How Many Minutes Is 692 Seconds?

And just how far will you go at an aver­age speed of 53 MPH? My wife and I weren’t to sure about the answer to either of those ques­tions this morn­ing and that may have been our down­fall. We totally blew a turn and had to back track sev­eral miles to re-engage the course. It threw off our time and mileage for the first seg­ment, plus it skewed our Fiero check­point time so that we ended up los­ing out on 39 points. That prob­a­bly would have been enough to put us near the top of the standings.

Our own fault. The gen­eral instruc­tions for the today’s Master’s Miata Club TSD Rally said have at least a watch with a sec­ond hand… Last year the instruc­tions were turn right at the third oppor­tu­nity, but this year the instruc­tions were full of: Turn right. CAST to 42MPH. Drive for 800 sec­onds. Turn left at next oppor­tu­nity. First prob­lem was all we had for a clock was the one in the dash which just gives hour and minute. Sec­ond prob­lem was our rusty math skills in divid­ing triple dig­its num­bers by 60. Third prob­lem was remem­ber­ing to remem­ber the next approx­i­mate time for a turn all the while try­ing to find the answers to eso­teric trivia ques­tions in the sur­round­ing environs.

We didn’t repeat our last year’s sec­ond place fin­ish, we fin­ished totally out of the money, but we did win a booby prize for hav­ing the high­est score on the trivia por­tion of the con­test. I now have a gift cer­tifi­cate for a free oil change at our spon­sor­ing dealer. I also have yet another hat with Miata on it. This one is almost like the one I won in Novem­ber except the word Miata is in navy, so it may actu­ally get worn. Mat­ter of fact, if any­one wants a nice never worn hat, cream col­ored with a navy blue bill with the word Miata embroi­dered in bright pur­ple script, drop a com­ment in the box, cost is just a cou­ple bucks to cover postage.