Cars decked out in Halloween and doomsday prepping gear rolled up to the Quyon Community Centre for the 36th annual Quyon Lionettes Car Rally on Saturday morning.
This year, 172 people squeezed into the 41 cars that took part in the event – each ride displaying its own take on this year’s theme: the apocalypse.
Quyon Lionette Joan Belsher, an organizer of the event, explained that each year’s rally route is planned by the previous year’s winners.
“We would not have been able to host the car rally without the help of others as the Quyon Lionettes currently has only five active members,” she said.
Last year, Mallory Peck, Jaret Peck, Keith Dubeau and Kayla Morin won the rally on Saturday morning, they met each contestant and handed them their detailed instructions at the start of the rally.
“We started planning in January and decided on a theme pretty much right away,” Mallory Peck said. “We wanted it to be clever and use the surroundings instead of just hiding clues.”
Each participant paid $20 to take part in the rally. There were teams up to six people in size depending on their car. Belsher said that the funds from this will go towards “donations to our community, schools, long-term care, a PHS bursary, to name a few.”
From sign-ups alone, the rally raised at least $3,000, which Belsher said will go towards the breakfast club programs among other initiatives at Onslow Elementary School and École de la Vallée-des-Voyageurs in Quyon and Luskville.
Belsher said even though it’s been 36 years, there’s still so much enthusiasm from the community.
“Some of the participants that started 36 years ago aren’t able to do it now,” Belsher said. “But there’s a lot of younger people that are joining in.”
Last year’s winners were excited to try and incorporate clues into existing signs and structures on the route.
“We set up one where we tell them that there was a group of zombies that set up camp and we ask what the name of the camp is,” Morin said. “And right across from the building, there’s a sign with underlined letters that spell the name out.”
Dubeau and Morin explained that they also wanted to make it a challenge for participants.
“My favourite is when we put a rock with tape on it to mislead people,” Dubeau said.
“We wanted them to think that’s where the answer was,” Morin added. “And we left them a note that says, ‘You didn’t think it was going to be that easy?’”
Despite the fun that this year’s organizers had planning out the route, they all agree that they’re more excited to get back to participating in the car rally next year, and they won’t have to.
This year’s winners were Karen Cull, Brad Cull, Nicole Belaire, Brandon Belaire and Shannon Johnston, who also won in 2022 and are thus veterans at planning the rally route, which they plan to do again in 2025.
