Scatter Rally - January 10^th

he first Scatter Rally of 2001 kicked off from the Toad Rock Retreat, (thanks to Nick Furmidge), on January 10^th.  Due to start at 8pm, only 2 crews had turned up by 7.40!  Fortunately they started piling through the door just before 8 and a total of 7 crews took part.
Some of the more recent scatters have been cleaned by a number of crews so I tried to make this one a bit harder.  Navigation was mostly simple with more than 50% of the clues being straight grid references, but the map area covered was a bit bigger than usual.  The points went down to the bottom of map 188 and across to the right of Bewl Bridge Reservoir.  As there were points above and below the reservoir, which has a circumference of 12 miles, this meant that the crews had to decide whether to go around the reservoir clockwise or anti-clockwise. 
The most successful crews all opted for the clockwise route.  I'd taken what I believed to be the shortest route through all the points and had covered about 70 miles.  A perfect score is 75% of the clues correctly answered so it would be possible to clean this one with an average speed of just under 30mph.  I felt this would be just attainable by an experienced crew.  All 7 crews made it back to the Pub in the last 7 minutes with nobody incurring lateness penalties.
The winners managed to clean the course after having correctly visited 25 of the 32 plots.  This was the very experienced pairing of Doug Kingsley and Ben Greenfield.  Hot on their heels were Chin and Mark Dawson, Mark on the maps for a change.  Third place was taken by Mick Sullivan and Trevor Rogers.

Doug Kingsley/Ben Greenfield (B18) 240 points
Chin/Mark Dawson (7oaks)  210 points
Trevor Rogers/Mick Sullivan (7oaks) 180 points
Andy Elcomb/Viv Elcomb (7oaks) 165 points
Lynne Buddle/Clive Buddle (BPMC) 160 points
Gary Johns/Bill Coney (BPMC) 140 points
Mick Rose/Chris Rose (7oaks) 120 points

The number of entrants on Scatters seems to be dwindling in recent years.  I can't understand this and I'd like to encourage others to take part.  Scatters have to be one of the cheapest forms of motorsport at just £5 entry plus a few gallons of fuel.  You can compete in any type of car - the winners on this rally were driving a Peugeot 306 Diesel and the second placed crew were in a tatty old 1300 Astra Van (sorry Chin!).  The only equipment you need is an Ordnance Survey map and a Roamer.  Most of the roads used for these events are very tight and twisty single track roads.  Due to the time of year when they are held the roads are invariably greasy and wet.  This all adds up to some really great fun in any type of car.  I think Mark Dawson has already said this elsewhere in this Acorn, but if anybody would like to see what it is all about then come along to the next scatter and you can ride in the back with somebody else.

Ian Crocker

Back to February's Home Page