Magnum Opus this weekend attracted 35 teams from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and Indiana to Munising, Michigan for the last Cen Div warm-up for competitors and workers before the Ottawa and Keweenaw ClubRallies (oh yeah, and LSPR).

Chairman Dean Rushford and his committee put on a great event that was well organized, smoothly coordinated and very convenient for participants. It was a great representative of the way Club rallies should be and are: relaxed, friendly, fun and a chance to hang out with friends doing what we love to do in the woods.

Like most of the midwest, the upper peninsula of Michigan has been pretty dry this summer but Friday produced a lot of rain and eliminated the question of whether dust would be a concern for the event. The roads survived the rain well with only the rare puddle in the low spots at the start of the event but otherwise they were in good shape. The nine stages totaling over 68 miles were well selected to provide a fun mix of choices from fast and sweepy to bumpy and narrow two-trackers. Stage roads held up well to multiple runs except at the occasional T intersection that got chewed up a bit. The stages were all within fifteen miles or so of the Comfort Inn headquarters and chosen so that portions of roads could be mixed together to provide a number of stages in different configurations. All activities were at the headquarters including all three services where crews had use of the entire parking lot and surrounding field.

Steve Gingras/Em Burton-Weinman and Mark Utecht/Jeff Secor in their open Class Subies, Dennis Martin/Dawn Rossmiller in the (Open) EVO, Mike Hurst/Rob Bohn in their Mustang (G5), and Bob Olson/ Conrad Ketelson in the Porsche 911 (G5) were among the names that promised to make things interesting at the head of the field. The remainder of the field included a nice mix of veterans and rookies with good turnouts in all classes: 9inOpen, 5 in G5, 10 (including 8 VW’s) in G2, 5 (all DSM’s) in PGT and 6 in P.

Stage One (5.7 miles) found Utecht setting the pace at 5:19 with Gingras 3 seconds adrift and Martin only one second further back in what shaped upto be a good battle. Olson led the G5 contingent in 5:33 with Hurst a t5:40. Unfortunately for Utecht/Secor they slipped off the road 4.3 miles into Stage Two and were forced to retire at that point. However in a display that maybe didn’t quite rival the genuine lunar effect, there wa smore than one full moon over Michigan this weekend. Gingras turned the 8.47 miles of Two in 8:03 to put 12 seconds on Martin and establish a trend of small (sometimes non-existent) victory margins in the stages. Areseed was done at the first service based on the results of Stages Oneand Two with Gingras, Martin, Olson, Hurst and ThanasiSamaras/ConstantineKoutras in a PGT Talon heading up the pack. One minute covered the top five. Bob Neilsen/Heidi Meyers in their VW GTI lay 8th overall to leadG2over David Cizmas/Brady Sturm in a Golf. Perhapsmost surprising was the effort of Seed 7 Jake Himes and Silas Himes inaProduction Nissan Sentra lieing 10th overall after starting 32nd on theroad. Second in P were Mike Merbach/Keith Dahlke in a GTI while second in PGT was occupied by Chris Czyzio/Gray Williams.

Twenty five of the original 35 made it through 8 stages to Service #3where the organizers decided to cancel Stage 9 because of an accident to Car 563, the Omni of Gary Starr and Bill Tifft on Stage 7, the fastest stage of the event (winning time was 7:29 on an 8.75 miles stage). Gary and Bill slipped off the road on a fast left-hander and ended up striking a tree high up on the co-driver’s side A-pillar at the windshield. The occupants were okay but the Omni will probably not return in that shell. The cage absorbed the impact and distorted a bit but did its job and saved the crew. Because the emergency medical teams were occupied with that incident, the organizers wisely decided to call it a night without the last stage.

Crews regathered back at headquarters and told the usual lies while awaiting awards. Mark Utecht entertained the crowd with a story of an emergency repair to a broken heater hose on Al Kintigh’s Golf by using a sawed off socket to bridge the break and hose clamps to hold it all together. Even though Mark engineered the fix, he had bet that it wouldn’t hold together for Stages 7 and 8 and so was forced to pay off to the amusement of the crowd.

Final results found Gingras/Burton Weiman 1st overall and in Open with atime of 58:12 for 58.26 miles of stage run and Martin/Rossmiller 2ndoverall (59:52) and in Open. Olson/Ketelson brought home the Porsche 3rdoverall (61:37) and first in G5. Colin and Nancy McCleery took 2nd place honors in G5 (69:43). Samaris/Koutras were 4th overall (63:39) and 1stinPGT with Chris Czyzio/Gray Williams getting 2nd in PGT (65:26) by 21seconds over Scott Harvey Jr./Kent Gardam in 3rd. Jake and Silas Himesbrought the Sentra home 6th overall (64:33) and 1st Production withDavidJohnson/Shannon Kirchoff 2nd in P (69:38) in a Neon. Neilsen/Meyers ttok7th overall and G2 honors in 64:54 while 2nd in G2 went to Mark Buskirkand Paul Fernandez (69:12) in a GTI.

Much thanks to all the organizers and workers for allowing us to play our game in the woods and especially to Dean Rushford who announced that he would be taking a few years off from organizing to see his kids through school. Perhaps with enough convincing we will keep him involved anyway. Also thanks to Scott Harvey for giving me the opportunity to read the book for him. It was my first time back competing on a stage rally in fifteen years and was a real kick. Once exposed, always susceptible I think. Now I can claim Official Old Fart status with those of my peers that aren’t any smarter than I am. See you all at Ottawa and Keweenaw (LSPR for the uninitiated).

Kent Gardam