Road Rally Calculator

Rick drove and navigated. I worked out the numbers. Every minute or two I could tell him how many seconds we were ahead or behind schedule. I ran through a pace. Odometer, clock, calculator, speed up or slow down. It was simple.

Rick had a strong sense of place. We'd driven the country roads of Indiana so he could visualize the quirky rally instructions. I didn't bother to read them to him. He drove one handed and read while he drove. Less chance of mis-understanding that way.

I was busy running the numbers. I couldn't read and keep up the rep rate. Better to stay focused.

We won our first rally. That was fun. We tried another. Won that too. I was busy both time but I knew what I had to do.

Third time I had Rick's HP-65 programmed up to do everything. Any two numbers it would compute the third. Rick's driving like crazy. I'm quoting out the bad news. He turns around and speeds the other way. More bad news. The 65 told us by exactly how much we weren't going to win.

The three pages of instructions started by saying, follow the numbered instructions in order. Simple enough. Except that they intentionally collated the pages out of order. It was hard for Rick to notice that while driving too. Maybe I should have taken some of my new free time to read the instructions too.