That time of year again,
The dates are Feb. 21-23 2008 stages will be near Salem,Viburnum,Steelville and Potosi this year.
I am not the sweep coordinator this year,but I am helping her.The new sweep coordinator is Adrienne Cechura (KD9ARC) <adieengland1980@yahoo.com>. If you are interested in helping,we would love to see you in the woods.E-mail Adie or myself mckendall@cablemo.net with any questions.
For those who are not familiar with 100 Acre Woods Rally, JD from Midwest Jeepthing wrote this about it;
It is a road rally stage race run over the forest service roads in the area around Salem, Missouri (which is usually where race headquarters is located). The race takes place over 3 days.
Volunteers are needed by the hundreds to help with crowd control, net control (ham radio communications), and recovery. This is where the jeep club comes in.
We are responsible for recovery of race vehicles that end up off the course and/or disabled during a stage. In years past we have had between 20 to 40 jeepers working this event. Some of the recoveries we have pulled off have been amazing.
There are many fun and interesting aspects to volunteering. In no particular order:
-you get to use your jeep to pull race cars out of the woods
-you get to spend the day in the the forest
-you are usually staged right on the race course which is the best seat in the house for watching the race itself
-the drivers and crews are incredibly approachable and fun to talk to
-the race teams are very appreciative of our role and they act like it (it is nice to be appreciated :-)
It is a big commitment when you volunteer. The days are long. Depending on stage assignments you could be working by 7am and not get back to your room until 11pm. There is a lot of hurry and wait. You must get to your stage and in position up to two hours before the racers come through. You spend all day in your jeep so be self sufficient (food, water, music, reading material). If you volunteer for more than one day you can figure you are going to have a hotel stay. You will burn a lot of gas moving from stage to stage. Last year I logged over 300 miles including the drive to Salem and home at the end.
But all that being said this event is one of my highlights of the year and something I look forward to.
I would encourage people to give it a try. You will probably not be disappointed with the experience.
Thanks again for considering helping with this event.
Mary Kendall
Aka MomK(or as some you have heard GrandMaK)
Sweep coordinator for the past several years
