by: Steve Johnson, photos: Aaron Krott
Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in the Q1_2021 issue of quattro Magazine. If you would like to subscribe to quattro Magazine, please join Audi Club here.
True story: Bigfoot has been sighted in Salt Fork State Park in rural Cambridge, OH no less than 13 times in the last 25 years. More regular then, and decidedly less urban legend, is the annual One Lapp of Ohio Rally Tour, put on here each year by Audi Club Ohio Valley’s own Jeff Lapp.
For 2020, this meant a total of 15 rally teams, each consisting of a driver and navigator, registered for the event and applied their car number decals prior to enjoying the first night’s social gathering. After dinner, Rallymaster Jeff Lapp led a mandatory driver’s meeting that emphasized safe conduct. The evening concluded with Jeff’s Rally School 101 presentation, a thorough download for new teams and a welcome refresher for returning veterans. After all, in a time-speed-distance event, navigators must know how to calculate ideal arrival times at checkpoints to avoid racking up points for every second a team is early or late.
The Saturday morning of the start dawned cloudy and cold, but that didn’t dampen anyone’s enthusiasm. Rally teams staged in order of their cars’ numbers for the 8:50 AM Key Time. At a car’s designated minute, the driver pulled up to the starting line and Lapp handed the navigator their route instructions while sharing a new twist. Checkpoint #2 would be worth double points — for the number of seconds a car was early/late, that count would be multiplied by two.
Route instructions directed the teams over roughly 250 miles of some of the finest roller coaster side roads in southeast Ohio. A midday break was included for lunch at Third Street Deli in Marietta, as well as, a midafternoon pit stop at Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl in Zanesville. The route instructions also contained tricky turn clues, easy to miss roads, and turns that, if misjudged, sent teams miles in the wrong direction. The teams that got most, if not all, turns correct finished in the top five places.
At Sunday morning’s Awards Breakfast, Rallymaster Lapp announced this year’s first place team – the Baytosh brothers, Rich and Dave. The duo had compiled a mere 78 points, or a one minute eighteen second deviation from ideal completion time over the entire course. The winners received a certificate for AudiFest, an annual driver school at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, OH. In addition to trophies for the top three places, there were other awards known as the Golden Calculator and Tow Strap. Alas, you’ll have to come run the rally October 23-25, 2021, to find out what they signify. First-timers may even win the Rookie of the Year Award…or perhaps see Bigfoot. Many thanks to the checkpoint workers and Jeff Lapp for another great event that has become an Audi Club tradition.
