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oldSTAGER - April/May 2003 |
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All road rally navigators are aware of the devious methods that route planners
invent to trick them into making a mistake. Many will have cursed their
inexperience when solving a route card, culminating in precious seconds or
minutes dropped, or even worse, a control missed. Practice does aid navigational
perfection, but the cost of and opportunity to compete on road events can be
prohibitive. ''There is a cheaper way to be exposed to the cunning of rally organisers," says Ray Crowther (a.k.a "Crow"), who runs the Table-Top Rallying website. As well as organising and regularly competing on road rallies for the last thirty years, Ray has also been the chief promoter of table-top rallying in the UK. A postal table-top rally championship ran continuously from 1987 to 2001, attracting a dedicated group of "home plotters" (general map enthusiasts and retired navigators) and current road rally competitors. Then, an unfortunate coincidence of retiring organisers led to the championship being cancelled for the last two years. Only one of original events - the Cultivator - still runs each year, but this has been insufficient to satisfy the appetites of the table-top enthusiasts. This year the championship has been resurrected as an Internet based series of four events. "We ran some Internet table-tops in 1998 and 2000 and they were enthusiastically received, but poorly supported," Ray said. "However, then, Internet access was still a rarity. This year I am expecting a bumper entry from the UK devotees and from several overseas motoring organisations that have been invited to enter for the first time." So how does an Internet table-top rally work? On a set date, twelve route cards are published on the Internet. Once a route card has been plotted there are ten questions to answer to verify that the correct route has been chosen, and these are sent to the organiser by completing an Internet form. Competitors have a month to submit their answers. The two worst scores are dropped, so there is a maximum of 100 points available. The types of navigation reflect those that would be found on a conventional road rally - tulips, map reference, herringbones, diagrams and puzzles of various kinds - although they do tend to be more thought provoking since you have days rather than minutes to solve them. As answers arrive, an up-to-date scoreboard is published on the table-top website, and once the event has finished, the solutions, competitors' comments and a full results analysis is posted. For the 2003 Championship there are four qualifying events running during the months of April, June, August and October. Awards will be presented for each round and overall championship positions - the best three scores counting. Two OS maps - 85 and 165 - are required, and the entry fee for all four events is a modest £12, although for this inaugural championship, non-UK residents can enter for free. Full details, including a wealth of statistics and sample route cards from previous events, are available at http://table-top-rallying.org.uk. |
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