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Login to post Forums » Grassroots Motorsports » TSD's.. Spill it.

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Dec. 29, 2009 5:37 p.m. ignorant PowerDork

I love rally.

I ran a mini baja team in school and crewed for a small budget rally team after school. I really do enjoy the adventure, cars, comraderie etc.. The guy I used to crew for used to talk fondly about TSD's and really cool Brisk TSD's...

So as young father with little disposable income, I'm looking for something to do with dad or friends that is low impact on the budget. My dad is in Philly and I am in CT. He turned 60 last year and I want do start doing something fun with him...

So Spill it.. Are TSD's fun? What really is needed for novice class TSD rallying? Any TSD Rally's in New England? What are your experiences?

I got a crappy Civic that i'll be using. She's trusty but rivals a P71 for being slow :-)....

Spill it peoples..
Dec. 29, 2009 5:44 p.m. iceracer HalfDork

TSD's are boring and make enemys of you and your co driver.
Dec. 29, 2009 6:06 p.m. NGTD HalfDork

ignorant wrote:

I love rally.

I ran a mini baja team in school and crewed for a small budget rally team after school. I really do enjoy the adventure, cars, comraderie etc.. The guy I used to crew for used to talk fondly about TSD's and really cool Brisk TSD's...

So as young father with little disposable income, I'm looking for something to do with dad or friends that is low impact on the budget. My dad is in Philly and I am in CT. He turned 60 last year and I want do start doing something fun with him...

So Spill it.. Are TSD's fun? What really is needed for novice class TSD rallying? Any TSD Rally's in New England? What are your experiences?

I got a crappy Civic that i'll be using. She's trusty but rivals a P71 for being slow :-)....

Spill it peoples..

Come up to Ontario and run the "Not the Ontario Winter Rally" (NOWR) in February. Yes TSD's are fun especially on ice and snow.
Dec. 29, 2009 6:51 p.m. aeronca65t HalfDork

Contact ~C.A.R.T.~

These guys are a great bunch (I run track days with them, but they also do rallys). They haven't put up their '10 schedule yet but I'm sure it'll go up pretty soon. If you want more event info sooner, go to their Message Board and drop a note to Dana.
Dec. 29, 2009 6:57 p.m. procainestart Dork

Brisk TSDs are fun on gravel and snow, usually boring on pavement. Some siblings, children/parents and spouses regularly do TSDs together; some did it...once. If you get along well with your dad, enjoy team work, are not irrational when someone messes up (it WILL happen), and, if navigating, are at least a bit geeky, then you'll have fun. It's a good way to spend a day/weekend on a small budget.

This is the book to get if you want to read up: http://www.goss.com/catrrh.htm

More info here: http://www.tsdroadrally.com/index.cfm

specialstage.com has a sub-forum about TSD, but I think traffic is pretty light.

Gratuitous TSD shot at a recent event in BC:
Dec. 29, 2009 7:02 p.m. cwh SuperDork

I am SOOO jealous. My boys are more into music than cars. I am going to a New Years function where they are the band, but sure wish it was car stuff.
Dec. 29, 2009 7:06 p.m. garyp New Reader

Other than a functional watch, you need ZERO equipment to start TSD rallying. I did some rallies when I was first joined the local sports car club as a young man, got more interested in autocross and pursued that vigorously for the better part of 15 years. I recently took up rallying again. I'm really liking it. I still do some autocross, but the whole-day commitment for 6 minutes of fun is less appealing than it used to be, especially now that I'm married with a kid and a 6-day-a-week job. A good road rally keeps me mentally stimulated for a substantailly longer period of time. I feel it is a better value for the time spent, and $ for $ it is the most cost effective motorsport you can compete in. Entry fees are generally the same as autocross ($20-$40 an event) and you get to split that with your car-mate. You're only "consumables" expense is gas...well, actually gas, Red Bull, and Slim Jims in my particular case.

If you decide you like it, you can compete at any level, Regional to National, with nothing more than a ~$20 calculator if you choose the "stock" class. Having an older car can actually be a benefit in stock, since you can interpolate mileage between tenths on an old mechanical odometer much more easily than with a modern digital odometer.

New England Region SCCA has a Road Rally program. They only have one event so far on the schedule for 2010, but here's a link to their 2009 Schedule to get an idea of where around New England they may run again in the future: http://www.ner.org/rally/rdral/events/2009

Give it shot. Really, give it two or three. The whole thing is a little less "obvious" than autocross. Unless you start by riding with someone experienced, its probably going to take you a few events to get a good grasp of basic concepts and operational procedures . Unlike autocross, where the format is generally the same, there are a lot of potential variations in rally. There may be something about your first rally you don't like that may not be a part of any other rallies the rest of the season. So don't walk away after the first one unless you just hated everything about it. Once I got my wife through a few events, she actually started to enjoy it. We actually competed together in the United States Road Rally Challenge this year.
Dec. 29, 2009 9:10 p.m. ddavidv UltraDork

"Brisk" TSD's are what you're looking for. Better still if they discuss percentage of the event held on gravel. I did these for several years (in the above) before I had money to do track things. We had tons of fun, made some great friends, and didn't get into too much trouble with the law. We never ran with any equipment other than a calculator and a stop watch, and quite honestly, the calculator hardly ever got used. We'd just wing it, and more often than not (after some experience) we'd place on the podium. The equipped divisions are much more competitive and the margin of error much smaller.

