Bruce Gezon and Clyde Heckler Rallymastered a question-and-answer GTA rally for the SCCA Philadelphia Region on July 23rd. Bob Morseburg served as the RoadRally Safety Steward. The rally ran in the Kutztown, PA, and Berks County area with a “hex sign” theme. The area is known to have many farms where the barns feature several hex signs. The rally was initially supposed to run in the fall of 2022, the week after Detroit Region’s Hell and Back (which went to Hell, Michigan); however, some medical issues forced its postponement, and it was re-scheduled for July 2023.
Jim and Rose Wakemen, with one question wrong, eked out a win over Peter and Joanne Schneider with two questions wrong.
Both teams missed the question, “Do you see “The County Seat?” Looking closely at the picture above, you’ll notice that the sign reads “The Country Seat.” The company made chairs. The question that proved to be the difference maker involved the onto rule, which applied to only named roads. The route had placed teams onto Route 143, and a later instruction was “Right on PA 143”, identified by the typical PA keystone state route sign. The question was, “Did the previous instruction keep you on your designated onto road?” The answer was no since the road name at that point was Willow St.
The rally also had a few other interesting features. One question was, “Do you see a fork in the road?” (see the picture). Another feature was the Berks Graffiti Bridge. When an artificial lake was created, a bridge was bypassed, which became attractive to the local graffiti artists. The question was, ‘Do you see “Graffiti”?’ As typical, the quotation marks indicated wording from a sign. Someone had painted “Berks Graffiti Bridge” on the road, but signs on the road surface were not to be used.
The finish was at a local brewery, and all seemed to have a good time.
Looks like a lot of fun.