By the time the forum was closed on the Sunday night after Check In, the forum was running at 6,068 posts or so. It didn't just beat the next best, it crushed it.



Staten Island Hotel is the start point. It's a nice place and we're getting to know its perennial scaffolding quite well, which has nearly been at the hotel as long as the event has.

Check In starts at a pace, a faster pace than normal, mainly because so many teams had made it a priority to be on site earlier. News of the tail gate parties had already gotten on the forum, and that night was no different.

As each parking space became available outside the hotel, a BABE car would roll into it. By very early on in the evening, the rather posh hotel had descended into the swampy quagmire that is BABE Rally cars.

One thing noticeable was the lack of European cars this year. People really had made an effort at getting an American vehicle, and that was nice. We have nothing against European cars on BABE Rally, but we do see European cars on European events all the time. It's nice to see some proper American Iron. With that in mind from the previous year, an American Iron group was created and slightly swayed people with their car choices.

The car decorations were as good as previous years, but with a couple more themed cars this year. The Jingle Benz, a Mercedes stationwagon painted green and carrying various Christmas decorations, not least Santa and a Christmas tree on its roof; an A Team van, proper A Team van, not some whimpy version just painted with a red stripe; the Mad Max cop car; the UK cop car; and a bona fide "short bus" school bus, complete with appropriate passengers.

In fact, the school bus wasn't a theme, it was a short school bus manned by a team of what we can only think are alcoholics. Rich alcoholics, we think, if the staggering quantities of their empties are any indication. But more about their consumption later.

A number of teams had problems getting to the start line, like the team whose steady steed, was less than steady the day before and was replaced by a Honda Civic bought off Craigslist, which was shortly (54 miles later) replaced by a Volvo stationwagen off Craigslist as well. It was a busy afternoon on Craigslist in Wisconsin.

A Canadian team was also on its way, embarking on what could be the longest trip to a start line of 2,900 miles. Apparently, Canada is a long way away. For a little Englishman, these are big countries.

The party at Staten Island started early and ended late. It was the first of many.



With the cars assembled in one place and in the light of day, you got to see just how bad they were.

In fact, the $500 limit had actually brought a better class of car onto the event. So it seemed. Definitely less rust, more body panels. If we had kept the large contingent of European cars, this could almost pass for a European event! But the thin veneer of panels that looked unrusty hid far worse things underneath, so we were about to discover.

We're not sure what happened, but the $500 price limit seems to have gone to the teams' heads. It's that or some funny fumes they've been inhaling (probably exhaust fumes). What seems to have happened is that $500 allows people to buy the cars “they've always wanted”, however that works. People have dreamed about owning “x y or z” and with $500 budget now is their chance! But of course, it's just like they tell you about all first loves, everything looks sweeter in hindsight through those rose colored glasses. Reality turns out to be more bitter than sweet.

Out goes the sensible planning of the event, the head screwed on, the quest for a reliable car, in comes “I've always wanted a Lincoln” or whatever they dreamed of since the glory days..

There's another thing about nicely turned out cheap cars. What do they have underneath that makes them so cheap? The teams were about to discover, if they hadn't already.

Although there were no start line failures, or failures on the way to the start line (other than the team who had purchased multiple cars the previous day, but they were having their own adventure as usual), Day 1 was to prove interesting for a few.

The short bus had long decided that it had a healthy consumption of gasoline with an eye watering gas mileage of 5 MPG That's five. F. I. V E. The fingers on one hand. Five.

Thankfully, it had six people in it to feed its addiction, but i figure if another four got in with them it would only just make the vehicle financially viable. But then, this isn't an event for the level headed anyway.

Most of the American Iron class had problems on the first day, not least Jim Thwaite's Oldsmobile, the Wakeman's Lincoln Mk4, the Matador, Team Awol in the Cadillac-ish thing. At least the clowns got away in their tank, and long time (and long suffering) veteran Greg and his Volare got away relatively unscathed.

The day went as planned. Plenty of teams met various State Troopers, including the English team that had flown out and picked up the black Pontiac dressed as Knight Rider. Their first tangle with an American cop left at least one of the team members in abject terror for the rest of the day.

