Fonz's Winter Car Rally --- As it Wasn't!

Guy as always your clever subtle invective is both charming and amusing keep up the good vibe


Your favorite Reptile

Great report as usual. Well done, Guy.

Great report, Mick. I've got no problem with that version of events. That's what the organisers would have seen.

However, Fonzie asked me to write up the contestants experience for Grapevine, but then CC told me the magazine won't come out for another few months, so for the sake of currency I'm publishing now.

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Fonzie’s winter Yarra Ranges branch car rally.

Sunday July 15th 2018

No less than 43 Yarra Ranges Ulyssians, organised into 13 teams, turned up at the Kilsyth Club on a cold but sunny Sunday in July for Fonzie's annual car rally.
Months of meticulous planning went into this event, with Mick Crofts and Ed Kuppens providing great assistance to the Fonz. A little known fact is that Fonzie was so dedicated to the task that when his Movie Maker program (needed for the presentation) didn't work he actually bought himself a brand new computer with HDMI plug. Sadly the Movie Maker transfer failed and he ended up using the old computer anyway, but hey, that's dedication.

The mounting yard is often a good place to get a feel for the best chances on the day, with any sweating or pigrooting a bad sign. I keenly observed the top weighted favorites, Rowan and Gipp, look for signs they could go back to back, but I didn't sense any real self belief. Kevin Willoughby had put together a slick outfit of him and some random family member and I felt they could be roughies, but in the end I decided that Steve Mattison's team, quietly strutting their stuff and looking every inch the thoroughbreds, would be hard to beat.

We were read the riot act by Fonzie and Crofty and left, two teams at a time, in opposite directions to avoid any copying. I had my wife Jean as navigator. Earlier as I drove past Brunch Cafe without turning she got me worried by saying, 'Isn't it at the Kilsyth Club?' Just big day nerves, hopefully.

We headed down Canterbury Rd towards our first turn at Bayswater Rd, solving clues as we went. We were baffled by, 'a business that some nut might go to to find a partner', until we had a light bulb moment. 'Crazy John's' we wrote down confidently, as we sailed past Bayswater Bolts.

We followed a pleasant route out towards Warranwood, trying to identify the spots where three photos on our running sheet had been taken and also counting old man logos, of which there surprisingly turned out to be none. We'd also been given a small plastic container and told that we had to find 3 items starting with a designated letter that would fit inside it, but since Fonzie forgot to designate any letters we all had to choose our own. Any items that were duplicated by other teams didn't score a point. We went with the letter B and happily noted that our container already appeared to be harbouring some bacteria, making our task somewhat easier.

We briefly entered McAdam Square to identify a business whose name ... can be interpreted as something to do with a 'langeal prominence'. This had us stumped, as there is no such word as ‘langeal’. We knew that if it had only been 'laryngeal' it would have been easy, something to do with a lump over the larynx. We pulled up in front of a small grocery shop called McAdam's Apple and pored over the cryptic clue. Finally we twigged. Fonzie must have made an, ahem, deliberate mistake.
 
Our next stop was the BMX track at Stinton Park in Park Orchards, to find a plaque with the name of some dude who opened it. When we arrived there were so many people swarming over the track that I thought a race must have started, until I noticed that the competitors all seemed rather old and didn't actually have bikes. We searched unsuccessfully for the plaque in the park for quite some time, with someone from another team who shall remain nameless (lest I be called a dobber) parking their posterior on the plaque for much of the time and not helping our cause.

After that we headed for the picturesque Warran Glen Garden Cafe, where we were greeted by a welcoming wave from Brinley Cottle esquire. Those marshalls do a lonely, heroic job.  We got so excited when we noticed the gargoyley thing from one of the 3 photos at the entrance, that the old man logo on the umbrella stand somehow escaped our attention.

We all packed into an area down at the rear of the cafe for refreshments and saw that our running sheet warned us to be careful if we suffered from gerontophobia, which we were then asked to define. We took a guess that it meant, 'Fear of plant nurseries who instead of sticking to their knitting decide to run a cafe'. Actually I must admit it was a pretty nice place and worth a visit.

Ed Morris was helping the organisers too and he and Homer and Brin handed each team a weird photo of a collage of creatures and told us we had to write down all the ones we could identify. I immediately saw a sloth. Later Fonzie told me that it's a famous psychological test and the first animal you identify tells you something about yourself.

Despite there being 9 animals in the collage, the combined teams easily identified a further 21 that we were somewhat crestfallen to learn, ummm, well, weren't actually there. These included a thin snouted crocodile called a gharial, an axolotl (or Mexican walking fish), an armadillo-like creature called a pangolin, 2 skunks, a deformed tapir and a rare 'Diane's bare-hearted glass frog'. Hmmm. 'Enough material there for a whole conference', as the psychiatrist said about Basil Fawlty.

