Road Rally Car boutique #2 (Ooh La La)

I don't really want to get ahead of myself. There is time a-plenty to discuss the world of Classic Car Road Rallying. It's a whole subculture of its own. I was going to wait until I'd introduced the idea of Road Rallying in cars over 25 years old before introducing some as Road Rally cars. But my hand was forced by the following vehicle appearing for sale on Craigslist. So here goes...

Je t'aime... Oh, je t'aime...

Once in a while a car so unusual appears for sale that you have to do a double take. Such as when this Renault 4CV appeared on Craigslist in the fall of last year. I was immediately captivated by its Gallic charm. The car disappeared from sale over the winter but reappeared the other day.

For those of you not familiar with the car, here's a brief outline, the full history is a fascinating  story of covert World War 2 car design that needs a better person than I to tell the tale. Constructed between 1946 and 1961 it was the French answer to the VW Beetle, and Ferdinand Porsche did have his hand in the development of the car. Over the course of its history it was the first French car to sell over 1 million units. 

From the front, I think it is bears visual similarities to the English Morris Minor, which it pre-dates by two years so we should really say the Morris Minor bears a similarity to the 4CV. Power came from a rear mounted, 4 cylinder, 750cc engine. The rear wheel drive affording excellent traction. The front steering on the early models was very light and went from full lock to full lock in 2 1/4 turns of the steering wheel, (How's that for positive?)

By now you are probably asking yourselves "Why on earth is this ugly piece of French auto engineering considered a good rally car?"

Well, the high gearing, light steering, and traction led it to be an outstanding Rally car. Between 1951 and 1954 4CV's were class winners in the Monte Carlo Rally, Tulip Rally, Alpine Cup, Tour de France Rally and even Le Mans. Clearly you should never judge a book by its cover.

So if you're looking for something different to road rally that really represents a totally different era in motor sport, this could be what you're after.

I absolutely adore this little car, I really do. I'd have it if I could.

Rally Car boutique (1)

We've already established that you can Road Rally in any car you fancy. But many of us in the Road Rally fraternity get a great deal of enjoyment trawling through the online ads for cars looking for "good rally cars".  Wether they are winter beaters or super expensive collector cars, we like to think they are good rally cars. It might be the name, or the history of the marque or it might be an acknowledged good pro rally car. For the most part the exercise is a bit of fun. But Road Rally is about having fun.
Let's start with Saab. Wonderful historic rally marque. The very name conjures up images of cars zooming along snow covered, Scandinavian forest roads. Couple that with Turbo. Saab Turbo. That's some serious sounding car there. Saabs are beloved of many in the Rally fraternity as much as Subaru.
So Saab is as good a place as any to start. Here's a Saab 900 Turbo on Craigslist. Looks pretty nice to me. It's a General Motors Saab, rather than a "Saab" Saab. For me personally, older Saabs are preferable to those made after the US automotive agglomerate took them over. Others will have the opposite opinion. Just be sure that when a really beautiful older Saab appears, you will know about it.

Our first Rallye.