My rally pal and I were just saying a month or so ago we should do some again.
Dec. 29, 2009 9:43 p.m. bigwrench Reader

Anything in FLA??????
Dec. 29, 2009 9:56 p.m. Keith PowerDork

I had the opposite experience - we showed up at a non-Brisk TSD as part of our Targa prep. All the average speeds were pegged at 2 mph under the posted limit, on open paved roads on a sunny day. Driving 32 mph on a beautiful sports car road almost killed me.

The actual TSD part was easy for us - because we had a rally computer, we just set it to display the current average speed, and reset it when the speed changed. So no friction between myself and the Navigatrix other than the constant "slow down. Slower. SLOW DOWN!" "But I'm boooooored" refrain.

The guy having the most fun at our event was a guy in a Triumph who didn't even have a working speedo. He was simply out to have some fun with other cars. I envied him.

Oh, and a tip. Nobody will believe you're a novice if you show up in a fully prepped rally car complete with scrubbed-in RA1s and your name on the roof. We proved that we were indeed novices as we turned left out of the parking lot. Should have been right...
Dec. 29, 2009 10:55 p.m. procainestart Dork

Keith wrote:

I had the opposite experience - we showed up at a non-Brisk TSD as part of our Targa prep. All the average speeds were pegged at 2 mph under the posted limit, on open paved roads on a sunny day. Driving 32 mph on a beautiful sports car road almost killed me.

This is why paved TSDs are lame. Speeds are always below posted speed limit (on any surface); on pavement, this can cause utter despair from crushing boredom. It also pisses off the locals if they can't pass you...
Dec. 30, 2009 12:18 a.m. EricM Dork

I was the navigator in an AWD celica a few years ago, 3 miles under posted speed limit, dry, sunny, on Kuhmo DOT race tire. We came over a crest into a left-right-over bridge, we had two distict 4 wheel drifts. TSD is not boring.
Dec. 30, 2009 12:54 a.m. plance1 HalfDork

I caught a TSD once in college after dating a girl for a short while. It eventually went away though.
Dec. 30, 2009 4:46 a.m. foxtrapper UltraDork

TSD's are challenging to relationships. Drivers screaming for directions, nagivators screaming for the driver to shut up so they can think. After one TSD my wife and I didn't speak to each other for about a month. It wasn't pretty.

I personally make a much better navigator than driver for TSD rallies. The driver has to be precise on speed, I'm far to lead footed and tend to want to go fast. That costs points, lots of points. Not that I'm a great navigator, this "go straightest" stuff is remarkably hard to grasp.

Might I suggest gimic rallies or such? Those are a lot of fun. You're still navigating and driving, but you're trying to find pink flamingos and cow signs and such. Staying on course still matters, but staying on time goes out the window.

As a new team, if you do a TSD rally, focus only on staying on course. Believe me, that will more than keep you occupied. Don't try to master the timing, and if they have a buy time option, for god sakes, ignore it.

Laugh. Don't take it seriously. Seriously!
Dec. 30, 2009 6:53 a.m. TheWake New Reader

There are also TSD rallies in South Jersey which is near you Dad if that works better for the two of you. Keep an eye on http://sjr-scca.org/rally.html for the schedule. There is a set of how to links at the bottom. The SJR how to rally booklet is for novices and is a good place to start.

TSD generally comes in two broad flavors. They are tour rallies and course rallies. If done right they are not boring.

Tour rallies concentrate on time keeping and should have an easy to follow course. Most 'brisk' TSD events are of this type. Last summer I had a night rally that ended at NJMP and average speeds never broke the speed limit, but competitors had to be quick to keep up. It was not boring yet all paved. Most people would have called it 'brisk' though.

Course rallies focus more on course following and are usually during the day and slower. They typically have a 'trap' or two to get you to run the wrong course yet through all the checkpoints. When you tun the wrong course you drive the wrong distance/at the wrong speed and get a bad score. It can be great fun especially when you get a leg right that most people get wrong. These types of TSD rallies come down to who falls for fewer traps.

As a new person to course rallies we have a special class called 'course light' in South Jersey where you see the same course as the experienced people, but there is explanatory information in the route instructions to help you get it right so that there is less steep learning curve.

We are still finalizing our 2010 schedule, however our first two rallies are in March in a double event weekend to make it more economical to travel in for the events as you get two events for one trip.

