Miata Mailing List: July 1997, Message #111
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From: 	Bill Bowser <webowser@fuse.net>

Subject: Calif. or Bust - Chap. 7

Date: 	Wed, 2 Jul 1997 22:48:33 -0500



Hi Gang,



Are you paying attention?  There might be a quiz you know.



Installment seven:



Sun. June 29, 1997  



Sunday morning was bright and sunny when we checked out of the motel and

made our way to the Farm for 1.) the breakfast that was supposed to be

available (it wasn’t) 2.) to take a look at the score sheets for the

Rallye Santa Ynez (TSD rallye) 3.) to say so long to the new friends we

had met and 4.) to win one of the remaining door prizes.



It was rather disappointing to discover that there was no food or drinks

available at the site Sunday morning, but it was really disappointing to

discover that on the rallye score sheet they had posted that instead of

a one second error for our third leg we had scored a 49 min. 41 sec.

error.  Needless to say someone had screwed up big time and I wanted to

get to the bottom of it.



When the rallye-master showed up I confronted him and he pulled out the

score cards.  The scoring had been done using an Excel spreadsheet and

the person entering the data had made a one hour error on our leg three

arrive time.  (The times entered indicated that we had finished 5 min.

10 sec. before we started, so we had a 5 min. 10 sec. time for a 54 min.

51 sec. leg which gave us a 49 min. 41 sec. error.)   What a crock.  I

was thoroughly pissed.  As I had calculated our corrected time entitled

us to the sixth place trophy.



The guy from Moss who had entered the data was apologetic and

practically insisted that I accept a gift certificate as consolation,

but it would have been a lot more gratifying to collect a trophy at the

awards banquet.  (Our trophy is currently in the hands of someone who

didn’t win it and there is nothing that anyone is prepared to do about

it.)



We did get to say so long to some of our new friends and we did win a

door prize so the event did end on a good note.  I’d like to publicly

thank the many sponsors who provided door prizes and support for this

event.  I think it was appropriate that Bob Perry, a local club member

and business owner (Too Hot For It, I believe) who provided  a lot of

door prizes and the aircraft for the Sunday morning aerial photographs,

won the final door prize, a set of wheels (Ronal ?) and  Dunlop SP 8000

tires.



On the whole it was a pretty good event.  Ruth & I enjoyed ourselves in

California and would eagerly come again.  At about 11:00 we left the

Farm to get some food and fuel and head for the airport in Santa

Barbara, where Ruth was to board a plane at 1:30 p.m.



The trip home is in the next installment.



Regards,

Ruth, Bill Bowser & Drifter