It was only 18 months ago that my wife and I started out Road Rallying at the Coulee Classic in Wisconsin. What follows is the event report I wrote for the Intermarque Newsletter in November 2012. Hopefully it will give beginners a taste of what road rally can be like, and perhaps for those who were there it will rekindle some pleasant memories.
"On Saturday September 29th we entered the world of classic car regularity rallying at the Coulee Classic in Wisconsin. This is a report of how our day went.The event, put on by Auto Italia Minnesota was due to start in Maiden Rock, WI at 11am and as registration started at 10, we had to leave home at eight as it was a two-hour plus drive from Princeton. The drive there was a wholly unremarkable zip along the highways and interstates around the Twin Cities that didn't even get interesting until we got onto Hwy. 35 south of Prescott, apart that is, from zipping through the Lowry Hill Tunnel in Minneapolis, that kind of put me in mind of the tunnel on the Monaco Grand Prix circuit.
Once past Prescott we thought we were getting a taster of what the rally roads were going to be like, zipping up and down hills surrounded by trees changing color. The scenery and views here were great. We were later to find out this was nothing like the rally roads, more of that later. 
Arriving at Village Park in Maiden Rock we were greeted to the super sight of a line of bright shiny cars. Old classics and newer cars too. Modern Fiat 500's (no original Cinquicento's sadly) and an Alfa were the Italian marques on show. British cars were the most popular of the classics with a Healey 3000, two MG's (FG and an MGA) and a Triumph TR3 there. A 2CV was perhaps the most unusual car on view and a classic Porsche 356 the sweetest looking judging by the attention it was getting from passers by. Even FG was recognized by one competitor as the "self appointed most beautiful rubber nosed MGB in Minnesota". Which was gratifying as that means people do actually read what I put out here.
After the drivers briefing had finished, 11am arrived and we were all off! Traffic was stopped on Hwy 35 as we exited the park and headed south out of town, very cool. Technically the cars should have gone off at minute intervals and we should have waited until 11:12am as we were car number 12. But as this first leg was to set the cars odometer this was not an issue. It just lead to a string of cars waiting at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere to begin the rally instead of at the park in Maiden Rock. 
So, a quick word or two of explanation to those of you who don't know what a regularity rally is. A regularity rally is an event over a number of stages, some long, some short, here the aim is not to be the fastest but to be the nearest to a set time for each stage. If you match that time you get zero points. Faster or slower than that time, you get penalized. You are always penalized a positive point score. Not a negative score if you're faster and a positive score if slower. The winner is the person who has the lowest overall points score by the end of the event. Zero points would be perfect and is pretty difficult to achieve as you're penalized for being even .01 of a minute off. Setting the odometer like in the very first stage is important so that you know how accurate your odometer is in relation to the official race distances listed on the directions, showing where any turns and road junctions are on the stage. 
Another confusing thing for the first timer is that the timing is done on a decimal scale, i.e. half a minute is not recorded as 30 seconds but .50 minutes, 15 seconds become .25 minutes, etc. This helps with the scoring but it is quite an unusual sight to see an official timing device counting off the time like this the first time you see it.
At our next appointed start time we were off, feeling our way around the stages to start with. If we were close to our appointed finish time at the end of each stage it was more by luck than judgement. We quickly discovered that the scenery around the Wisconsin Coulee country was gorgeous, I mean really gorgeous and with the fall colors almost at peak it was extra beautiful. The Reds of the traditional Barns against a background of the yellows and oranges of the trees changing. All against a deep blue sky. At times it was difficult to concentrate on driving. Many times we wanted to stop and take pictures, but we also wanted to make the effort to have a good go at this "regularity rallying". Sadly on stage three we came across a fellow competitors AC Cobra by the side of the road. "No spark" came the reply when we stopped to ask how everything was.
After three stages we had a lunch break in Plum City. The sight of a dozen classics in the main street created some interest amongst the locals, one of whom had parked up in Main Street in his own classic car. A colossal yellow Chrysler Imperial. This thing was so big you could have fitted four MGB's in it. With lunch over we filled up with petrol and headed out. This was where we got confused. We had some issues following the instructions getting out of Plum City and we weren't the only ones. I think we lost one set of competitors in a yellow Honda for good there. Once out of Plum City we missed a road sign because it was obscured by corn stalks. A rookie mistake, experts would have been measuring the distances, (see above on the importance of setting your odometer). By the end of the stage we were some 14 minutes off our pace. We took a 14.50 minute delay as was our right to do. So we set off and set about recovering the 14 minutes we lost. We got through the rest of the stages OK but it looks like we should have kept taking delays through the other stages until the next break in Durand. But this aspect of the rallying wasn't clearly explained at the briefing for us newbies so we ended up gathering loads and loads of penalty points over the next couple of stages. Stage five gave us the pleasant sight of meeting about 10 Corvette owners of a club out for a drive. We shared a cheery wave with every one of them as we passed each other. The break in Durand was welcome as that got us back on schedule and gave us a chance to chat with some of the other competitors. With four more stages to go we were starting to grasp the concept of regularity rallying. Waiting until our appointed time to leave the stage start point and judging our arrival time to cross the finish. So much so that we logged two zero point stages in the last four stages of the race (as the marshall at one of the stage finishes said has he handed us our slip "You can't be better than that"). We were pretty pleased with ourselves there I can tell you. We were enjoying ourselves.
But that was it. The rally was over. So we headed over to the Stone Barn in Nelson, for some of their Artisan Pizza and turn in our score sheet for the final results.This was where things got really confusing for us beginners, for we didn't have to turn in our score sheets until we'd done all the calculations. Which was fine, we had a grasp of the maths behind the scoring. But not every finish Marshall had filled in his scoring slip in the same manner. We even ended up with two scoring slips numbered for stage seven. "Ask the more experienced rally-ers for help in doing the adding up" was the instruction. Fine. No problem. That way we got to know some other people and find out what nice folks they were. But even they had to scratch their heads in confusion when one scoring slip looked to me like we'd reached the finish of one stage 50 minutes before we were due to start it!
But with no results announced by 6:30pm we had to head home as we still had a two and a half hour drive ahead of us to get back home. However many points we scored didn't matter. We knew we weren't going to trouble the prize winners, except perhaps, the prize for finishing last. But we really enjoyed the event and would do it again. It was pretty much 9pm when we arrived back in Princeton tired and worn out. Nine hours and some 400 miles. FG the MGB had purred along the whole way. What a wonderful car it is. It deserves a special washing and waxing after that. 
A thanks to the organizers for putting the race on, especially the stage finish marshals who found themselves waiting a rather long time for us in the middle of the event there.
Perhaps we'll see you all again next year."