TSD rally really needs to be experienced to know what it is like. Kind of like autocross the experience just can't be explained properly by mere mortals.
Dec. 30, 2009 6:56 a.m. Tim Baxter Online Editor

TSDs are the leading cause of divorce among classic car owners.
Dec. 30, 2009 4:49 p.m. Hal HalfDork

While I was in college I ran in ~40 TSD's and organized about 10 more. None of them were the same!!

When setting up TSD's I specialized in "course" rallies with multiple sets of directions. The best one had 4 different sets of directions.

At one point (if everyone was on schedule) groups of 4 cars would arrive at a 4-way stop, each from a different direction, and make a right turn. This along with other instances of passing rally cars going in the opposite direction, etc earned me some compliments and a few curses also.
Dec. 30, 2009 5:44 p.m. DeadSkunk Reader

I used to do TSD rallies in the 70s, before anyone ever heard of GPS. It was always more fun on dirt or snow, and after dark. My navigator was the best in our club, but I always had more fun the instant he would say "Oh-oh", which meant he'd screwed up something and I had to drive to make it up ! We created several rallies for the club and found many roads that we never knew existed and we were only a few miles from home. I really enjoyed throwing my old Datsun 510 down some unknown 1 lane ,dirt road. Great fun, I'd highly recommend that you try it.
Dec. 30, 2009 8:51 p.m. friedgreencorrado Dork

procainestart wrote:

This is why paved TSDs are lame. Speeds are always below posted speed limit (on any surface); on pavement, this can cause utter despair from crushing boredom. It also pisses off the locals if they can't pass you...

I wouldn't call it lame, if the roads are suitable, but the thing about the locals is true. The only time I ever was threatened as an SCCA event worker was manning a checkpoint table at a TSD. Seems a lot of the locals thought our checkpoint was a police sobriety check (despite our lack of police cruisers & flashing blue lights), and got pretty angry when they discovered they'd stopped for nothing. Being showered with gravel as they peeled out was kind of funny, but the guy in the Chevy C10 cursing after discovering he'd left his Glock at home (instead of in his glovebox) was kinda frightening-even to someone who was a Corner Worker in Road Atlanta's pre-"Family Friendly" days..
Dec. 31, 2009 10:25 a.m. ignorant PowerDork

procainestart wrote:

Gratuitous TSD shot at a recent event in BC:

You cannot post pictures such as this and not explain more about the volvo.. Spill it!
Dec. 31, 2009 11:04 a.m. Jay_W HalfDork

My old man was the scca nat. class B champ in '75 doing this tsd thing. I never understood it too much myself. Of course he looks at my stage rally efforts as some kind of horrible mental illness, and he's actually made money doing tsd (got hired to run the great american race a while back. It's an antique car rally parade thing and he won the dern thing once), so I bet his opinion has more weight than mine. He'd say go find a tsd that's set up more for fun than for competition. He quit due to scca bickering BS.
Dec. 31, 2009 12:23 p.m. procainestart Dork

ignorant wrote:

You cannot post pictures such as this and not explain more about the volvo.. Spill it!

Yeah, that car is pretty cool. :-) It was given to the owner for free. I believe he said it's a '70?? Has a fresh B20 with a K cam, so not a fire-breathing monster, but not anemic, either. It's a bit rusty. At the event (Totem Rally) there was also an early 80s 240 and an awesome 67 123GT Amazon. Pretty cool to see three generations of Volvo lined up together.
Dec. 31, 2009 12:47 p.m. Keith PowerDork

I guess the rally we did was a "course" rally. Cute tricks, weird rules about what to do if you come to an unacknowledged intersection, etc. For the guys who used to be in the chess club in high school. For us, it served the purpose of a low-stress shakedown of the car, highlighting problems with our seating comfort and getting Janel introduced to the rally computer in a real setting where it mattered. No friction at all as we weren't trying to win, and since we were driving a modern car (it was only 15 years old!) that was aggressively modified, none of the vintage car guys found us terribly interesting. We did it once, we haven't been tempted to go back.

The funniest thing about the whole event was a 30 minute break in Leadville. For those who don't know, that's over 10,000'. Someone's a real sadist, you should see a fleet of old LBCs trying to struggle into life up there. I was very happy for fuel injection!
Dec. 31, 2009 1:52 p.m. sachilles HalfDork

John Buffum does a night tsd trap rally in Vermont in February. They don't allow novices. Worth getting the experience before trying it anyway. Look at the NER region section of the scca website for details. It runs from about 9pm to about 4am. It's a fun, fun, fun rally.
Dec. 31, 2009 2:18 p.m. aeronca65t HalfDork

Wow, there's a name from the past....we ran an SCCA Pro-Rally with our crappy, $200 Datsun over thirty years ago and Buffum was actually in that event.

"Stuff-em Buffum"...right?

Glad to hear he's stiff active. I gave up on Pro-Rally......it's terrifying . I moved on to club racing and aerobatics......much less scary.

Here's our Datsun in a Mansfield PA Pro-Rally in '77.

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