Fatefully grabbing a pod of butter for our container, an idea shamelessly copied by K2 and Pam which ultimately cost us the whole rally, Jean and I headed off through some nice scenery on the final leg. Despite some injudicious day-dreaming we managed to spot the weird, double beaked bird from one of the photos, but realised with some annoyance that we must have missed the graceful stone archway from photo number 2, as it was now out of order.

We took it a bit slower then and stopped for bamboo and bark along the way to supplement our butter, just in case Fonzie couldn't see the bacteria, which led to us getting a bit behind schedule. Under strict instructions to be back at the Club by midday at the latest, my navigator tried to mutiny, suggesting that with only Edinburgh Rd and Belfast Rd to go, we should cut and run. Channeling George Dubya Bush I wanted to 'stay the course' and since I was driving that's exactly what we did. Still arguing about our strategy we cruised past two old man logos on the Mooroolbark Rd bridge and the lovely stone archway in Edinburgh Rd from photo number 2, without noticing a thing.

Back at the Kilsyth Club car park we were finally able to relax and like everyone else walked past the old man logo on the glass doors without it registering. It appeared that everyone had enjoyed a good time and lunches and ales were being consumed, while Fonzie's team tallied up the results. Jean and I were pleased to see the thoughtfully provided 'Marriage Counselling' sign put out by the organisers.

While we had lunch, each table was given a photo of a spy in the mist with his face hidden in shadows and two circular pieces of cardboard that fitted one on top of the other with alphabets printed on them. We had to work out the coded identity of the man in the mist. To me he looked suspiciously like Mickey Mouse's sworn enemy, The Phantom Blot, but proving it was another matter.

We got two of the letters, S and C, worked out, but then unfortunately a fat fingered mistake by yours truly produced the letter V, which didn't seem promising. As we scratched our heads and tried to think of names starting with SCV, the table with that smarty pants Tony Garner on it announced that they had solved it. The answer was 'Schmidt the Spy', a person I'd never heard of and who was obviously not too clever. If I was working undercover for the Russians I wouldn't call myself Guy the Spy, that's for sure.

Gavin Martin entertained us all on the microphone and a rep from each team had to front up and show the three items they had collected. You could see the immense pride that each person took in their achievement written all over their faces.

A special prize was won by some team I can’t recall (fame is so fleeting) for the most novel collectible. You’d think it might be something pretty impressive and hard to find, that would make us all gasp and ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’, but it was a chille.  Okay…right.

Continuing in that controversial vein, Kevin Willoughby’s team won another ‘novel prize’, not for writing a novel but for presenting an empty box. He’d cunningly chosen the letter Z and pointed out that the box contained zero. Sadly for Kevin he’d evidently forgotten to collect the other two items, which would anyway have cancelled out the zero (and therefore ensnared himself in a logic trap), thus proving that even the greatest minds can falter under extreme pressure.

Well done on the MC-ing work, Snake. The man’s a cross between a stand up comic and a headmaster. Very enjoyable.

Finally the all important results were announced with an impressive drum roll from Snake using his fingers on a table.

First prize of a double Gold Pass to Knox cinema went to... Carol and Tony Garner! Yep, we might have guessed. Damn geniuses!

Second prize of a $50 voucher donated by First class Motorcycles went to our 'butter buddies' Pam Roberts and Kevin White, who must have just pipped us on one or two of the other items, since Jean and I were somehow overlooked for equal second.

Third prize of a meal voucher (for two) at Club Kilsyth went to the team of Karen, Jim, Brooke and Jake, all relatives of Fonzie. Bit of insider trading there, no? By my arithmetic that works out at half a free meal each, which illustrates why small teams are best.

Finally there was the impressive sounding 'Golf Award', breakfast for two at Brunch. Alas, not to the team with the lowest combined golf handicap, but to the team who finished stone, motherless last. This was scooped by the very same Steve Mattison team who had looked so promising in the mounting yard, but failed dismally to deliver.

It has to be said again, many thanks to Crofty, Homer, Ed Morris, Brin, Snake and the prize sponsors and finally another huge thank you to John Eckhardt for his brobdingnagian effort in putting it all together for our enjoyment.

(That’s a real word, Fonzie, unlike langeal.)

 
Nice account Guy  .  but I must formally lodge a protest. -  I actually mispelt Laryngeal as Layngeal   -  not Langeal as your account suggest.    No doubt one misspelling  cancels out the other.

I am not sure is misspelt is mis-spelt or spelt incorrectly - so I have had two bob each way

Cheers FONZ.