Sand Marble Rally 2017

Sand Marble Rally 2017
Duration	1 April 2017 – 8 December 2017
Competitors	20
Races	13
Standings
Champion	Dragon's Egg - 135pts
Runner-up	Red Number 3 - 134pts
Third Place	Slimer - 130pts
Chronology
Previous	2016
Next	2018

The Sand Marble Rally Tournament 2017 was the second edition of the Sand Marble Rally where 20 marbles competed on sand courses filled with lots of turns and obstacles, for the prize of being Sand Marble Rally champion.

A qualification stage consisting of 5 races with 7 marbles each was used to select the marbles for the final stage. 35 marbles entered the qualification stage in total, with the best 4 marbles of each race (20 in total) advancing to the main tournament. It is succeeded by Sand Marble Rally 2018.

Changes in 2017

Ghost

One of the new additions in the 2017 season is the Ghost marble (not to be confused with Ghost Plasma, a red marble). This is the frosted glass marble which releases the starting gate at each race, the Ghost will proceed through a small plinko track (next to the main track in front of the starting Gate) which ends on the main course. The ghost will run a few seconds back of the main competitors. The purpose of the ghost is to push up or release stranded marbles so they will still get a chance to get some points.

The Ghost Marble in the starting blocks

It is even possible that the Ghost marble can "win" a race by crossing the finish line in first. However the Ghost will not get any points so that the marble who pass the finish line after the ghost will win the race.

The Ghost will be shown on the results list when it crosses the finish line, but if the ghost doesn't finish, it won't be shown on the results at all.

New obstacles:

• Spinner
• Rotating Chevron Sign
• Drophole
• Plinko Board
• Dummy Balls (only in races 3 & 4 (2017))
• Teardrop
• Split
• Stairs (Sand Rally)

General Changes

• Unlike the previous season the field consists of 20 marbles right from the start.
• The points system changed so that the winner now only gets 20 points compared to 30 in the previous season. Also different is how this time the top 15 marbles get points while the previous season gave points to the top 20 placed marbles.

Qualified Marbles

1. Comet
2. El Capitan
3. Nemo
4. Wisp of Darkness
5. Big Pearl
6. Blizzard Blaster
7. Fantasy
8. Slimer
9. Summer Sky
10. Deep Ocean
11. Glassy
12. Pollo Loco
13. Red Number 3
14. Quicksilver
15. Dragon's Egg
16. H2 Blue
17. Crazy Cat's Eye
18. Lollipop
19. Ghost Plasma
20. Black Knight

Qualification

See Sand Marble Rally 2017 - Qualifiers

Qualifier 1

Pos.	Marble	Time	Result
1st	Comet	0:55.48	Qualified
2nd	El Capitan	0:55.95	Qualified
3rd	Nemo	0:56.66	Qualified
4th	Wisp of Darkness	0:56.85	Qualified
DNF	Blue Moon	Did not finish	Not qualified
DNF	Reflektor	Did not finish	Not qualified
DNF	Cobra	Did not finish	Not qualified

Qualifier 2

Pos.	Marble	Time	Result
1st	Big Pearl	0:54.00	Qualified
2nd	Blizzard Blaster	0:54.93	Qualified
3rd	Fantasy	0:55.23	Qualified
4th	Slimer	0:55.88	Qualified
5th	Rastafarian	0:56.04	Not qualified
6th	Silver Bolt	0:57.16	Not qualified
7th	Starman	0:59.62	Not qualified

Qualifier 3

Pos.	Marble	Time	Result
1st	Summer Sky	0:55.46	Qualified
2nd	Deep Ocean	0:56.94	Qualified
3rd	Glassy	0:57.07	Qualified
4th	Pollo Loco	0:57.59	Qualified
5th	Blazing Fireball	0:57.84	Not qualified
DNF	White Widow	Did not finish	Not qualified
DNF	Tarantula	Did not finish	Not qualified

Qualifier 4

Pos.	Marble	Time	Result
1st	Red Number 3	0:51.04	Qualified
2nd	Quicksilver	0:51.29	Qualified
3rd	Dragon's Egg	0.52.72	Qualified
4th	H2 Blue	0.53.30	Qualified
5th	The Flash	0:55.24	Not qualified
DNF	Mocha Madness	Did not finish	Not qualified
DNF	Blue Smoke	Did not finish	Not qualified

Qualifier 5

Pos.	Marble	Time	Result
1st	Crazy Cat's Eye	0:52.38	Qualified
2nd	Lollipop	0:52.71	Qualified
3rd	Ghost Plasma	0:52.84	Qualified
4th	Black Knight	0:53.03	Qualified
5th	Marbly McMarbleface	0:53.58	Not qualified
6th	Snake's Tub	0:53.86	Not qualified
7th	Super Turtle	0:56.10	Not qualified

Venues

The Races are held on tall sand dunes or sand hills in the Netherlands.

