Black River Stages Rally – September 28-29, 2007 – Harrisville, New York
RallyAddict photo’s of the event can be found in our gallery or by clicking HERE.
This was a spectacular rally held in Harrisville New York which is only about 25 miles south of Canada. We planned our trip to this rally at the last minute as time became available to us, and managed to attend the entire rally without staying overnight. We left New Jersey at about 3:30 am and started driving north. We arrived in the quaint town of Harrisville just in time for breakfast at the local bakery. Breakfast was fantastic and cheap, and the bakery was packed fully of rally drivers and teams eating at the breakfast buffet. Around the side of the bakery was the rally expo where we went to check out the cars before they left to go rally. It was interesting to see the motorcycles ready for rally action also, as this rally included off road motorcycles!
The first spectator spot was Jayville road, a chicane that crosses some partially buried railroad tracks. The marshal there was an ex rally driver who kept all of us spectators entertained between stages, he and his wife were very friendly people as were the rest of the locals who joined in to watch the excitement. What I noticed during this rally was how welcoming the town was to the rally. It seemed like all the locals thoroughly enjoyed when rally came to town, which often is not the case when a rally takes over your town.
Jayville road was a dead end road, so we got to drive up the stage to find our parking spot near the end of the course, watch the cars come in and come back. Amazing how much different the cars look on their way back out, and how many didn’t make it back out. We passed several of the cars on the trip back down the road, as they were stranded in a ditch or broken.
Watching the bikes compete was very different. Sliding off the trail into a tree in a car with a roll cage is a lot different than hitting one on a motorcycle. I had a 35mph accident on my bandit400 motorcycle a few years ago and I’m still feeling it.
The next spectator area was a power line trail in the sand simply named “Powerline ”. This stage was excellent to spectate at also, because of the high hill on the inside of the turn. You could get very close to the action and remain entirely safe as well. A few close calls and excitement from the RWD cars and bikes provided excellent thrills. The cars passed 2 times in the same direction on this stage, the 2nd time considerably quicker. There was talk about a series of jumps further down the road that we opted out of. The spectating area was great in the turn and we didn’t want to risk missing the action, even for rally jumps.
The last spectator stage was back at Jayville road, but in the dark. It was very exciting to watch, especially the bikes as they had fantastic lighting all over them. Unfortunately the darkness makes for poor pictures so you’ll have to use your imagination.
After this stage we packed our things, drove back down the course and tried to make it home. Diet Coke and a few rest stops enabled us to get home safely sometime in the early AM hours. Well worth the drive but unfortunately this rally has been discontinued due to the host’s lack of enthusiasm with the event.