Oppo Rally 2018: The Results

"Dusty Ventures" (dustyventures)
07/31/2018 at 13:44 • Filed to: oppo rally 2018, oppo rally, half massed rally

Oppo Rally 2018 is compete and I couldn’t be more thrilled with how it went.

If you’re just interested in the results scroll down, otherwise continue reading for a summary of the rally and the checkpoints I visited.

We started the day with 11 teams, over a third of which came from outside of New England to attend. Cars ranged from a trio of Ford STs to an 80's Crown Vic wagon on oversize mud tires to a Porsche 911 Turbo that I understand is now faster than it was upon leaving the factory.

The name of the game this year was the same as in last year’s Oppo Rally: I gave everyone a list of landmarks across the western part of the state, most of them weird and/or overlooked, and what town each was in. Competitors had to figure out where the landmarks were and decide which ones to go after. Like with last year the checkpoints were all broken into themed sets, with a points bonus for completing the set. What was different this year was the addition of bonus challenges. These were tasks that took a little extra time (and in some cases money) but would reward competitors with massive points. They ranged from 150 points for buying a dozen donuts from a particular donut shop to 600 points for playing disc golf at the state’s four dam-adjacent disc golf courses, to 3,500 for making yourself abjectly miserable all day by trying to visit the state’s four corners (no one went for that one). The event started at 9 with the first challenge: 80 points for anyone willing to spend three minutes with a toothpick of “the end” hot sauce in your mouth. Only four teams went for it.

Once the hot sauce torture was over the teams were released into the wild. I waited 45 minutes to make sure there were no stragglers, then hit the road myself as the roving points bonus: any team that managed to photograph my car would get 30 points, any who photographed me outside my car would earn 60.

My plan for the day was simple: Route 2 is a very good road, so I would just drive Route 2 and hit any checkpoints near it. The Route 2 corridor actually had a heavy concentration of checkpoints, making it a fun drive with lots to stop and see. (Not a good route for anyone trying to actually win though. Low value targets and no full category sets.)

My first stop was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! a stone marker on a dead end street bearing his name. While there I took this as my first opportunity to use the rally’s new Instagram scoring system to see which teams had already been through (each checkpoint has a designated hashtag that must be used when posting the checkpoint photo. Look up the checkpoint hashtag and you can see who logged it and when). To my surprise I was the first one through here. In fact only one checkpoint had been logged outside of the Worcester area so far: the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Rutland. Maybe I would be able to dodge them all this time around.

On to the second stop: the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Frances and Jonathan Drake were fierce abolitionists, so much so that when they were building their home in Leominster they included a trap door in the floor of the front parlor so they could hide escaped slaves fleeing on the underground railroad. The home hid dozens of slaves during the 19th century, most famously including Shadrach Minkins. Shadrach was the first escaped slave recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act, captured in Boston in 1851. At his federal hearing in the courthouse in Boston a group of abolitionists (some estimates say as many as 200 people) entered the courtroom by force, taking Shadrach. The abolitionists helped him escape to Canada and permanent freedom, hiding in in the Frances Drake House for four days along the way.

Again, upon arrival I checked the hashtag. Worryingly for me (I like dodging everyone) a team had already been through. Even more worrying, two teams had already logged my next planned stop. The game was on.

My third stop was one of the weirder ones on the rally: the grave of a man !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (sorta). Beards had gone out of style in Puritanical Massichusetts in the 1720s, and those who chose not to leave their chins naked were ostracized. Despite this, Joseph Palmer chose to grow a rather robust beard after returning from the War of 1812. The town didn’t like this at all, the local preacher accused Joseph of communing with the devil and in 1830 four men attacked Palmer outside a hotel and attempted to shave it off. Palmer fought back, stabbing two of his attackers with a pocket knife, for which he was arrested and charged with assault. Palmer ended up spending 15 months in jail for the incident, but maintained his beard throughout, and in fact until death. As a final act of rebellion, Palmer’s grave has a portrait of him with his full flowing beard and the inscription “Persecuted for wearing the beard.” Nice.

On the way to my third stop I saw a familiar car coming up in my rear view, the light bar-adorned front end of team !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! VW Rabbit. Fortunately for me my Outback is nondescript from the rear, aside from a Jalopnik sticker in the top corner of the window, so they blew past. Unfortunately for me they were headed for the same checkpoint I was, and from the front my car’s hood scoop does a good job of identifying me. I’d been caught.

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Even more unfortunate for me, the llamas were headed to the same checkpoint I was, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The museum is “by appointment only” since the owner died, but just the fact that it is/was a thing at all made it cool enough in my book to be a part of the rally. I let the llamas take the photo for this one, leaving my camera and mascot in the car. Of course they also took the opportunity to get a photo of me as well. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

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To add insult to injury as I sat in my car looking up my next stop a Chevy pickup came barreling up the road with two cop cars in hot pursuit. The parade stopped in front of and next to me, boxing me in. I ended up sitting there for a good 10 minutes waiting for them to either A) finish up and leave, or B) notice me and move. When they finally did notice me one of them asked why I hadn’t honked the horn or gone over and asked them to move or anything. I decided to just shrug in response instead of commenting on how when they’d gotten out of their cars they’d done so with their hands on their weapons and I didn’t want to insert myself into whatever was going on (also because I’m black).

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Finally freed it was on to my fifth stop, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Gardner, MA, also known as “Chair City” due to the city’s extensive history of furniture production. In it’s peak around 1910 the city had 20 companies making 4 million chairs per year. The city still holds annual celebrations of its history, including an annual chair luge, which I will absolutely be going to.

Of course just as I was about to take my checkpoint photo those jerks in the Rabbit showed up to photobomb me.

