Another 3200 miles, Overcrest Rally '22 trip report Options

[Optimusglen]

The trip has come and gone and as promised here is a trip report. It was, in a word, wonderful.

My report for last year's OC Rally is here if you're interested, it sets the stage a bit for my, my car, the rally, etc.

Of course, my build thread here with some updates and fixes before I left.


After the success of last year's OC Rally, I was excited to find out what they had in store for this year. It had all the ingredients of a great time: the spirit of adventure, a limited group size, non-snobbery of driver/vehicle selection, and time spent with friends old and new.

The location shifted north, and was now in early September to better avoid potential snow or cold weather. Our starting point: Challis Idaho.

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Just like last year, getting to the start was a battle of it's own. Sure, the car was "proven" now, 3400 miles to Utah was likely to work out most of the bugs, but there were some things I had done in the interim, and old cars are always a mystery it seems.

Now, my schedule the week before was a little hairy too. That Tuesday was my daughter's first day of kindergarten and I wasn't about to miss getting her off the bus. So Tuesday evening I hit the road. Destination: the middle of nowhere North Dakota.

[Optimusglen]

Friday, September 9th - Rally day 1

Another early morning, just as the previous year the day 1 drivers meeting was set before dawn, to coincide with the rising sun. It was brisk, and I had both of my sweatshirts on, a blanket over my shoulders, a winter hat, and some insulated gloves.

We met at an airport and had a runway dedicated to our group. As we waited for everyone to arrive most of us mulled around and caught up, talked about the drive in, shared stories, and drank coffee.

One particularly interesting story is of Cliff and his co-driver Erik. Cliff has a few interesting rides, a 914, a 911, and this Alfa Romeo Giulia Super to name a few. Early on in their trek to Idaho the windshield, being tempered instead of laminate, completely exploded. Their solution, a trip to Wal-Mart to buy a pair of motorcycle helmets.

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Now, you might be thinking that the air pressure might then push out the rear window as well, and you'd be right. To combat this, they used some straps, and if this doesn't make you giggle then you've got a pretty pure heart.

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These guys set the tone for the rally, just keep on. And together, we formed the broken window club.


Now, as you may have expected, the wildfire smoke kindof put a damper on the Day-1 rally plans. In what surely should have been a beautiful sunrise over a wonderful landscape turned out to be a gentle gradient of gray, slowly becoming brighter, but definitely not warmer.

We had the drivers meeting, cautioned people about the roads, expressed the sense of adventure as people were urged to make their own path. As previous OCRallys this isn't a point-to-point drive. There are some routes laid out on a map and people are encouraged to go at their own pace, not a follow the leader type drive.

I set out with a group, and quickly decided that with how cold and bundled up I was it was better for me to relax a bit, and I was happy to let the rest of the group move on ahead.

I stopped several times during that first stint for photos, some worked out well and others didn't. This spot was pretty solid.

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This one might not display right embedded into the thread.
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so here's a link to a larger size.
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My route was about 280 miles, which included the "out-and-back" section between points 3-4-5 on the map. There were a few other stops on the way, food, fuel, and hot springs mostly. There was also a "hero" gravel route and of course all of the unlisted offshoots.

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And finally the day 1 culmination was at the Warm Lake Lodge.

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Because of the nature of the rally, drivers and cars would trickle in over the course of a few hours. As people arrived we all shared our own personal war and victory stories, sights seen, and lessons learned.

Dinner this night was provided by Overcrest, but since my lodging was in MCCall, a cool hour away, I opted to leave before. I did not want to be freezing cold while driving through the mountains at night.