The Chesapeake Challenge Gimmick Rally held on Oct. 23, 2022, was the Tour & Rally Committee’s 10th event this year. It was held at Kurtz’s Beach in Maryland's Anne Arundel County.

Those participating in this event had 8 general objectives: (1) Follow the route, as instructed; (2) take note of certain details along the way; (3) carry out some tasks; (4) answer questions; (5) submit the completed main questionnaire at the finish line; (6) finish in exactly 120 minutes after the car’s starting time; (7) answer a second but much shorter bonus questionnaire in 30 seconds or less at the finish line; and (8) have fun doing all of the above.

Over the years, we have made it a point to make each of our rallies totally different from each other. So this year’s competition was another unconventional offering from us.

At the outset, I invited several people to contribute to the rally preparations. One of the Chesapeake Region's guest tour masters, Hank L, proposed a route. My former Tour & Rally co-chair, Randy M, and I road-tested it. We found Hank’s route great for a tour but not well suited for a gimmick rally, plus it covered roughly the same ground as our CC49 rally in 2018. So Randy suggested holding a rally with gimmick destinations but no designated route. It was a brilliant idea. So I immediately decided to adopt it. But I knew that it had to be kept a secret until the start of the rally.

My Tour & Rally co-chair, Rich E, and I then visited several potential gimmick locations that he and I had nominated, along with several suggested by Hank. All were interesting, but most were too far, too difficult to access, too hard to depart from, or not viable within the rally’s limited timeframe.

In the end, I chose one nominated location each from Rich and Hank, and dropped all of my initial candidates. I then looked for and found four new gimmick destinations, raising the final total to six.

To prepare for his photo shoot of the rally activities, Jim M joined me during my third and final reconnaissance drive around the county. I then put together all the gimmick questions and the tasks for each location.

The day before the Gimmick Rally, I sent the General Instructions via e-mail to the 58 participating drivers and navigators in 29 Porsches. The General Instructions spelled out the rally’s ground rules.

I explained the GI’s main points at the drivers’ meeting on the day of the rally. I told everyone that the cars would be launched in one-minute intervals, and that each team would be given the Route Instructions and the Main Gimmick Questionnaire one minute before getting the go-signal from me. I also informed them that upon their return to Kurtz’s Beach, I would collect some information from them at the finish line and then hand them the Bonus Questionnaire. After 30 seconds, they were supposed to submit both the Main and the Bonus Questionnaires to me.

I assured the rally participants that the instructions might sound complicated, but that the gimmicks themselves were simple. I added that they needed to go through the rules’ complexity in order to reach the contest’s simplicity.

My fellow Tour & Rally co-chair, Rich E, was not able to attend the Chesapeake Challenge because of an important family event out of state. Stepping into the breach, Tech Co-Chair Jim E kindly agreed to help me hand out the Route Instructions and the Main Questionnaire at the starting gate, to one rally team at a time.

I had forewarned all the participants during the drivers’ meeting that the Main Questionnaire would contain not only gimmick questions but gimmick instructions, as well – essentially about what pictures to take with their mobile phones.

The Route Instructions were not at all what everyone expected. They were told only how to get out of the neighborhood and were then given their six gimmick destinations, in random order. The first surprise and the first gimmick of the afternoon was for them to create their own routes to those six destinations, on the fly. Their objectives were to come up with a route that took the least amount of time and entailed the least number of miles to cover. The second surprise was that they were supposed to send to me via selfie photos and text messages the answers to the gimmick questions

I had no idea how the participants would find the highly unconventional rally they found themselves involved in. Upon reaching the finish line, most of them told me they had fun and enjoyed the gimmicks. The positive feedback was very gratifying and was a bit of a surprise for me.

Rich and Kris T kindly volunteered to help me score the participants’ questionnaires (see photo). Their assistance was crucial and much appreciated. Without their awesome help, I wouldn’t have been able to come up with the results in time for the presentation of the awards after dinner, which we barely had time for.

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