Qualification:

• Papenberg Castricum
  • Located near the NS station of Castricum, with views over adjacent sports and football fields, but scattered with dog feces.
  • Height difference: 18 meter (60 feet),
  • Maximum race duration: 90 seconds

Main Tournament:

• Doornse Gat
  • Located east of "Doorn", a village located in the Utrechtse Heuvelrug, 15 km south of Amersfoort
  • Race 1, 2, 7, 8, 9 and 10
  • Height difference: 25 meters
  • Maximum race duration: 2 and a half minutes

• Klimduin Brechtdorp (Koningsweg)
  • Located along the Oorsprongweg north of Schoorl, a small town north of Alkmaar, the Netherlands. This is an alternative more quiet location compared with the "famous" and overcrowded klimduin located at Schoorl itself.
  • Race 3, 4, 5, 6 and Final
  • Height difference: 45 meters
  • Maximum race duration is 5 minutes on wet sand or 2 minutes on dry sand.

• 't Peeske Montferland
  • Located 22 km east southeast of Arnhem near the village "Beek Montferland"
  • Race 11 and 12
  • Height difference: 20 meters
  • Maximum race duration: 2 minutes

Standings

Rank	Marble	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	R11	R12	F‡	Points
1st:	Dragon's Egg	10	10	14	6	11	7	20	2	1	8	0	12	34	135
2nd:	Red Number 3	7	12	2	20	2	17	10	20	Ret	5	3	14	22	134
3rd:	Slimer	6	Ret	Ret	9	12	0	6	3	20	9	20	17	28	130
4th:	Quicksilver	4	9	20	4	20	14	4	17	14	0	17	2	Ret	125
5th:	El Capitan	5	Ret	9	11	14	Ret	11	9	5	11	4	20	12	111
6th:	H2 Blue	17	Ret	0	14	Ret	4	3	4	3	0	8	7	40	100
7th:	Glassy	2	6	6	5	4	6	14	7	2	17	11	9	6	95
8th:	Crazy Cat's Eye	20	Ret	5	7	1	12	5	10	8	14	1	4	7	94
9th:	Black Knight	12	5	7	17	9	8	1t	0	10t	0	6	0	18	93
10th:	Lollipop	8	17	4	12	Ret	9	9	1	7	Ret	0	1	24	92
11th:	Pollo Loco	0	7	0	Ret	5	20	17	11	4	4	Ret	3	16	87
12th:	Fantasy	0	8	17	8	10	10	Ret	6	Ret	7	10	Ret	10	86
13th:	Blizzard Blaster	14	Ret	8	10	0	11	Ret	5	17	3	5	8	4	85
14th:	Nemo	Ret	11	11	2	17	Ret	2	12	Ret	Ret	9	10	9	83
15th:	Summer Sky	11	14	1	Ret	3	2	0	8	11	12	7	11	Ret	80
16th:	Deep Ocean	9	2	10	1	8	0	0	Ret	10t	6	12	5	5	68
17th:	Wisp of Darkness	0	3	12	Ret	6	3	1t	0	6	20	2	0	14	67
18th:	Big Pearl	Ret	20	3	Ret	Ret	5	8	14	Ret	2	0	0	3	55
19th:	Comet	1	4	0	3	7	1	12	0	Ret	1	Ret	6	20	55
20th:	Ghost Plasma	3	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	0	7	0	12	10	14	0	8	54

Ret.: Did not finish and 0 points awarded

0: finished outside the points and 0 points awarded

t: tied

‡: double points

Point System

• 1st: 20pts
• 2nd: 17pts
• 3rd: 14pts
• 4th: 12pts
• 5th: 11pts
• 6th: 10pts
• 7th: 9pts
• 8th: 8pts
• 9th: 7pts
• 10th: 6pts
• 11th: 5pts
• 12th: 4pts
• 13th: 3pts
• 14th: 2pts
• 15th: 1pts

Winners

Race	Winner	Time	Margin	Starting position
R1	Crazy Cat's Eye	2:03.06	+0.40	P1
R2	Big Pearl	2:03.08	+0.08	P10
R3	Quicksilver	1:06.21	+0.06	P3
R4	Red Number 3	1:04.81	+0.67	P6
R5	Quicksilver	1:18.52	+0.01	P10
R6	Pollo Loco	1:12.72	+0.97	P5
R7	Dragon's Egg	1:45.10	+0.77	P4
R8	Red Number 3	1:43.64	+2.77	P7
R9	Slimer	2:10.88	+0.52	P2
R10	Wisp of Darkness	2:12.75	+0.15	P19
R11	Slimer	1:48.01	+0.18	P20
R12	El Capitan	1:45.34	+1.11	P7
F	H2 Blue	2:21.26	+0.25	P15

• Note:
  • P1–P7 is on the front row
  • P8–P13 is on the second row
  • P14–P20 is on the back row

Trivia

• The first attempt of Race 3 was aborted after a huge pile up at the start. Before the start of second attempt there was a dog who was invading the track. Finally the race got away and in the end it was Quicksilver who won.
• The double points for the final race was announced only in race 12 (the second last race) and it caused a little bit of controversy because it affected the end results with Dragon's Egg (135pts) becoming champion infront of Red Number 3 (134pts), Slimer (130pts) and Quicksilver (125pts), while without double points the results would've been: Quicksilver champion with 125pts, Red Number 3 second (123pts), Dragon's Egg third (118pts) and Slimer fourth (116pts).

See Also

• Sand Marble Rally 2016
• Sand Marble Rally 2018
• Sand Marble Rally 2019
• List of Sand Marble Rally Records

• Marble League 2017