An old rule for a new rallyist

This is probably one of those posts that will be of interest to those friends of mine who don't road rally and are curious as to what makes it such a fascination for me (and my wife). For you more experienced rallyists the article might illicit a wry smile or two.

The road rally world of today is driven by expensive computers. Big black boxes that sit on the dashboard and tell you how fast/slow you're going in relation to your actual time, how far you've gone/got to go, even counting your time to the perfect arrival time. Even now though these big black boxes are being replaced by iPad apps that do exactly the same for 5% of the price. So it's fun to think back the old days and see what rallyists used then.

This is one of those pieces of equipment. A Stevens Rally Indicator or Stevens Wheel. 

It's basically a circular slide rule. They came in two sizes 6" diameter and 10". This is the six inch version. The ten inch was more popular because of the larger size meant larger, easier to read numbers, especially at night. 

What I'm doing with a slide rule I don't know after my brushes with them in school. I can well remember having a small circular slide rule, when everyone else had a straight rule. 

"So Holmes." Said Rob Morton, maths teacher at Queen Elizabeths Grammar School Alford. " A circular slide rule. Whats three multiplied by two?"

I diligently set to rotating the wheels and sliders to do the calculation.

"Six" I said proudly, having  worked quite hard to get the calculation right. 

"Well done." The teacher said. To this day I'm not entirely sure if he was taking the Mickey or not. I think I heard a few giggles go around the classroom. 

So, how does this disc of plastic work for the rallyist?

As you see, there are three arms. The large one is marked T the two smaller ones E and M. 

When you go out on a rally the first thing you do is check how accurate your cars odometer is compared to the rally official distance on a special "Odo Check" section. This is what the E and M arms are for. At the end of this stage you set the M arm to read the official miles and the E arm to what your cars odometer reads. This takes care any measuring errors. Now set the T arm to the speed for the section of the rally you're ready. In this picture it's set at 43mph. A somewhat brisk pace.

Right, let's say you need to know how long it's going to take you to drive 11miles at the 43mph pace. You move the E arm to 11 and then read off the T arm. It says 19.8 minutes. Point eight minutes? You sound confused. Don't forget you also have the Galco hundredths reading stopwatch from a few posts ago. That's what you'll be using to time the leg.

Easy.

Now let's say you need to know how far you've gone in a certain time. You set the T arm to the amount of time that has passed. Let's say 11 minutes. Then if you look at the reading on the smaller E arm you see it says 6.45. You've travelled 6.45 miles! Calculations like this are the bread and butter of road rally, and I know of contestants who, in this world of the high tech black boxes I referred to at the start of this piece, still use the Stevens Wheel today to great effect. Road Rally is a sport that doesn't have to be run using the highest of tech.

To me it's just a bit of a novelty thing to have at the moment. It would though, be rather fun to compete in a road rally using one. 

After my first brushes with the slide rule at school all those years ago, I never thought I'd buy another one let alone consider using one.

Chippewa Trail Road Rally report

Sadly, die to last minute other occurrences, the wife and I were not able to attend "The Chip" fear not though for one of the first time competitors posted a report on their own car related blog.
It's a really good write up, it sounds like everyone had a great time. I'm definitely disappointed we missed it.
Blog report is here.

Big Road Rallye Weekend

Labor Day weekend is coming up fast. The end of summer.

End of Summer Already? It can't be.

Though it may be thought of as the "unofficial" end of summer, it's going to be a great weekend in the Road Rallye calendar, for down in LaCrosse Wisconsin there's a weekend of double road rallye fun taking place on the Tarmac roads of the Coulee country of Wisconsin.

On the Saturday August 30th is the Oktober Rally. This is a National Rally. But regional and novice contestants shouldn't be put off by this fact, for there will be a separate class for Regional runners. 

The Oktober Rally is a trap Rally with tricky clues to solve to help you navigate the course. For the regional contestants there will be help with solving these instructions.

On the Sunday, August 30th is the Badger Trails a tour rally with no complicated instructions to solve.  

The Roads in Coulee country are some of the best road rally roads around. It should be a real treat. We hope to be there one day, but we're also packing for a vacation back home in England starting the following Friday. So for us, it just depends how the packing goes.

Here then are the details for the event.  

Counting to one hundred

Confession time.

Do you know what the thing is I struggle most with in road rally? 

It's counting to 100.

To be more specific, it's counting in hundredths of a minute that's the problem. After a lifetime of knowing that there are sixty seconds in a minute, having to think that there is another way to count a minute is very difficult, especially at the end of a rally after a five or six hours of hard concentration on driving. 

So, for those who read this blog but don't road rally, here's my latest acquisition. A hundredths reading stopwatch. 

If you're anything like me it looks weird the first time. A one hundredth of a minute is six tenths of a second. If you're counting in hundredths and the time to a checkpoint reads 2.33 minutes that's not two minutes 33 seconds that's really two minutes 20 seconds, a whole 13 seconds difference! That piles on the penalty points for sure. So you can see the need to be accurate and totally unconfused by your timekeeping. 

The stopwatch in the picture is reading 0.84 minutes, which in normal time is 50.4 seconds. 

