GLENDALE : Blind Participants to Guide Rally Drivers

The annual Braille Institute car rally Saturday will visit Glendale’s Fire Station 21, where rally participants will learn about fire equipment and its uses with their fingers.

More than 60 blind and partially blind students of the Braille Institute will navigate for 60 sports car drivers as part of the rally, telling the drivers which route to take according to instructions written in Braille, said rally coordinator Ken Thomas.

The exercise, in which drivers have to reach each destination within a certain time period traveling at an average speed of 30 m.p.h., is designed to help blind students learn their way around the community, Thomas said.

The instructions ask students to notice driving under an overpass and to note “the smell of horses,” among other sensations, he added.

Rally racers, as the students are called, will stop at the fire station for 20 minutes sometime between 10:30 a.m. and noon to learn about fire engines, antique fire apparatuses and firefighting equipment, said Battalion Chief Mike Carter.

The students and their drivers, many of whom are celebrities who volunteer their sporty cars for the event, also will travel to La Canada-Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, Lake View Terrace and San Fernando before returning to the rally’s starting point in Hollywood.