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First-Person Road Trip Review: How Was the Rental Car Rally?

August 18, 2008 at 3:30 PM | by | Comments (4)

A friend of Jaunted decided to go on the Rental Car Rally this past weekend, after we hyped it in a post in July. So was the "36-hour adventure" as awesome as it sounded back then? Not exactly:

Rental Car Rally started off in a great location, Water Taxi Beach in Queens. There was a great turnout, great costumes, a lot of energy, a great view and there were lots of creative vehicles. Coordinates for the checkpoints were handed out, and we were off shortly after midnight.

With 60 teams at $150 dollars each, the promise of a $1,000 grand prize seemed potentially stingy depending on all the swag that we might get at checkpoints. (Turns out there was none to be had.) Not only were the finances questionable, but we learned the scoring wasn't very transparent either. Scoring was mostly subjective (best costumes, best ride, proof of speeding tickets and shenanigans) and did not include shortest travel time.

The first stop was well played at about 1:30 am when the bars were letting out in New Paltz, New York. Bargoers were utterly confused by the costumes and tricked out rides. From there, the checkpoints were extremely anticlimactic and tremendously uninteresting: a church, a high school, a breakfast break in a parking lot at which there was no breakfast (cookies are not breakfast!), a rock painted like a whale, pictured, and a swimming hole on Lake Champlain. With most of the driving taking place through the night we didn't even get a chance to enjoy the Catskill or Adirondack views.

After braving border traffic around noon on Saturday, we crashed for a few hours before meeting up at the open bar that was promised. What we found was two hours of your choice of one local beer or cheap vodka sans mixer in the "red" district of Sainte-Catherine.

Fed up with the amateur planning, we bailed in time to see the much sicker clubs and bars on Boulevard St-Laurent and Rue Crescent that were crowded well into the morning.

With a 7:30 am start on Sunday, we didn't have much time to see Montreal. Multiple teams decided to forgo the ride back on Sunday, prompting a text message around 10 am from race organizers: "If you missed the starting point still show up at finish and we'll just add 10 miles." Trying to get back into NYC on Sunday at 5 pm was the travel nightmare icing on the cake.

Overall, Rental Car Rally was a great travel adventure concept that was poorly executed, suffering from the tedious duration and lack of sustained creativity. Next time, I'm flying to Montreal.

Related Stories:
· Your Very Own Cannonball Run [Jaunted]
· Road Trips coverage [Jaunted]

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Return to » First-Person Road Trip Review: How Was the Rental Car Rally?


Sad Face

Hey there, this is Steve, one of the organizers of Rental Car Rally. In response to the complaints:

  1. $1000 for grand prize = 10% of the gross income from the rally. 30% went to taxes, and 40% more went to planning, including pre-rally driving and planning, gift bag creation, paying the logo designer and screenprinter, creating the DVD cases, renting the club, paying for the open bar, etc. Leaves about 20% for us, split two ways, which equals what the winners received.

  2. cookies are breakfast.

  3. The 100pt scoring system was emailed before the race and handed out in booklet form at the race. As we mentioned at the award lot party on Sunday, we're emailing the numerical results out later this week.

  4. You would've made the return trip if you'd woken up with the rest of the teams. We only sent that text message to people who didn't show up.

  5. Enjoy your flight.

As for everything else, this was the first road rally we've ever planned. Usually we're running big water gun fights (streetwars.net) and videogame tournaments (wiimbledon.net). We learned a lot from the many, many mistakes we made this go round, and next time (LA to Oaxaca?) will be even more rad.

-steve

pants on August 18, 2008 at 9:24 PM #Permalink

It was what you made it!

The race was amazing and I'm sorry your friend did not have fun. It was what you made it, we didn't need souvenirs at all the stops or someone to hold our hands to have a blast. We met a ton of people, pulled a lot of pranks, pinned the speedometer on our rental car and laughed the whole way with a lot of cool people. Was it perfect? No. Was it a ton of fun? Hell ya! I'd do it again this weekend...

We will be at the next one and we will win!!! Or at the very least dust Corvettes with our gas-guzzling hillbilly hauler....

- Aristocrats!

~ Stocks go up! Stocks go down! We stay RICH!!!

The Aristocrats on August 19, 2008 at 2:45 PM #Permalink

You make better friends at 100+

I read this review and don't agree with it.  I knew going into this that we were the experiment and that it wouldn't be perfect.  That being said, this was one of the greatest road trips I have been on.  I have never been on a road trip where the shenanigans I cause might win me 1000 bucks, paid in what can only be described as a stripper's wet dream.  Also the "friends" I usually pick up on a road trip aren't made at 100 Mph, and I have to get rid of them with a Dr. prescribed shampoo.

To address the anticlimactic check points.  Any check point like my friend said was only as fun as you made it.  One of the better check points was just "a swimming hole on Lake Champlain".  There I was able to sneak onto someone's yard, jump in Lake Champlain, pay a kid (who I met at 119 mph) a million dollars in fake cash to get naked in the lake all before 8 am.  While that doesn't sound like a great time, the image will be forever burned in my mind.  

As far as breakfast goes, I agree cookies are breakfast and so is chocolate cake, ask Bill Cosby. THEO!!  Anyway, who could eat breakfast at 3 or 4 am after consuming what can only be described as an unhealthy serving of Red Bull and Blow?  

Yes it wasn't flawless, but it was an great time and I would do it again this weekend if I could. I don't know what team the author was on but it was probably the one who gave the Five-O the check points.  Snitches get stitches my friend.  

See everyone else at buck-seventy in Cali!!!!

- Another Aristocrat    

~Condoms are for sailors, and we're Aristocrats.

The Aristocrats on August 19, 2008 at 4:40 PM #Permalink

Catchers in the Rye aka Mr. Untouchable

forget the money....i really wanted that golden gas pump handle...

Autobuns! Aristocrats! old car with backward flames!!

where else in the world can I land a mystery text message at 2 am from one of sptizer's girls!!

put me down for next year fo sho!

i do wish there was more cowbell......

-holden caulfield

karlchad on August 20, 2008 at 5:05 PM #Permalink

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