First Lemons Rally

You might want to wait on hotel reservations until they send you the official list.   This is a good reason to enter early, so that you will be one of the first to find out.

So far, there have been no limits on the number of cars.   Still, it is best to enter early.

You can enter with the intent of just having fun, with no intention of scoring high.
OR
You can enter with the hope of scoring high and taking home a rusty Lemons trophy.

The former is trivial -- my wife and I did it this year in my daily driver -- a 1996 Volvo.   We had lots of fun and scored near the bottom.

The latter requires a lot more.   You have to come in a vehicle that no sane person would attempt driving across town in, suffer incredible hardships, assist fellow rallyists who are suffering ever worse hardships, get almost no sleep for four or five days, and generally do things that will convince your friends and coworkers that you should be locked up for your own good.   That is what I did last year by taking my Lemons race car (1964 Humber Super Snipe), with no parts available this side of the Atlantic, no creature comforts, and did it all solo.   I took home a trophy.

With each rally, the bar has been raised on the level of insanity required.   Come raise it again.

Seeing as this is your first one, allow me to give you some advice.

Show up, have fun, no one going care what you bring but will pitch in if you're broken down, and treat the scoring system like "Who's Line Is It Anyway" (where the rules are made up and the points don't matter!) Just don't be a douchnozzle and bring your drinking liver!

I have family in Duluth, Minnesota I have been crazy enough to visit in the middle of winter, so the cold doesn't worry me too much. Assuming the heat doesn't break in the truck I just picked up LOL.

I'm officially registered now, so I will be there even if I have to take my reliable daily driver (the truck I just picked up for the rally for $700 is indicating no oil pressure at idle once the engine warms up... haven't had time to look into it yet but since it isn't knocking I'm thinking it's just the sending unit for the gauge which is a common problem on these trucks).

Either way I can't wait!

I actually found Moscow to be pleasantly warm last year. But maybe I'm crazy... Or Canadian...
All three of the vehicles I've brought down to rally have been my daily driver at some point in the last three years. I've brought two trophies back with me. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong? Lol. Saint Jimmy (still in full rally livery) is actually my only registered vehicle right now.

But back on the advice train. The first shot I was hoping to be semi-competitive at least. I wound up taking my daily driver because the Niva wasn't roadworthy enough (er, the oil pan, um, quit working), but still hoped to be competitive. But the craziness of the route I picked south and some challenges along the way (would you know my 26-year-old/300,000mile fuel pump quit working? And it was 800 miles of rural Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta at <2000rpm before I found another?) left our team too exhausted to be quite functional. We still pulled top 20 but we missed a ton of checkpoints.
The Retreat last year (actually this year), we were planning on just having fun. But then stupidly we showed up at the starting line in a Lada. Suddenly we had waaaay too many starting points not to try to be competitive. So we hit every single checkpoint we could. After the loss of 5th gear, that meant leaving at 6 and generally getting into the checkpoint that night in the dark. This was actually pretty good fun, because it meant most teams caught up to us during the day and we actually got to see pretty well everyone. And then there was a Waffle House sign and somehow a trophy. Then I had to solo all the way home with nothing but a glasspack and 4500 rpm for entertainment.
Then this summer the Niva was still broken from the Retreat so it couldn't go as planned, and my daily driver went. Sorry, got distracted, a bull elk just cruised down my street at full gallop. Weirdo. Where was I? Right. Saint Jimmy, the $250 POS that I got to tide me through the period between Manitoba and Alberta registration on the previous two rally cars. Fun fact, in Alberta you only need a bill of sale hastily scribbled on the back of half a courthouse parking lot map to legally register and insure a vehicle. And no one even cares that the driver's door doesn't have a striker. But given the fact it was built in this century we knew we stood no hope of winning. So we just played up a theme that sorta found itself, had a blast, hit all the checkpoints, went on a couple adventures (highways are booooorrrrriiinnngg) and somehow found ourselves with a trophy.

So, moral of the long-winded story, the idea here is to have a great time. Be ridiculous, don't give up, and have a great time. The harder you try and the harder you push yourself and your team, the less fun you'll have, and the less fun you have, the worse you'll do. My daily driver now has "I'm the son of rage and love" painted down the side. #NoRagrets