Ghouls Gambol 2019

Happy Halloween and welcome to Ghouls Gambol.

For over 50 years ghosts, goblins, spooks, spirits, the dead, the undead, and even the mostly dead have returned to haunt the Cascade Sports Car Club's Halloween road rally. In years past rally teams have had to navigate through cemeteries to find hidden clues, reach into a screaming victim's chest, or worse.

There have been haunted locations - like the legendary barn on Pumpkin Ridge or the slaughterhouse.  The slaughterhouse ... they say if you listen on a cold, crisp October night you can still hear the screams.

This year rallymaster Paul Eklund explored Clackamas County’s farmland brightly lit with full autumn colors. Add to that some great driving roads, wonderful scenery and a hatful of tricks and traps and you've got the 2019 Ghouls Gambol. May justice be served.

It all started innocently enough at the end of the odometer check when teams were told they should go to the church door and ask the Lord’s help in surviving the event. Those that followed up on this timely advice were met by our benevolent sister of the twisted route, CSCC's own Marty Lawrence decked out in full nun regalia. She dutifully blessed each team with a coupon for 50% off one of their leg scores. It would prove most useful as legs were long and scores would prove to be, well, large.

Two notes were floated in and out as contestants followed the route instructions. Note Trickery required a gain of 6 seconds at each sign reading “WITCH”. Note Treat required a pause of 6 seconds at each sign reading “CEMETERY”. Both were in effect upon arrival at the first checkpoint. Interestingly the Checkpoint 1 instructions cancelled Note Witch - which of course wasn’t the name of the note, so contestants should have continued looking for witch signs all the way to the last checkpoint where Note Trickery was finally cancelled. Alas, it mattered not as there were no witch signs. Note Treat was used a couple of times by teams that executed the correct half of an OR instruction. Off course cars never saw the cemetery signs.

The legs were long with lots of main road following and uninstructed forced turns. A hard-to-see sidefacing no outlet sign and a recurring ONTO sent a few cars into off course route controls. Some of the many max leg scores benefited from the Lord’s help. With help from lots of off course markers and phone calls to the rallymaster, all contestants found their way to the ending location.

Sean and Tonia Andersen finished first SOP and first overall. First Novice and second overall were Dave and Sherry Wilson. Congratulations, winners!

Costume winners were King Neptune and the Mermaid, Mario and Luigi, and Alice in Wonderland with the Mad Catter. Best decorated vehicles were the Wonderland Teapot, Under the Sea, and the Incredibles.