My stopwatch acquired from a member of the Minnesota Road Rally fraternity is a Galco.  It was made in Switzerland by the Gallet company. Although Gallet are unknown to most, they are the worlds oldest watchmaker, their history can be traced back to Humberto Gallet who became a citizen of Geneva 1466, and began making timepieces there. From the 20th century onwards they have become noted for military chronographs and timepieces. President Harry S. Truman even wore a Gallet watch during his presidency. Gallet chronographs were supplied to members of the US Military in Operation Desert Storm. The Galco name on my timepiece indicates the watch was assembled in the USA, probably by the Excelsior Park company, a subsidiary of Gallet, who themselves had the highest reputation as a producer of sports related chronographs. Mechanisms for the watches were made at the home factory in Switzerland and shipped to the factory in Chicago to be placed in the cases that were specially tailored for the American market. The Excelsior Park company went out of business when the sports timekeeping world went digital. Gallet however goes from strength to strength. It's a fascinating history that I have only skimmed in researching this blog entry.

In these days of digital timepieces it's refreshing to listen to the relaxing tikka-tikka-tikka of a quality clockwork timepiece.

An interesting find.

In Steve McKelvies blog the other week he gave mention to an old Rallye book. "Sports Car Rallies, Trials and Gymkhanas" by David Hebb and Arthur Peck.  It's a book that was first published back in 1956 and outlines the motor sports mentioned in the title for those interested in getting started in them. Of course the language used in the text in the book is from a different time and reflects some social attitudes from then. Some might say that some bits might seem to be just be a tad sexist looking at them with a 21st Century eye. But that's not what I'm writing about.

I was impressed enough with Steve's write up to seek out the book from an online used book retailer for myself. 

When it arrived I was treated to a surprise, for when I opened the book up some pieces of paper fell out from inside the dust jacket. 

This particular one I thought I'd share with you. Dated from 1959, and nicely typed on some vellum is the first owner of the books critique of his performance in the Bristol Rally. There are some very interesting comments on there. Many of which are quite relevant to the beginner even today. 

I particularly like number 8. "After each rally, take the time to run it again theoretically... Try to see what we could have done better... Where we goofed." I did this after the Summer Solstice Rally and found a turn that we missed that tacked on perhaps half a dozen miles to our driving and caused us to arrive at a control from the wrong direction, thus scoring some penalty points.

Of the other comments number 4 resonates with me as a plea for clear concise instructions. Keep it simple. Sometimes it's hard enough just to keep going on the route at the prescribed average speed, without having the navigator perform complex calculations, wading through baffling instructions. I recently saw some rally instructions that were presented as a flow chart. Right now I can't conceive that we would be able to run a rally like that.

From what I can gather many (not all) Rallyists are Rocket scientists, Computer Programmers, Engineers and Biochemists all with incredible abilities with numbers without thinking. Alas, Team Holmes Rallye is not so gifted. But we cope and we bear in mind point 7. "Ask the stupid questions". Sound advice for anything.

Finally, comment number 6 is worth a mention of. "Learn Rally definitions." A comprehensive list of rally terms and definitions for instructions wasn't published by the SCCA until 1963 or thereabouts. Before then you were very much at the mercy of the Rallymaster and his use of the English language in instructions. So this seems to be an appeal for consistency in terminology. A point that is borne out in some of the other letters that fell out of the dust jacket covering this very issue.

This piece of paper was a delight to find and along with the other letters, has provoked some interesting discussions among some of my Road Rallying friends. I hope you all get something out of it too.

Forthcoming Event. Chippewa Trail Rally.

A new Rallye for the region will take place on August 16th out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The Chippewa Trail.

When I say "new" this is really an attempt to revive road rallies in the area. The Chippewa Valley Sports Car Club (CVSCC) used to put on rallies in the area and in the 1970's The Chippewa Trail National Rally (put on by the Land O' Lakes region of the SCCA) was noted for its great roads and brisk speeds. The Chippewa Trail National moved to Menomonie and ran until 2006. It came back for 2010 in Durand.

There was also, in the words of one who competed in this event many times, some "epic" hospitality, this included throwing the Rallymaster into a swimming pool at the end of the event.

The Rallye is being put on by Rallymaster Clarence Westberg of the Twin City Rally club for the CVSCC  as it appears that putting on a road rally may be a lost art among the club members since the demise of the Chippewa Trail National Rally in the 1980's. The hope is that this new Chippewa Trail Rally will renew interest in road rally. 

The day promises much with all entrants invited to partake in "Cars and Coffee", the Saturday morning social gathering of the CVSCC before the car zero time of noon. Beginners will be able to partake in a Road Rally 101 course to learn all they need to know to get them through the event.

The CVSCC have promised to lay on catering after the event. This looks like it could be quite the day, and Team Holmes Rallye hope to be there in FG the MGB.

Registration is now open at Motorsportsreg 

Post Script: I've added some extra information as previous entrants get in touch with me because their memories have been jogged and they remember the good times of the old Rally. If you've got any memories of the old Chippewa Trail Rally pop them in the comments below.

Forthcoming event. The Coulee Classic

It has come to my attention that The Coulee Classic Road Rallye is next weekend, Saturday June 28th. Short notice I know, but it has only just come to my attention. Sadly I won't be able to be there due to work commitments.
The event covers some wonderfully scenic roads in the Coulee Country of Wisconsin. It is the event that got my wife and I interested in Road Rally. It's where we met many of our fellow competitors that we now call friends.
If you own a classic/collector car it is the event for you. Modern cars are welcomed too. It's a drive that you will enjoy.
Details can be found here.