30th Chelsea Road Rally
Sunday, May 18, 2025 11am

The 30th annual Chelsea Road Rally was held on Sunday, May 18th. The morning was very cool with some sprinkles. The day remained very cool with intermittent showers but the competitors' spirits were high. This year there were 74 vehicles entered with about 234 adult competitors taking part in the brain teasing contest.

The rally this year raised money, once again, for the maintenance of the Roberts-Gould Athletic Field, which is adjacent to the First Branch Unified School District, Chelsea campus. The athletic field is now celebrating its 110th year of use for baseball and other athletic purposes. This baseball field is one of only a few in this part of the state that is owned by the town and is laid out to play adult baseball on. Most of the other baseball fields in this area are part of a college or school district property.

Everyone got off to a good start from the Chelsea Waste Water Treatment Facility, with all 74 teams successfully making their way to the Mileage checkpoint, which was located next to the power sub-station on Baptist Street in Williamstown, a distance of 11.2 miles. It was at this point that the clues actually began. The course turned right onto Therriault Hill Road and then left onto Tower Road. The course continued on McCarthy Road, Lambert Road, Lowery Road, and Cemetery Road. After a short distance in the town of Orange the route came down Woodchuck Hollow Road and turned left onto the West Corinth Road. All 74 teams found Checkpoint #1 which was located at the old Washington dump. From this point the course meandered through Washington, Chelsea, past the Doyle farm, briefly back into Washington, then into Corinth, through the village of Cookeville and finally to Checkpoint #2, which was located across the road from the large Corinth Center Cemetery. Amazingly, 72 cars were still in the hunt at this stage of the contest.

The third leg of the course, which is where the clues become much more difficult to decipher, led through Corinth Center, up the Taplin Hill Road, down Hutchinson Road to the cookout located at the old Corinth Fairgrounds on Fairgrounds Road. The cookout was free to all ralliers. This year, Tim Carter, Kathy Myers and Terry and Judy Libby provided 120 hamburgers, 63 hotdogs, Tim's famous baked beans, Cousin Stan's coleslaw and Kathy's chocolate chip cookies, mostly on the grab and go method. The course continued and turned left onto VT Route 25, left onto the Brook Road and then right onto the Pike Hill Road. After a left turn onto the Richardson Road, they found themselves once again on the Brook Road. The route headed for Goose Green, but turned left at the Taplin Hill Road and over the same tracks that the cars had made an hour earlier. This time the course went past Hutchinson Road and Fairgrounds Road and turned right onto Hayward Road and then left on White Road. A right turn at the end of White Road took everyone to Checkpoint #3 at the old Eastman/Covey store. 61 teams made it this far.

The final and most difficult leg of the course, headed back through the village of Goose Green, turned left onto Eagle Hollow Road and into the town of Vershire. After a right hand turn onto VT Route 113, the route quickly turned left onto Parker Road. A right turn onto Chamberlain Hill Road, a left on Vershire Center Road, a short visit into the town of Strafford on the Ayers Road, back into Vershire and soon all of the 57 successful teams found the finish line at the former Erin's Market in West Fairlee.

The course this year traveled through eight townships, and like last year they were all located in Orange County. The total distance of the course this year, including the 11.2 miles to the Mileage Checkpoint was 71.4 miles. Eighteen teams finished within one mile of the actual mileage this year and another thirteen finished in the next mile, so again this year the bonus questions played a critical role in determining the order of finish of this year's contestants. There were 31 bonus questions this year, but one of them was missing on the day of the rally, so only 30 were counted. Each bonus question correctly answered is worth one half mile deducted from each team's mileage. That means a perfect score would be 71.4 – 15.0 = 56.4. Amazingly, five teams got all 30 bonus questions correct this year. Seven additional teams got 29 of them. This year the Gorilla Glue "stick to it" award went to team #55, Dan & Debbie Grow, Jackie Shirlock, who successfully finished the course in 104.7 miles. The Ever Ready "bunny rabbit" award for "just keeps on going" went to team #18, Chris Reed, Teresa Doyle, Sandy Balzanelli, Henry Marckres, Paula, who were on the course for seven hours and twenty five minutes. The top 20 teams finished in a two mile window.

Download a sample copy of the clues from 2016.

Examples and (explanations):

14. Go with bow’s companion
(follow the highway Arrow)
15.  Go tight to big blue with Barney access point
(a blue house with a purple door)
16.  No Jayne or Audrey today, but one of these days Alice, right to the moon
(avoid a road with Meadow in its name)
17.  No 12 tons right now
(avoid the load-limited bridge)