RallyAddict photo’s of the event can be found in our gallery or by clicking HERE

The 2006 Fall rally had been cancelled due to lack of enrollment, and the 2007 Rally must have been a close call.

Starting on Friday, the morning stages had no spectating area so we elected to arrive in the afternoon at the single spectating point given on the fliers. This was hardly a spectating area; it was an intersection of a road where you could watch the cars fly by, in a totally straight line. Problems with securing land owners who would let spectators use their land ended up causing all the spectators (all 10 of us) to wear safety vests, so we would all look like rally marshals as this ended up not being a "spectator" area after the owner of the land pulled permission for spectating at the last minute. 

 The view was poor, the excitement was poor, and after the first stage most of the spectators left. I managed to grab a few decent pictures, talk to some rally fans and marshals and then we headed over to the spectating area for the late afternoon stages at the golf course.

This stage was rather interesting, $5 per person and $5 per car to park. a short hike through the golf course led to a wide open view of about half a mile of a tarmac stage. There was approximately 50 people spectating at this area, and the view was great. As the sun set the cars passed several times at a high rate of speed on this rather straight portion of the track. Nothing spectacular occurred here but it was rather interesting.

Saturday looked considerably more promising, as it is the gravel day and upon arriving at the one designated spectating area ($5 per person, $5 per car for parking) the view looked pretty good. Again, the road was rather straight, but we were right up against the road on a 4ft embankment. Rally officials decided that we were too close to the road and rocks would injure us and the trees acting as barriers were not large enough to stop a speeding car, so safety tape was put up backing us up about 5 feet from the road. After the cars passed the first time, some of the spectators left, going from about 30 spectators down to about 20. The cars passed again from the opposite direction which gave a much better view as you can see them exiting a mild left hand turn and entering the hill where the spectators are viewing. I had inched my way down towards the turn after each stage, and eventually there were so little spectators left that the marshals stopped checking on us. We carefully picked our viewing positions and I was able to take some great photos and enjoy some excellent rally action. unfortunately by this time there was only 12 cars left competing, but they had staggered the starts by 2 minutes keeping us busy for a while. ther wasn't much time between stages so even though we were there from 10am to 6pm, we had much to do the whole day.
During the last stage I moved my position down to the exit of the turn as the cars came down the hill. This was a very exciting view but the sun was setting so the pictures did not come out as great as I would have liked.

There was a chance to rush back to Ellensville and view 2 more stages from an unofficial site, but we elected not to rush over there as it had started to rain on and off and the sun was setting.

It was a rather enjoyable weekend, though I hope the planning and participation of this event are drastically improved. The spring New York Rally 2008 awaits!