2014 Rally US-50

The GPMC was represented in Rally US-50, a rally/scavenger hunt to benefit the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis. Our entrants were Tim Baker (team name Miser Brothers) and Bill & ValJean Rossmann (team name Happy Campers.) A description of the rally follows these great photos and captions submitted by Tim.

: Tim’s Mustang and Bill & Val’s Corvette sit awaiting paced laps at Summit Point (WV) Raceway Park just prior to the driver’s meeting.

: Bill & Valjean accelerate through the turn at Summit Point during one of the lapping sessions.

: The best costume award for the rally went to new friend Jason Marlow, who had part of a very special guest in the back seat of his black Suburban. Having a good time is an important part of the rally experience.

: The highlight of Day one was the stop at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, WV for a brief tour. The place was truly creepy. Amazingly, it was not closed until 1994!

: A hallway at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum shows the peeling paint and who knows what kind of disrepair the place had fallen into. However, it is said to be haunted and has been featured on Ghost Hunters. The Asylum offers ghost hunting tours and overnight stays. No thank you!

: This is an isolation room at the Asylum. Any worker at the asylum could put a patient into the isolation room–even janitors–and only that person could release them from the isolation room. Freaky stuff!

: The final stop for Day 1 was the second asylum of the day, this time just outside Athens, OH. It is now used as an art museum.

: Tim’s Mustang sits in front of checkpoint #4 on Day 2, a “mecca of advertising signs” in Lawrenceburg, IN.

: Bill & Val’s Vette leads a group of rally cars in this rear-view mirror shot.

: Tuesday night’s accommodations were in the Spring Mill State Park Inn near Mitchell, IN. Built in the mid-1930s, it was a unique stopover.

: Tim and Val pose at checkpoint 2 on Day 3, a statue of William Jennings Bryant in Salem, IL. Stops are typically of an historic or scenic nature.

: Our “rally family” for the day cruises toward the bridge into St. Louis with the Gateway Arch, checkpoint 3, rising majestically in the background.

: View of Busch Stadium from the top of the Gateway Arch. The Pirates were in town, but we couldn’t tell if that was them taking batting practice.

: The Gateway Arch in St. Louis was an impressive stop.

: The Legend Lime Mustang GT of Central PA’s Glenn Beck leaves the starting line at Jefferson City, MO to begin Day 4.

: Day 4 was a long trek across a large part of Kansas. Here, at the final checkpoint of the day in Kinsley, KS, was the midway point of the United States.

: Tim reaches the Finish Line at the Boot Hill Casino in Dodge City, KS after driving 470 miles and making 6 checkpoints and a gas stop in just under 8 hours. And we weren’t really that close to the cars that finished first that day.

: After everyone had reached the hotel, several of us decided to “cruise the Sonic” in Dodge City, KS to get a refreshing treat to end our day.

: Cowboys and saloon girls, in costume, made for a festive start line for Day 5 in Dodge City.

: Tim meets the great grandson of the legendary Kit Carson at checkpoint 2 on Day 5 near Las Animas, Co.

: The Mustang sure does look like it’s traveled nearly 2000 miles in 5 days as part of Rally US-50!

: The Rossmanns cross the finish line to complete Rally US-50. Only one problem now…we’re still 1800 miles from home!

: Not content with having driven so much over the past 5 days, we drove about 45 minutes west to Skyline Drive in Canon City, CO, a scenic roadway built by local prisoners in the 1920s.

: A highlight of the Colorado version of Skyline Drive were these fossilized dinosaur tracks.

: This Skyline Drive was built right along the crest of this ridge on the outskirts of Canon City, CO. It felt a bit like walking…or driving…a tightrope at times.

: Bill and Val lead our small group of rally veterans up the roadway at Pikes Peak on the day after the rally.

: Tim’s Mustang sits at the summit of PIkes Peak. (Sorry, I don’t have a photo of Bill & ValJean’s Corvette.)

: An example of the crooked roadway on Pikes Peak. And yes, that is snow in the upper central part of the picture.

Tim says, “Following Pikes Peak, we went our separate ways to go home. Bill & Val had a much tighter schedule that I did, so they went more or less straight back to Pittsburgh, while I went north into Wyoming, Nebraska and then South Dakota before ending up in the Black Hills. I’ve added a few ‘car selfies’ from that part of the trip.”

: As a huge fan of the HBO show of the same name, I had to stop in Deadwood, even though I couldn’t stay long.

: Mount Rushmore with the Avenue of Flags in the foreground.

: Staring a buffalo eye to eye near the aptly named Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park.

ABOUT RALLY US-50

Rally US-50, a road rally by Rally North America, was a five day long gimmick rally starting in Martinsburg, WV and ending in Pueblo, CO in early July 2014. Teams that are entered into the rally raise money for a different charity each year; in 2014 the rally benefitted the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis. This is the fifth year that RNA has been organizing rallies, hence the five-day length this year, and the rally raised $109,000, well in excess of the goal of at least $100,000. In 2013, they raised in excess of $80,000 to benefit Camp Sunshine in Maine, an organization that hosts sick children and their families for a week of outdoor relaxation and activity.

The rally is sort of like a scavenger hunt. Teams know where each day begins and ends, but have to solve clues or identify photos in order to make it to the checkpoints along the way. Thrown in along the route are stops at tracks which allow the teams to get some of their on-road anxiety out of their system. Rally US-50 featured a driver’s meeting and hot laps at Summit Point Motorsports Park in Summit Point, WV; a run down the quarter-mile drag strip at Edgewater Sports Park near Cincinnati, OH; and a hot laps session at Pueblo Motorsports Park following the rally’s conclusion in Pueblo, CO.

Two entrants with GPMC ties were involved in the rally this year: Bill & ValJean Rossmann (team name Happy Campers) and Tim Baker (team name Miser Brothers). Tim offered a premium to his donors. Anyone who donated at least $25 got their name on his car in a special donor recognition area decal.

———THE NEXT RALLY IS OCTOBER 2014———

From Tim: The October rally is the Ohio Valley 700 in support of the Epilepsy Foundation of Western Ohio. It honors Cody Converse, a teenaged neighbor of one of Rally North America’s founders who died last year of SUDEP–Sudden Unexplained Death from Epilepsy. It will take place over the weekend of October 11-12 running from Dayton, OH to Buckhannon, WV and back. For more information about the rally in general, visit www.rallynorthamerica.com or members can email me directly at MiserBrosRT@comcast.net