The evening was going well, but a few teams did seem to be missing, not least, some four year veterans. The veterans are forever up for a challenge when selectring their cars for the event had all decided on the cars that no one else wanted. And it was for good reason that no one wanted them.

While Connie the Lincoln of Death was destroying its muffler (from inside), the Olds decided it really wanted new brakes, and while that was all happening, Tim Hansen's two-cylinder Volvo 240 stationwagen had taken to gassing most of the team. His team subsequently retired to bed too ill (or lazy) to help Tim work out Plan B.

Tim's Plan B was to buy tools and fix the gassing problem. A kind Eric from another team lent a helping hand and they managed to get the exhaust manifold back where it should have been in the first place after a mere 18 hours.

The Matador was also requesting an ongoing repair, something that it had been doing all day, in fact. Little did the team know, but would continue to request -- nay, demand -- attention throughout the event.

Harrisonburg saw the second of the great tailgate parties. We did try a bar in Harrisonburg, but that didn't quite work. Next year we will probably be in the hotel parking lot for the tailgate party exclusively.

The local TV station also came out to film the cars, and add a bit of grandiose to the evening, which definitely aided teams the following day as people had seen the rally on TV!



Well, everyone was up bright and earlier, which wasn't surprising as some had worked overnight fixing their cars. They were all, however, in astronaut costumes, or at least their version of an astronaut.

A group photo of the proceedings was taken, and the teams were set off to assault West Virginia in style. And that they did.

The day could be as long as teams wanted. The challenge was to visit three towns out of a choice of twelve. The lowest number of towns visited by teams got the highest number of points. It's a stategy thwarted by variables outside your control, which starts with "Where are the other teams going?"

In 2008 all the teams did the farthest towns and scored the least amounts of points because they all did the same thing. The best scores were the easiest scores.

But what to do about this year: do the easy, yet overlooked-in-2008 towns, or do the hard 2008 towns again? It was very easy to talk yourself into a circle on this one, and many teams did.

About two thirds of the event went to the wrong towns and utterly poisoned their scores in doing so. Easy towns in 2008 got the point, hard towns in 2009 got the points. What will they do in 2010?

Some of the towns are getting used to our teams rolling up once a year, in both extremes. Some towns practically rolled ot the red carpet for "you people with the cars again", as though it was the most exciting thing to happen in quite a while (probably since the last year, actually). Some simply closed their shutters and pretended that no one was knocking on the front door. At least one team reported that people thought they were being asked for change when the team said “Could you help us please?” Little did the town folk realize that the team just needed someone to take a picture of them. They weren't actually a bunch of hippies asking for some change. Well, at least not most of them. It was an easy and understandable mistake to make when confronted with a BABE Rally team dressed in dirty overalls standing by their ancient camper van.

The evening at the hotel went well and was finished off with now ubitiqous run-ins with the local cops. I say “run in”, but that is unfair. In fact, the Sheriff stopped by and was more interested in the Matador's in-progress head gasket replacement than busting anyone.

There was an interesting hotel management fail when a team was threatened with a gun by the duty manager. Let's just say that his employment last nearly nine hours after the real management discovered the hotel management fail the following morning. We are assured that “I got a gun and can handle things until you get here” is not part of the hotel's “dealing with guests" handbook.

Said member of staff was dismissed the following morning in short order.



Day 3 is the real driving day with Deal's Gap.

The first thing needed was a quick drivers' meeting. Essentially, with the amount of repair work going on, the offroad section would be too much for some cars, so we warned them off that section.

The first part of the day is an interesting offroad section, before becoming paved at the Tennessee border. This road then turns into an empty infamous Deal's Gap. Deal's Gap is called the Tail of the Dragon, but we've renamed this road the Ass of the Antelope.

The road is a real driving gem, in our opinion, and probably one of the better roads we've driven in all our years.

We caught most of the rally at Jim's Junk, an abandoned gas station along the route . Its parking lot soon filled up. British Rust, in a converted Range Rover that had been mudding in a previous life, found a suitable parking space in a ditch. Not a problem, you would think, for a Rangey.

But the ditch was a bit wetter and deeper than expected, and getting out proved interesting.

The process involved speeding down the ditch trying to launch themselves out of it, hitting a hidden log along the way. Instead of launching the vehicle back on to the road, the effort simply tore a hole in the tire. The Range Rover driver admitted defeat and found a flat section in the ditch to stop and plan repairs. The flat section was about three to four feet below the road.

