| Gimmick and TSD Rally Winners |
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| Written by Andrew | |
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YES, THIS IS A REAL RALLY!! AND YES, THERE IS A POINT TO IT ALL!! The basis of the Dustball Rally was founded on Spirit, however being a real and true rally, Dustball hosts two types of traditional rallying: Time, Speed, Distance (TSD); and Gimmick. Simply completing the Dustball rally without getting lost, is a difficult task; the addition of rally instructions multiplies the challenge ten-fold. Because of the time factor in TSD rallying, law enforcement labels it as racing, and has therefore been discontinued as an event in Dustball. Since scavenger hunts are still considered legal, gimmick rallying is the yearly challenge for Dustball events; however the tradition of having a time limit has also been eliminated, due to ignorant laws. TWO STYLES OF RALLY TEAMS: Dustballers have the option to participate in one of two stlyes: Equipped, and Non-equipped. Equipped means a team that has fully implicated the usage of GPS, Radar, scanner, CB radio, calculators, maps, etc. into their rally vehicle. An un-equipped team, or often called seat-of-the-pants, will run their team vehicle with the minimum required gear, being pants...and rally instructions...  An example of a moderately equipped vehicle. Dustball Rally runs all vehicle, equipped or not, in one class. There are no points advantages, other than to have bragging rights that you may have done better with your pants, than another team in a state-of-the-art Garmin-powered rocket with a helicopter researching routes ahead for possible truoble. We encourage teams to run however they feel most comfortable...without getting lost.
Non-equipped, or Seat-of-the-pants driver We also strongly encourage hoonage... GIMMICK RALLYING Historically, gimmick rallies are non-competitive events that are suitable for novices, although Dustball has transformed this into something much more. Indeed, it is a scavenger hunt, but the gimmicks are often very difficult to locate and spread over 1000 miles giving this game a sharp edge on being competitive. Veteran Dustball rally teams can locate gimmicks more rapidly than newer ones due to the experience levels, and training programs hosted in the spring. One of the most difficult jobs for the Dustball rally staff is physically setting up the prescribed course, and assembling the gimmicks over the extensive route. Writing the tests and assuring that the answers cannot be confused with anything else is a tiring job, and those that complete the test successfully have truly imerged themselves into the Dustball Rally. The staff of the Dustball Rally spends countless hours devising ways to confuse and trick scavenger hunters while locating the gimmicks. We feel that although many do attempt to locate all gimmicks, some need a little more inspiration. To remedy this, Dustball Rally 2009 will be passing out multiple awards for those that miss fewer of the gimmicks. In other words, the highest valued award will go to the team that answer most of the gimmicks correctly. Teams that missed three or less will receive the next highest valued giveaways. The teams that miss five or less will receive the next level of valued giveaways, and so forth. By devising this awards program, more teams will seek to achieve the highest award by missing fewer gimmicks, thus imerging themselves deeper into the spirit of the scavenger hunt. Locating gimmicks and answering them correctly on Dustball is unlike any scavenger hunt, or other car club's gimmick rally you will ever encounter. Car clubs that host gimmick rallies often keep the course simple and within city limits, taking up less than half a day's time; and more often than not, all teams will answer everything correctly, leaving chance to determine a winner. In the Dustball rally, only one team will ever successfully complete the test correctly, due to the difficulty. And in the past two years of Gimmick rallying in Dustball, only two teams have succeeded: 2010 Gimmick Rally Winners #50 Team Hazmatt  2009 Gimmick Rally Winners #38 Team Lextreme  2008 Gimmick Rally Winners #38 Team Lextreme
TIME, SPEED, DISTANCE (TSD) RALLYING Until recent times, TSD rallies were considered to be highly competitive motorsport due to the amount of precision driving required to successfully complete a prescribed course. Ignorant laws and many of their enforcers are uneducated on the traditions of TSD rallies and easily call them street races since time is a factor. The object of a TSD rally is to follow a very specific set of driving instructions, which calls for legal speeds to maintain, distances to travel, and directions for turns. Complicated TSD rallies often use traps to trick teams into following an incorrect route, using specific rally terminology as a tool for deception. If all is followed correctly, a team should arrive at the final checkpoint by the specified time. The TSD route is pre-calculated to take a certain amount of elapsed time; the team that comes closest to this, wins the rally. In 2006, Dustball hosted this type of rally, and the winning team came within three seconds of the designated time: 2006 TSD Rally Winners #25 Team M-Power  |
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