Advice for New Rallyemasters

Are you considering writing a gimmick rallye? Congratulations!

And welcome! TRC needs new rallyemasters.

Writing the Rallye

Get Help

If you're writing a TRC rallye, then don't go it alone! Other TRC members will help you with details like:

• printing
• registering rallyists at the start
• awards
• participation plaques (refrigerator magnets)
• tools and expertise for posting CMs (if necessary)
• recruiting precheckers and checkpoint workers

We can also help by matching you up with a more experienced mentor, who can help, guide, and encourage you. As a new rallyemaster, you should look for a mentor whose rallyes you enjoy, and whose critiques you understand and agree with.

As soon as you are considering writing a rallye, please contact any of the TRC board members, or drop by one of our business meetings (usually the third Tuesday of the month, but check our calendar to be sure).

Please join the TRC-RM list. However, there are a lot of rallyemasters on this list who will want to enter your rallye, so you shouldn't ask "spoiler" questions on this list. Save those for your mentor, or for your precheckers.

Be Patient

If possible, wait until you have a fair bit of experience as a rallyist before you try writing a rallye yourself. You should be able to understand all the gimmicks described in the critique for someone else's rallye before you try to be a rallyemaster for a similar rallye.

Some find it easier to start by "rethrowing" an old rallye. That is, take an existing rallye and change the theme and other "chrome" as necessary, rather than write your own rallye from scratch.

If you do not have the support of a local rallye club, then study whatever sample rallyes you can find (e.g., on the web). Use them as a source of gimmick ideas, and as an example of what the general instructions (GIs) should look like, about how scoring should work, etc.

Choosing a Neighborhood

Not all neighborhoods are created equal. Don't sabotage yourself by placing your rallye in a difficult neighborhood.

For a coursemarker rallye, pay attention to the available poles. Some neighborhoods have only concrete poles, which make it difficult to post coursemarkers. Some neighborhoods have few usable poles, either because there are few poles to begin with, or because trees/shrubs obscure motorists' view of anything signs posted on the poles.

It is best to avoid neighborhoods with heavy traffic on Saturday nights, or with narrow streets that make U-turns difficult. If your rallye will be on a holiday weekend, then consider how the holiday traffic might be different from normal Saturday night traffic. Make sure the neighborhood is well lit. (Yellow street lights can cause rallyists problems, even though the streets appear well lit.)

Don't fall in love with a neighborhood with street names that fit the theme of your rallye. Make sure it is otherwise a good rallye neighborhood before using it.

Route Instructions

The route instructions (RIs) should get people from the start to the finish if they ignore the misspellings and gimmicks and just follow them as though they were written by a well-intentioned person who is bad at giving directions. You shouldn't need emergency envelopes or other tricks to get lost rallyists back on course. They should be able to follow the RI course (AKA "the turkey route") and make it to the finish.

Special Instructions

All rallyemasters need to be able to give ungimmicked instructions to rallyists. We do this with Special Instructions (SIs). There are never any gimmicks on SIs. Don't even think about gimmicks on SIs. Don't let rallyists even think about gimmicks on SIs.

Prechecking

It's better for problems to be found by your precheckers than by your rallyists. If a prechecker disagrees with your interpretation of a gimmick, then either drop the gimmick or fix the wording so your prechecker is happy.

After making changes, precheck it again to make sure you haven't broken something else.

Often, it helps to have precheckers with styles that differ from yours. They will bring a different point of view to the precheck, and will catch problems that you wouldn't have noticed. Likewise, it also helps to have precheckers with different experience levels (e.g., Novices and Master Experts).

Keep It Simple

Apply the KISS principle. Or, as experienced Cub Scout leaders say, Keep It Simple, Make It Fun (KISMIF).

It's better to make a gimmick a bit more obvious and have more people figure it out, than to leave it ambiguous and have more people protest it (or just be disgruntled). Remember, you're trying to help the rallyists have fun, not to thwart them at every turn. There should be plenty of easy and moderate gimmicks, and just a few hard gimmicks.

If you don't have the support of a local rallye club, then keep it extremely simple. If you're doing this on your own, then none of the rallyists will have much experience either. (If they do, then they should be writing the rallye, or at least helping you.) Complex gimmicks will go over everyone's heads. Besides, you'll probably have less help with the basic logistics of the rallye.

Rallye Length

OK, I have a draft rallye. Is it about the right length? Rules of thumb follow.

Coursemarker Rallye

• Limit yourself to two "alphabets" of CMs (i.e., use 52 CMs max)
• Use about 28-35 good CMs (full-credit and partial-credit).
• 20 to 35 RIs are typical, but this count is no proof the length is right.

Driving the entire route to "read" every CM pole (both the good and the bad CMs) will take about as long as actually running the rallye. If this drive is too long, then the rallye is too long.

A–B or multi-style Rallye

• 50 RIs is usually about right for an A–B rallye.
• For a multi-style rallye, start with the above guideline for A–B rallyes, but convert 10 RIs into 10 CMs or 10 Questions. An A–B, CM, Q–A rallye might have about 30 RIs, 10 CMs, and 10 Questions.

Complaints about TRC rallyes being too short are extremely rare. Complaints about TRC rallyes being too long are common, and we usually have a rallye or two a year where we need to extend the closing time at the finish. When in doubt, it's better for a rallye to be too short than too long.

At the Rallye

Protests

There are no perfect rallyemasters. There are no perfect precheckers. Therefore, there are no perfect rallyes.

Expect protests, and don't take them personally. Carefully consider the point being made in each protest. If a gimmick is truly broken, then you should grant it for all cars. If the protest describes an alternate interpretation of the instructions that is as reasonable as your intended interpretation, then consider granting credit for that car, and possibly for all cars with the same answers.

TRC's competition director (or someone designated by her) will organize the protest committee and assure that protests are handled according to the TRC Gimmick Rallye Protest Policy.

After the Rallye

A rallyemaster's job isn't over when the rallye is done.

Accept Criticism

Shortly after the rallye, read any written comments on the evaluation forms, and reread the protests. Write yourself a few notes about things that went well in the rallye, and things that you should have done differently.

Remove Coursemarkers

If you used coursemarkers (or other rallye-erected signs), then take them down promptly. Many experienced rallymasters schedule a couple hours the day after the rallye to take them down. They come down more quickly than they go up, so just get it over with. Never leave them up longer than a week.

Post Results

Send email with a summary of the results to the TRC-Talk list, to TRC's webmaster, and to the email addresses provided by any rallyists. Use the bcc feature for the rallyists' email addresses, to prevent the unlikely abuse of rallyists' email address by other rallyists.

If you are scoring your rallye by hand, then you can use a previous rallye's results as a template. If you are using the computerized scoring system, then it will generate results automatically.

In general, it's best not to rescore your rallye. Just post the same results you announced at the finish.

Concluding Report

Come to the next business meeting to give a report on your rallye (during the "previous events" section of the meeting). This is a good time to share any lessons you learned, as well as general comments about how the rallye went.