[yatrik]

Participated for the first time, was an amazing experience.. Met a few TBHP members - Stratos, Dippy, F50, Rehaan and Aditya.

I was car no. 42, completed all the checkpoints and finished 22nd ! At the start forgot to reset my ODO at the exit, realized that about 100 meters late so was off 0.1 on the ODO. It was my navigator, Anil's first time also, so got a bit confused during the starting few instructions, he was a bit nervous it seemed. But F50 helped me out. (He was just behind me in car 43). Later missed the U-turn under the Kemps Corner flyover, however realized it just in time, but still got a 100 meter detour, on the brighter side that covered my ODO error at the beginning ! From thereon, it pretty smooth and was on track all throughout !

Originally Posted by honeybee

Also I suspect something is wrong with the Nano's tripmeter. Both in the trial run and in the rally the trip meter consistently showed lesser distances. After three years I know the tulips are accurate. So it must be the trip meter. How do I know for sure?

Towards the end even I faced a similiar issue. After the freeway and tunnel ended. the Left towards Sion from the Circle came about 400 meters EARLIER than the Tulip stated, so I thought there was an error there, dunno if anyone else faced it. Otherwise with the 0.4 correction from thereon was perfect.

[GTO]

Good fun guys!

Today's event raised to the tune of 28 lakhs! 100 odd cars total participation. That means, each one who drove in the 2 hour rally directly / indirectly was responsible for Rs. 28,000 toward a good cause.

[kiren]

As TMRT mentioned above I also should Thanks GTO for the message else would have missed such an awesome event.

What an experience it was for both me & my wife. Though we missed the direction at 3 points (OCS Bldg), King Circle & Plaza Cinema, we were able to rectify our route and not miss the 7 check points.

honeybee, Yes indeed it was beginner's Luck of winning the lucky draw. However would have been more happy if the prize received was something useful to the Navigator.

Regarding the ODO reading, I suppose there can be difference from car to car.

Kiran

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by GTO

Good fun guys!

Today's event raised to the tune of 28 lakhs! 100 odd cars total participation. That means, each one who drove in the 2 hour rally directly / indirectly was responsible for Rs. 28,000 toward a good cause.

During the prize distribution ceremony they mentioned that a record 105 cars were flagged off. At 2000 INR eah that brings the total registration fees to 210,000.
A cheque of Rs. 500,000 was handed over to Mr. Ramakrishnan, chairman of NAB.
If I remember correctly the Round Table association adds an equivalent amount to the registration fees and the whole fund is then given to NAB. My guess is this amount comes from the sponsors.
This year they did have a few more sponsors such as Tata Motors and Girnar. But they didn't raise 28,00,000.

[GTO]

^ Honeybee, amount of 28 lakhs was shared by the chief organiser. It's not out of the ordinary, as I know of at least one earlier Blind Man Car Rally where the total funds raised was in the region of 20 lakhs.

[GTO]

Just received the final results from the organisers, attached to this post.

Lots of BHPians did well. Yours truly came 5th

[Aditya]

I managed to garner 60 penalty points in two legs, while the remaining four cost me just 10. No prizes for guessing which were the two stages that I messed up on. I must practice slow driving.
My navigator, Satish was excellent - read Braille fluently and ensured that I didn't miss a single turn. The rally was great fun and wonderfully organised, as always. Meeting Team-BHPians and making new friends is always great. Congrats to Kiren for winning the lucky draw and kthacker for flicking someone else's trophy.
Here's my car lined up for the flag-off.

[kthacker]

Originally Posted by Aditya

flicking someone else's trophy.

Busted! Nonetheless was great catching up all!

[GTO]

Two pictures from my end:

[Rehaan]

Another fun year at the BMR!

Huge turn-out this time, and as always - super job by the organizers keeping everything running smoothly.

My navigator this year, Ravi, was last year's winner - so the pressure was really on me. We had a really good run, but one mess-up when we went from one tulip to the other took us pretty far off course. There's always next year!

Was great to meet some new BHPians (@Honeybee despite us being in the same picture above, i never got a chance to say hi as you 'buzzed away' to somewhere else right after!).

Originally Posted by yatrik

But F50 helped me out. (He was just behind me in car 43). Later missed the U-turn under the Kemps Corner flyover, however realized it just in time, but still got a 100 meter detour,

I don't know what kind of 'help' F50 gave you, but there was no U-turn under the kemps corner flyover!

It was a right turn towards Napeansea road. Not sure if whats what you meant?

cya
R

[yatrik]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

I don't know what kind of 'help' F50 gave you, but there was no U-turn under the kemps corner flyover!

It was a right turn towards Napeansea road. Not sure if whats what you meant?

cya
R

Yes there was, not the right for napeansea, later when coming down from hanging gardens, we had to take a u-turn under the flyover and go towards chowpatty.

[Stratos]

Absolutely enjoyed my first time at the Blind Man Rally. I am already looking forward to the next year's event.

Me and my 'amazing' navigator Donald ended up coming 40th

Attaching a few pictures.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by yatrik

Towards the end even I faced a similiar issue. After the freeway and tunnel ended. the Left towards Sion from the Circle came about 400 meters EARLIER than the Tulip stated, so I thought there was an error there, dunno if anyone else faced it. Otherwise with the 0.4 correction from thereon was perfect.

Originally Posted by kiren

Regarding the ODO reading, I suppose there can be difference from car to car.

Kiran

No, this is either a "Nano" defect or my car's problem. I used "my track" to cross-check the odo reading during one of my daily drives, and the odo was off by almost a km and a half. That kind of an error, specially in a distance of under 30 kms is significant. Back in the first BMR rally when I drove a Santo, the odo and the tulips were perfectly matched. I would trust the BMR organizers in this matter, so need to bring this up with my garage. Would love to peep inside the SA's mind when he sees a customer complaining about his Nano's trip meter not being accurate. LOL!

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Was great to meet some new BHPians (@Honeybee despite us being in the same picture above, i never got a chance to say hi as you 'buzzed away' to somewhere else right after!).

cya
R

Hey, sorry for that! Actually my better half was standing farther away, waiting for me and we didn't want to miss lunch and the prize distribution (last two years haven't exactly been great on these two counts!)

Will surely try and improve on my performance next year so I can spend a little more time with you all!

[honeybee]

Has anyone got news of the drive for 2015?

[yatrik]

Originally Posted by honeybee

Has anyone got news of the drive for 2015?

Yes, got a mail from Vishal with the forms, just submitted it a couple of days back.