At this point, we left them to it. But this is merely the start of their story.

Within a few minutes of us leaving, a local cop arrived on the scene, none too pleased to find a Range Rover in a ditch, and various teams pulled over having a beer.

Thankfully, the team was parked on the right hand side of the road, which meant it wasn't a Federal parking ticket they were about to get. Yup, the left hand side of the road is all Federal, and as we have discovered in the past, the Feds take their forests very seriously, and have no sense of humor.

A Fed did indeed arrive on the scene to reinforce two issues: 1) they were lucky they parked on the right and not the left, otherwise it would have been Serious ™; and 2) he did have no sense of humor whatsoever. No change there, then.

At this point the various officials tried to decide whose problem it was and decided to get the Sheriff on scene. The Sheriff, being older, wiser, and definitely knowing the impending paperwork this could all cause, decided for the soft option of simply solving the problem. The guys with the beers got bollocked, and the driver of the Range Rover was told to get his vehicle out of the ditch.

Simple as that. It's a form of policing we've seen many times before, but mainly in Europe. A problem going away is a problem solved. The Sheriff obviously wanted a quieter day.

The day continued toward Deal's Gap with an unusual downpour at the start point. This year we are there on a weekday so it was much, much quieter, which is good for the nerves.

Bikers can be the most awful hypocrites at times about “safe driving”, easily dismissing their own behavior. Deal's Gap is a perfect example. While most bikers are safe, there is always one that will use your piece of road and then go on to blame you for being there.

With Deals Gap quieter, the chances of that happening are that much less, which is nice.

Once you got out of the rain, Deal's Gap lived up to its fabulous reputation of 318 curves in 11 miles, which works out at a bend every 50 yards. The road surface has to be one of the best on any driving road we've ever driven. If only the Swiss and Italians put this surface on some of their Alpine passes!

We met a few teams at lunch on the other side of Deal's Gap at a waiting area that allows you to turn around. We also bumped into a couple of Lotus Elises and a Lotus Exige, driven by some woman with driving gloves. Apparently she was struggling with the car or Deal's Gap, which generally means she doesn't know how to drive the car. She also wore driving gloves. I never ever trust anyone who drives with driving gloves unless it's their trade like a race car driver. Driving gloves in a modern car is up there with wearing goggles.

For those that dream of driving a Lotus Elise around Deals Gap, here is how you do it:

Fast into each bend with heavy braking. Brake hard to push the weight onto the front tires, and then turn in. The car will bite hard on the corner, add power during the bend to accelerate out and do a heroic power slide (if you can). If you drive the Lotus like a go kart by trying to line up fast corners you simply get under steer on the front as the tires are skinny. You need the hard brake to move that weight and make the front grip.

If you can't hear the tires on the exit, you aren't trying hard enough in my book. Of course, I didn't bother to tell her that, only sat silently listening to her deride the car for her shortcomings.

Anyway, I digress.

The end of the day was a quick twenty-five mile journey through a forest on a gravel road. This is huge fun as the surface does its impression of driving on marbles, huge plumes of dust behind you, and you are only doing the speed limit.

A few hardy teams did this section and thoroughly enjoyed it. Pending Smithwicks team apparently attacked the stage as a full on WRC stage, and were impossible to follow.

Near the end of the stage we actually set the GPS to find the end point at Murphy. I was more than pleased to see the GPS giving a mileage, as the crow flies, of twenty-three miles. Twenty-three miles and we would be done. The problem was that the GPS didn't know the road, so until we found a proper road, it wouldn't give me the real distance, or the route, for that matter.

When it did find the road five miles later, it gave a distance of seventy three miles! Doh. But at least forty five was the Cherohalla Skyway, a totally underestimated race track. It had nearly no cars on it, no cops on it, and we only saw two bikers. We made good progress.

The evening was at the Best Western in Murphy, North Carolina. The hotel knew a bit about or group despite it being a new stopoff for them. The manager of the hotel is one of the best around. She wanted our group there, and that's all that mattered.