Starting out Part one. (A simple Q&A series)

What do I need to go road rallying? A fast four-wheel drive car with a safety cage, I'll bet. Crash Helmets too. I'm sure of it. Sounds very expensive to me, like all Motorsports. 
Not really. Obviously you do need a car. But no high speed, turbocharged four wheel drive vehicle. No crash helmets either. My wife and I road rally in our Scion XD with 210,000+ miles on the clock. I have also been known to use my 1976 MGB roadster. The thing with road rally is it's not about speed. Good communications between driver and navigator are paramount. But we can discuss that later.

I have learnt that being on time at checkpoints is very important. You must need expensive timing and measuring gear then.

Yes and No. While it is very true that there is some very expensive timing and measuring equipment out there that will make the inside of your car look like the inside of a spaceship, (we'll deal with them as the need arises). You can get by very successfully in Road Rally just by using your cars' odometer, a watch with a second hand, pen and paper and if you are mathematically challenged like me, a calculator. One step up from that, there are some very useful smartphone Apps out there for only a few dollars.

So, I really don't need anything expensive?

Not at all.
If I could find a rallye tomorrow I could go out and take part?
You most certainly could.
So where do I go from here?
How about we deal with that another day?

Rallye or Rally?

I'm new at this. What's this deal with the spelling? Is it Rallye or Rally?
Good question. Basically it boils down to this, (and this is only my opinion). The sport is Road Rally, but the events are generally Rallyes. This is most certainly true in Europe where the real hotbed of Rallying is. The first Road Rallies were held in the early years of the twentieth century in France. "Rallye" is a French spelling.  I guess it has stuck. English speaking folks tend to use the Rally spelling. You can delve into linguistics and semantics if you want to but let's keep it simple and enjoy ourselves.
I also used "Rallye On" for the name of the blog because "Rally on" was taken.

2014 Iced Rum Runner, February 15th, Princeton, MN.

Although my wife, Lorrie and I have only been road rallying for 18 months and members of the SCCA for less than a year, we have already put on two road rallies. In fact, the “Rum Runner” series of Rallies out of Princeton, MN have quickly garnered a reputation as enjoyable, beginner-centric events that can even present a challenge to the seasoned veterans.

On Feb 15th, 10 cars, (plus sweep) set out from the Coffee Corner coffee shop on Rum River Drive in Princeton on the first “Iced” Rum Runner. The 150 mile route took the entrants down to Becker before returning to Princeton and looping around the Rum River state forest to a finish, and prize giving at the appropriately named “Finish Line” cafe back in Princeton.

As befits a winter road rally, snow was lightly falling during the first section of the event much to the delight of everyone. The snowfall never got bad enough to cause anyone any problems, although later in the event the sweep vehicle was needed to pull one competitor out of a snow bank. In this regard, a big thank you must go out the sweep vehicle run by Gabe Johnson and Leann Frydrych who even played good samaritan to a member of the public that they saw in a ditch.

Winners in Class E (E in this events case stood for “experience” as the three E class cars could muster a good 100 years rallying experience between them) were Clarence and Kate Westberg who posted the only perfect “0” score for the rally.

Winners in Class S were Dale and Kristine DeWitt with 4 points.

The most popular class was N, the Novices. Here the winners were Kristen and Shawn Niehaus with 8 points. 

All entrants were very happy at the end of the event, all saying they’d return again. A big thanks goes out to Jim and Kathy Jurgenson who came all the way from Milwaukee to participate. Hopefully a good report is going back to the road rally community in Milwaukee and maybe more cars from Wisconsin will be seen next time.

A successful road rally is only as good as the crew that works it. The sweep crew has already been credited. Checkpoints were worked by Lorrie Holmes, Dave Fuss, Kerry Freund and Randy Hoffa. A big thanks to all of them.

As Rallymaster I am sufficiently buoyed by the success of the event that planning has already started for the fall version of the Rum Runner. Perhaps we’ll see you there?

Above: Winners in Novice class, Kristen and Shawn Niehaus.

Above: Winners in Stock class, Dale and Kristine DeWitt

Above: Winners in Class E. Clarence and Kate Westberg.

What Road Rally is.

A Road Rally is not a race.

"A Road Rally is an event traversed over a predetermined course on public roads within the legal speed limit. The challenge is to drive over the course, following the instructions given, arriving at checkpoints along the course on time. You score penalty points by arriving late or early at these checkpoints. The entrants who score the lowest number of penalty points are deemed the winners."

Basically it's a leisurely drive though the countryside with a bit of competitive element thrown in. It is one of the oldest forms of motorsport there is, and is a great deal of fun.
This blog will detail my personal adventures in road rally, also allowing other guest writers to share their opinions and stories on this most enjoyable branch of Motorsport.