Unsurprisingly, Chair City has more than one giant chair. Also unsurprising, their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was my next stop. This time I had it all to myself.

From Gardner I went to Winchendon, another town given a nickname for its industrial history. The Converse Toy & Woodenware Company was based in Winchendon from the 1800s until the Great Depression, manufacturing popular wooden toys including drums, whirligigs, and hobby horses. Hence the town’s now iconic symbol, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

From Toy Town it was on to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , an impressive waterfall that drops 175 feet over a series of cascades. It’s also strategically located in the middle of a cellular dead zone, ready to make bad times for anyone who doesn’t already know where their next stop is and how to get to it. Sadly my photo doesn’t come close to doing the place justice as the waterfall requires some effort to get the positioning and framing right and I was in a bit of a hurry. For a proper look at the falls you can !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

After the falls I took a break to check midday scoring on the slow wi-fi in a McDonald’s, then got back on the road to see the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

From the ATM it was a quick drive up a twisty road to the allegedly super haunted !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . In 1704 300 soldiers from the French army, along with warriors from the Abernacki and Mohawk tribes, attacked the town of Deerfield, MA, killing 56 and capturing 112. The army and their native allies set the 112 captures on a forced march to Canada. The captors were under orders to kill anyone who couldn’t make the trip, so when Eunice (who had just given birth the day before) collapsed she was murdered on the spot. The nearby stone marker, erected in 1834, is hella un-PC and lays the blame entirely on the natives, making no mention of the French army.

Ghosts in the rear view it was on to the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum, a neat free museum that displays and operates a variety of trolleys, trams, and rail cars. Particularly cool in my book was the caboose on site that was open for exploration.

Also in Shelburne Falls was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Formerly a rail bridge, the town decided to turn it into a very unique garden after the rail line was shut down.

Just up the road was this 15 foot tall fiberglass statue of mid-20th century cultural appropriation, a “Giant Indian” outside a roadside gift shop named Native Views. It used to be named the Big Indian Shop. Yeeeep.

I should perhaps at this point make mention that this stretch of Route 2 is called the Mohawk Trail, as it follows what used to be a major Native American trade route for the Atlantic tribes. Which helps explain both the running theme and my next stop, a statue named !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . This statue depicts a Native American man in traditional attire with his arms extended to the east to great the Great Spirit. In front of the statue is a reflecting pool lined with 100 inscribed stones from Native American tribes and councils across the U.S. The fact that this is just up the road from the Giant Indian is quite the study in contrast.

After greeting the sun it was on to another icon of the region, the Hoosac Tunnel, once the second longest tunnel in the world at 4.75 miles, and still the longest active U.S. transportation tunnel east of the Rockies. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was started in 1851 with an expected cost of $2 million (roughly $65 million in 2018 money). The tunnel was completed in 1875 at a final cost of $21 million (somewhere around $500 million in 2018 money. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact because the difference in inflation between the start year and finish year is over $200 million) and the lives of 193 workers. Death was so common that during construction the tunnel earned the nickname “the bloody pit.” As I stood at the entrance, staring into a void somehow beyond black, the winds suddenly picked up. Dust billowed, trees leaned, birds flew backwards. I took this as an indicator that I shouldn’t go into the creepy blood hole and went to a nearby cemetery instead. On the way out I passed team !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and their Cayman headed the other way, but they didn’t notice me. Anonymous car FTW.

I don’t know who Gordy Burdick was or what he did, but his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! make me think he and I would have gotten along.

After the tombstone I would totally get if I planned on being buried (I don’t), it was another Mohawk Trail roadside statue, this time !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Erected by the Order of the Elks, this is perhaps one of the more unusual World War I monuments I’ve seen.

The ill wind at the Hoosac tunnel produced an intense but short-lived rain storm. Coming out the other side by the famous Route 2 hairpin I was greeted by a beautiful view of the valley, with a low evening sun over even lower clouds. I didn’t stop to take a picture because I’m dumb, but the llocal_llamas did and it’s a beauty.

I was feeling good about managing to avoid everyone for most of the day, but that came to an end at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , delayed by his incompatibility with modern technologies such as Instagram, was hanging out under the bridge as I arrived. Caught again.

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Never mind that though, the Harmonic Bridge is the star here and it’s some seriously trippy shit. An artist from Mass MoCA attached two 16-foot-long resonating tubes to the bottom of the highway overpass above and placed microphones at specific intervals to pick up the sounds of traffic, resulting in this low, resonating C note.

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Closing in on the finish I stopped at another odd art display, this one at Williams College. Outside the school’s art museum are these giant eyes. At night their pupils glow various colors. Artists are weird.

Speaking of weird, if you haven’t gone down the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that is the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! then you’re in for a treat. These fiberglass giants spread out across the country in the 60s and 70s, positioning themselves on street corners and in parking lots under the guise of selling mufflers, burgers, tires, and motorcycles, waiting for the day they will rise up and overthrow us all.

The final checkpoint was a prime example of me being a bastard. Wally the Stegosaurus is located in front of the Berkshire Museum, literally right around the corner from the rally finish point at Patrick’s Pub. Because of the downtown parking situation in Pittsfield some teams even had to walk past him from where they parked (I was one of those people). The fun was seeing how many teams would be too tired/too hurried to notice and miss these easy points. While most teams were wise to my tricks, three missed these sneaky points, with a fourth rushing out of the restaurant last minute to make the score upon discovering how close it was.

Speaking of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , they were a great finish venue. Good food, ample varieties of beer (and other booze), and not a single menu item over $20, not even the chicken parm. The waitstaff was very attentive and helpful, and they had a reserved table ready and waiting for me when I arrived. 10/10, would use as rally end point again.