It's often cold for the late October running of the event, but in 2003, 30 teams braved the cold and drizzle to show up for the 26th annual Tombstone Trail. We had 6 no-shows, probably the highest ever, and several teams scrambling at the start to re-organize themselves to replace missing teammates. In all, 30 pre-registered and 30 started. Fortunately, the rain stopped just as the cars took to the streets.
The format was new this year. Basically, one set of relatively easy questions, answered at cemeteries, gave you the keys to a word puzzle. Scoring was based on how much of the word puzzle you solved. There was enough information in the clues that you didn't need to visit every cemetery to solve the puzzle, but there were key cemeteries (the farthest away) that provided the most difficult parts of the puzzle. Clever analysis of the multiple-choice answers, the process of elimination, and the hint "a quartet of empty, contented dogs" allowed you to make an educated guess at the answer, "four happy hollow wieners".
In fact, at 7:20 PM, 20 minutes after starting, Dave Fuss left a message on the rallymaster's answering machine to prove that they had solved the puzzle! That was actually before they visited a single cemetery.
The second part of the event was another set of relatively difficult questions, answered at cemeteries, that were used as tiebreakers for the puzzle. In fact, as many as 4 teams fully solved the puzzle and tied on the tiebreaker, so we had to draw numbers to break the tiebreaker tie!
This year the map reading was exceptionally hard, due to the official county highway map. Not only is it hard to read the Washington County map, the townships don't line up, making it extremely difficult to figure out which cemetery belongs to which section number.
Mary and Mark Utecht took top honors overall and in class AA, our class for experienced teams running with more than 2 people in the car. Only 2 people may get out of the car at a cemetery, so the "extra" people sit in the car with the map, plotting course and strategy. Dave and Stacy Sterling accompanied the Utechts and helped them solve the word puzzle while collecting 18 of 21 possible tiebreaker points.
Second in class AA and third overall were Dennis and Becky Doffing with 13 tiebreaker points.
Class A went to Todd and Rita Jarvey, 2nd overall with 16 tiebreakers. Second in class A and 4th overall were Deb Doffing, running for the first time, and Kelly Doffing, the highest seeded competitor too young to hold a driver's license, with 10 tiebreakers. To be fair, Dave and Rachel Fuss, Dean Ewald and John Wiersma, and Keith Ohlendorf and Emily Burton-Weinman all tied with the Doffings at 10 tiebreakers. A draw of numbers put Fuss/Fuss 3rd in A, Ewald/Wiersma 4th, and Ohlendorf/Burton 3rd in class AA.
One other notable occurance in class A/AA: Two teams forgot that we deducted for wrong tiebreaker answers! Stu Tanquist and Charlie Moen dropped from 13 (tied with Doffings for 2nd in AA) to 5 (4th). Tami Benike and Traci DeValk dropped from 11 (2nd in A) to 1 (7th). At least Tanquist/Moen took home the best costume award! We should have given Traci a trophy for being the most pregnant Tombstone competitor since Karol Fisch.
Bruce Weinman and Beryl Ann Burton took class B, another interesting race, by completing the word puzzle. Bill Baker and Julie Raymond missed one puzzle point for 2nd, so their 11 tiebreaker points didn't come into play. Also, Joe and Trina Huttle could have beat them both with 13 tiebreakers, but their two misses on the puzzle left them in 3rd.
Class C had Lance and Dana Stevens take first with a complete word puzzle, with fellow first-timers Jay and Andrea Ditmer missing one point for 2nd. Max and Judy Hinkley came in 3rd.
Erik Dahl and Colin Lee smoked the field on their first Tombstone Trail, taking first in class D and 8th overall. David Mulhouse and Vanessa Severson were 2nd, with William Volk and Pierre Matthews in 3rd.
The best story trophy went to John Knauss for his adventures trying to find the start point in Maple Grove rather than Maplewood. The coveted dead last award was taken by Dan Moore and Jason Metzgar.
Thanks to all who braved the weather, and especially to our workers, Mary Tillemans and Rachel Larson. We'll see you all again next year, I hope.
Mark Larson
Rallymaster
You can see the event results here.