to get home in seven hours, thirty three minutes (averaged 65 MPH). The 2025 USRCC winners were (in point total order): Satish Gopalkrishnan in Class GPS with 60 points; Edward and Doug Sain in Class Limited with 59 points; R. Bruce Gezon and C. Robert Morseberg in Class Equipped with 57 points; Greg and Thersa Wilkins in Class Stocked with 52 points. Additionally, the event also featured Charles Cowap and Charles Cowap VI as winners in a Novice Class with 32 points, [During the course of the three days, we did go through a half a bag of party size M&M peanuts—have to keep energy at a high level during rallies!] Thanks to Peter Schnieder (Area 1 Director) and Chris Robbins (SCCA Road Rally) for running as sweep car in the events. The 2026 USRCC is currently scheduled for the same Columbus Day weekend in the St Louis Region—hope to see you there!! Perhaps as a result of driving on Ohio gravel roads, two days after coming back, the windshield cracked and had to be replaced.
