The drivers in this point-to-point sports car rally can't read the instructions, which are in braille. Their navigators are blind children, so expert that they can identify almost any foreign or domestic sports car by touch and in some cases even by exhaust note. Now an annual event, the New York State School for the Blind Sports Car Rally was originated three years ago by Dr. E. W. Rideout. A physician who loves sports cars, he wanted to give the kids more incentive to learn braille. Only the school's best braille readers may ride in the rally, and as a result marks in braille classes have risen sharply. The Tonawanda Touring Club of Batavia, N.Y. supplies cars and Lions Clubs provide trophies. So each spring the youngsters gather, study the cars, and when the rally starts read out at their drivers' request such instructions as: "3) Go past the National Guard armory. 4) Right, toward a little red house. 5) The officer in town doesn't like sports cars or rallies."
But, obviously, these youngsters do.
BOYS USE TOUCH TO STUDY CARS' APPOINTMENTS (LEFT) AND CONTOURS (ABOVE)
A PARTIALLY BLIND BOY LEADS HIS FRIEND DOWN THE LINE TO FIND THEIR CARS
THREE PHOTOS
LEONARD KAMSLER