By the time we arrived, the tailgate party had more or less started. All he teams who decided not to do the forest section had decided to play on Deal's Gap and then head straight for Murphy, which was about 100 miles shorter. We were surprised to see how many people hadn't done the stage, and who really were nursing their cars. It was more than expected.

The gravel stage cars were obvious by the dirt they were wearing.

As usual, by 8pm the tail gate party was in full flow and the swimming pool full of teams.

The hotel staff were overheard saying “they are making nargaritas now!” (cheers, Tim) while the hotel drive through was used as a garage shop by a team who were replacing their brakes.

As the evening wore on, a cop drove through the parking lot, totally uninterested in the party that was going.

There was a new no container rule on the event this year, all alcohol to be in cups, and all beer cans, bottles etc, to be kept out of view, including rubbish. This seemed to make the event and the tail gate parties less confrontational with the various cops we were meeting in the evenings. Which has to be good.



Day 4 started with an easy picture challenge. Veterans will know that there is nothing easy about my picture challenges, even though I think they are too easy.

Drive up a 40 mile road and match the mailboxes.

Well, it would have been easy had the town cops, county cops, and state troopers not been patrolling that road exclusively that day. it didn't help that a couple of teams were angling to be pulled over with their driving, but more than a few did get a pull. Meeting the cops on the BABE Rally is a rite of passage. You aren't trying hard enough if you haven't been pulled for doing absolutely nothing wrong. However, if you get a ticket, you were trying too hard!

The evening ended at the Barking Kudu bar in Birmingham, Alabama.

The hotel that most of the rally had booked was an interesting place, full of hookers and drug dealers. It was a rough hotel that more than unsettled a few teams who opted out for the more expensive non drug dealing den hotels that Birmingham has to offer, which are unfortunately more than a few miles from the bar.

The evening was good fun, with Red Bull sponsoring the evening. There was a big Red Bull arch to drive through, exclusive parking for the rally vehicles, and a live DJ. All was going well until the ear piercing singer and his guitar, who refused to quieten down a bit. If anything, he got louder the more he was asked to tone it down.

But other than that, it was a good evening.

We retired late, like many other teams. Unlike some teams we didn't barricade the doors with furniture back at Medical Waste Inn. We also discovered that it was no longer a Best Western. Can't imagine why.

The hotel did score for having some of the comfiest beds on the rally, though. The rooms themselves were neat and clean, everything worked. So as long as you stayed away from the walkways, the elevator, and parking lot and the stairwell-turned-urinal, the place was great.

Was it a rough hotel? Oh, yes. Would I stay there again? Probably. During the years that we've been doing StreetSafari events, we've stayed in worse, and had more frightening experiences than that hotel had to offer. At least we had indoor plumbing, a lock on the door, and didn't lie awake with the knowledge that our passports were out of our possession at the front desk somewhere, all while listening to the next day's chicken dinner being butchered outside the window..



The following morning started back at the Barking Kudu with our hosts in the school bus, Go NADS (North American Drinking Society).

The challenge for the day was to find windshield cracks. Points were given on the severity of the cracks, with full points given to anyone finding a headshot. A headshot was defined as a car coming to a halt quickly and the occupant not wearing a seatbelt. You get the idea. Crash damaged cars were not allowed, and the team who provided a picture of a whole screen missing, the driver had probably exited the vehicle through said screen, lost points for being so ghoulish.

As usual, the challenge got many into trouble as they tracked down Alabamans and their broken windshields.

The end was, of course, in New Orleans, with the glacially slow hotel. This pushed back timings, and ended up with BABE Rally being thrown out of the building.

The final speech was given in a parking lot, which was quite fitting, really.

The winners were defending champions, Team Manwall. Second place was the Pride of Cleveland aka the scooter boys, and third won by the quiet and unassuming Unintended Acceleration.

Biggest banger was given to the Matador for its heroic problems, not least the double head gasket change on their V8. Which, as it turns out, did absolutely nothing to remedy their problems.

Six new people joined the StreetSafari High Mileage Club, so we extend a welcome to Jim Thwaite, Chris Abbot, Tim Hansen, Greg Thibeux, Miles Fox and Jeff Wakeman.

Each and every one of them has been along for the ride that is BABE Rally since the very first wheel rolled out of Staten Island in 2006. And that makes them special.

In more ways than one.