And what is this you may ask. . .
Thanks to Dorothy Hansen, we have a copy of an original article from May, 1961 describing the 1/1/61 event
Over the years, the HHHHH has been numbered, and there is some variation in the numbering schemes.
- The 1956 event had a note that it was the second event, indicating the first would have been in 1955,
- The 1965 event was printed as ODHDC 10, which would indicate the first event was 1956, unless someone skipped a year.
- The 1967 event button was printed as ODHDC 11, which would indicate
the first event was 1957! Other buttons seem to indicate a start to the
numbering of 1957. Clearly this isn't right, unless some years were
skipped, the first event can't be 1957 when we have a partial set from
1956.
- In the earliest years, summer events were also gatherings of the ODHDC. Jim Torcaso has offered to contribute some remembrances of these summer events.
The notes that accompanied the few papers we received from 1956
indicate it was the second event, although there is no reference to the
first event being an HHHHH, the New Year's Day Rally.
The next oldest document we have found is an article from one of the
national magazines at the time, describing the 1961 event as HHHHH VI,
which would tend
to indicate that the first event was the 1956. This appears to be the
most definative means yet of telling when the event actually started.
Our good friend, Dorothy Hansen, was an active ralliest with her late
husband, Earl Hansen. She does not recall running any of the early
events,
although she did retain this 1961 article, which appeared in "The
Rallye Route" written by early national ralliests Bill and JoAnne
Carlisle.
Here is link to a detailed PDF file of the May 1961 Article.
Warning this is a high quality scan, and 24 MB in size. This will take a while to download.
