Jeffrey AronsonMAR stands for both “Mid Atlantic Rally” and “Mud and Rain.” Over its 30 years as a Rover Owners of Virginia (ROAV) event, the surprise comes when it’s dry and dusty rather than wet and muddy.
The James River runs through the Little George Rod and Gun in Arvonia, VA, the home of the most recent MARs. The river’s height tends to be predictable enough that the Adamson family, which owns the 1,000 acre property, maintains a simple bridge to cross a narrow ford on the river. For last Fall’s 2024 rally that concrete bridge sat far below the water’s surface and ran dangerously fast – cutting off access to many off road trails and the Rovers North-sponsored RTV Trials course locations.
Hurricane Helene struck Virginia on the opening day of the MAR and within a couple of days, the accumulated rainfall overflowed river banks and saturated the surrounding regions, including Little George. This posed quite a challenge to off road trail leaders Bob Steele, Tyler Smith and Camryn Griffiths,, Catherine and Aaron Manis, David Powers, Clarence Brown, David Chase. Each day’s rains made the trails even more difficult; as Mike McCaig noted, “If you were at MAR earlier in the week, you could enjoy them, but as the storm got worse, the trails became nearly impassible.”
At the invitation of the ROAV leadership, Rovers North’s Calef Letorney, Nick Cota and Gene Schubert worked with a group of volunteers and me to search out alternative locations, and then design and create the RTV Trials course. We found ourselves confined to a long stretch of fields with only gentle slopes. With the upland game bird hunting season looming ahead at Little George, we could not dig sinkholes or create moguls on the sodden grasslands, nor utilize any hillsides.
Calef concluded “If we can’t dig or build up piles of dirt, let’s create a course of really tight turns.” Nick, Gene and I surveyed the extended fields and set out to balance the turning radius of Defender L663 or Range Rover L322’s (thank you, Mike and Nancy McCaig) against the short wheelbase of a Defender 90 L316 or a Series SWB Land Rover. With the help of volunteers, we spent a day creating the five sections – only to discover that the saturated conditions of the natural swales rendered them unsafe for an RTV. The following day, we reset two of the sections to avoid tearing up any hillsides. Just in time to meet the event schedule, we completed the construction of the course and opened it up to competitors.
The end result featured a series of twists and turns that extended across the entire length of the available acreage. Given the necessary reduction of access to some of the off-road trails, this meant that campers, competitors on the teeter-totter and mud-splattered off roaders found themselves lured into becoming participants in the Trials Course. The distances covered by the sections, combined with the large number of competitors, meant we needed more volunteers than usual to marshal the sections and serve as judges. Despite the hot, muggy weather, we had a terrific response from our pleas for help.
In addition to Gene, Calef and myself, the RTV course enjoyed the significant help from teenagers whose families have raised them as Land Rover enthusiasts. Catherine Manis, Charlottesville, VA and her son Carter have been stalwart off roaders for many years, due to the influence of her father, Michael Boggs, a leading light of ROAV. Their neighbor and good friend, Enoch Snyder, encouraged his kids, Evans and Anna Grace, who in turn enticed her boyfriend, Liam Simpson (also a Manis cousin) and Cheyenne Terrance to give up their afternoons to make the RTV a success. Competitors like David Carmichael, Plant City, FL, stepped in to serve as marshals once they had run the course themselves.
In honor of MAR’s 30th year, attendees could make the ten-minute drive to nearby Penlan Farm, the site of the first MAR. Host Mike McCaig said “I was delighted by the great turnout; it was quite a thing for me to see this go on – what a legacy!”
At Saturday night’s outdoor BBQ dinner, ROAV President Lawrence Michelon took the opportunity for ROAV to honor Nancy McCaig and Sandy Grice for their services to the club and the Rally. It’s always a treat to know that clubs recognize the thousands of volunteer hours that go into creating and administering rallies both large and small.
Maybe the most fitting vehicle for this year’s MAR was Bill Cooper’s genuine Camel Trophy Munro Maya ’95 Discovery I, with “Raft Unit” painted on the side. Given the dangerous conditions on the James River, a raft crossing would have been perfectly appropriate for this 30th MAR.