Mud Coast Rally (1st Annual??)

The guys over at Road Rally Charities have put together quite a list of automotive events for the summer and they’ve officially kicked it all off with their first (hopefully annual) Mud Coast Rally.  These are the guys that organize the Mid Coast Rally (formally known as 20/30 Road Rally) in September, so they’re not rookies and they didn’t disappoint.

As I mentioned in the previous post, this rally has been on the table for a while, but to be scheduled with only 48 hours notice.  As the name indicates, the event takes place on rural level B roads and the organizers were trying to schedule the event for the optimum weather and road conditions, hence the 48 hours notice.  Well, I would guess they aren’t very happy with the local meteorologists because the weather hasn’t turned out anything like predicted and it was looking like we’d see more dust than mud.  I do hope they aren’t too disappointed because it was still a blast, and several vehicles still ended up helplessly mired in the southern Iowa muck.  Follow the jump for more pics and to read about the day…

For most of the week, we didn’t think we’d make it to the rally, but things worked out just right Saturday morning, so Mark and I headed to the east side Waveland Cafe (in his wife’s SUV).  On the way over, Kevin and Hogan called to say that they commandeered Kevin’s wife’s Pathfinder and would meet us there.  As Hogan would say…  ”It was a victory for married men all over Des Moines”.  I wonder if that was still the case when they returned the Pathfinder after getting it buried in the mud.

It was nice to see a very wide variety of vehicles when we pulled in.  There were a few Land Rovers, Jeeps, and other random 4-wheel drive trucks, but the entries that surprised me were the old VW Bug,  Subaru Brat (which brought back childhood memories), and an ex-military Chevy Blazer (diesel of course).  We headed south out of Des Moines and quickly hit the gravel roads.  This is were the rain would have came in nicely because it was pretty dusty.  It wasn’t toolong after, that we found the dirt roads.  Most of them were dry, but as we moved on, several people began to find and exploit the wet ditches and sides of the road.

Once we started finding mud, things got a lot more fun.  It wasn’t long before the Bug was stuck, and then a 3/4 ton Dodge was stuck trying to pull out the Bug, and a lowly 6-cylinder Jeep had to pull them both out.  Not only did that Jeep pull them out, he then proceeded to make that mud hole look like child’s play.  After watching all the commotion, that diesel military Blazer thought he’d give it a try….  buried it.  Can you guess who pulled out that heavy tank?  Yep, the little Jeep.  Sorry for the sarcasm guys, I like Jeeps.

I’ve already written more than is needed, so I’ll finish up with me getting us and about 10 others lost.  After several were stuck and unstuck, we had been separated from most of the pack.  Prior to this, we hadn’t been looking at the directions, just following the lead, but somehow we ended up in front and I was the navigator.  We pulled onto 220th which happened to be listed on our directions about 4 different places.  We went right…  decided that was wrong… turned around (along with 10 other trucks)…  lost again…  Eventually we made it to the lunch meeting point, but not by the intended route.  I would like to apologize to everyone that was helplessly following us around the countryside.  I would also like to remind everyone, that it was MY navigation that got us lost and out of the running in the last Mid Coast Rally.  Ridiculous.

Last but not least, I would like to thank all the guys from Road Rally Charities.  They put on an awesome event and it was FREE.  They were also kind enough to let me talk to all the participants about the upcoming Cornball Run that we organize.  Unexspected but appreciated.  Great job on the rally.  I hope to participate in more of your events this summer and again next year in the Mud Coast Rally.

Update: For some reason, most of my pictures were corrupted in the file transfer process. CLICK HERE to see the ones that made it. Also, I would gladly post any additional pictures any of you send me. Thanks.