Bulletin 2 (January 24, 2023)

Final Results

Thanks for taking part. Odd that there were 44 entries but only 21 submitted answers!?

Difficulty must have been about right with at least one competitor cleaning each leg.

Congratulations to the top 3: Keith Cunningham, Andrew Green and Steve Barber, who will each receive an appropriate,  bespoke and practical prize.

David Stone too, as a complete newbie who did extremely well.

"Crow"
January 24, 2023

Bulletin 1 (November 30, 2022)

Relevant Rally Round Game Rules

These are provided to help with the Route Check answers required in Legs 16-20.

Each road "square" or hidden track (HT - dotted red line) is deemed to be 1/6th of a mile. So travelling 6 squares is equivalent to a mile.

Each game move is the equivalent of 1 minute of rally time.

The standard rules of the game are a maximum starting speed, acceleration and deceleration of 10mph. You move one square for each 10mph.

So, after starting at a speed of 10mph, you may accelerate to 20mph, then 30mph ... 100mph (the maximum). At any time you can declerate from, say, 100mph to 90mph, then 80mph etc.

So for a sequence of speeds such as 10, 20, 30, 40, 30 , 20, 20 10, you would have travelled (1+2+3+4+3+2++2+1) = 18 squares i.e. 18/6 = 3 miles in 8 moves/minutes.

To visit (stop at) a pre-defined control or a Give Way, a move must finish on the control square or Give Way square. A new starting speed is then required for the next move.

HOWEVER, when a section is declared as a Stage Rally or Selective you are allowed to beat the target time without incurring a time penalty. For your last move you may "overshoot" the control. For example: if you are 3 squares from a Time Control and currently travelling at 40 mph you should now accelerate by the maximum possible mph. Suppose your chosen speed was 60 mph (travel 6 squares). You only need 3 squares to land on the control square, so that the "time" taken is 3/6 minute i.e. 30 seconds. Fractional seconds are rounded up, so 7/8 minute = 53 seconds.

If you finish a move on a ford (wavy lines on a road, not a HT), you must miss a number of turns (wait a number of minutes) equal to your speed/10. There are no speed restrictions through a ford.

When calculating times for Legs 16-20 you are not allowed to finish a move on a hazard square(!).

There are speed limits over certain map features based upon road colour:

In a real game there are penalties/rules for exceeding speed limits or not stopping at controls/Give Ways, but in the Route Checks you need to answer assume none of these are breached.

The constraints of Quiet Zones and Give Ways are ignored on Special Stage sections.

Single and Double arrows represent different levels of Gradients. When finishing a move on these squares a player must move either 1 square (single gradient) or 2 squares (double gradient) in the direction of the arrow. The additional movement does not alter the player's chosen speed for the turn.

During each block of 5 legs (1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20) no square is used more than once.

Regulations amended as:

4a. Penalties (Plotting Rallies)

Not attempting and the maximum penalty - 300 marks/seconds.

For each PC incorrectly visited (missed, incorrect approach or departure) - 60 marks/seconds.

For each TC incorrectly visited (missed, incorrect approach or departure) - 120 marks/seconds.

For incorrect Route check answers - see Route Card.

"Crow"
November 30, 2022