Watching the launch of the 2030 Road Rally

Saturday morning, Linda and I got together downtown for a walk and to see what was we could of the launch of the 2030 Road Rally. I'd seen excerpts of various types of road rallies on television over the years. To have one here in town an opportunity not to be missed. The weather was great and we could peek in from time to time while taking our walk.

I should share my understanding of this type of rally. Participants were given directions, speeds, and timings for a course around central Iowa. The idea isn't to complete the course as quickly as possible, rather to follow the directions accurately.

When we arrived at the start, we were treated to examples of some of the more exotic cars I could think of. While high speed wouldn't be a major benefit in this road rally, there were some very sporty specimens. We saw a Ferrari Testarosa, Dodge Viper, some sort of Maserati, and several variants of Corvette. There were several less sporty entries as well. One of the more notable was a Land Rover made for the Dutch military. One of the distinctive details about this British product was the steering wheel on the left side. We got to walk around among the cars for a while and then see them "launched" at thirty second intervals to start the rally.

While we watched, it wasn't long and the first cars passed by us again. Evidently the course was laid out to show off the started cars. Soon, the leaders passed once more!

After we'd watched for a bit, we went back to the car and headed for my house so I could shower and change out of my walking clothes into something more appropriate. As we drove down the street, we soon found ourselves trailing a short string of rally cars. Fun! Since it was on our way, we turned where they turned. The string stopped at a light after one block so, of course, we stopped. A corvette with it's hood removed pulled up behind us and revved it's motor a time or two; it was time to get out of this line. They turned and we went on straight. While it was fun, we didn't really want to interfere.

After stopping by my house, we headed over to Linda's. Along they way, we saw a string of rally cars going the other way. About a minute later, another string! We kept our eyes open but didn't see them again the rest of the day.

It could be fun to participate in this event some time. Who knows, next year... could be on the blog!