Road Rally

My wife and I have done a bunch of TSD rallies together. How about this: It's a fun way to involve someone else when playing with cars. Plus my wife is an accountant.

I've done one, but I definitely want to do more. It's nice to test your car out, see the sights and compete in the 'real world' without putting yourself at much more risk than normal driving.

Honestly, I liked it more than autocross, probably because I podiumed my first event.

DeadSkunk wrote: The teams with the best navigators would drive around at the prescribed speeds, but my navigator would screw up occasionally and that would precipitate some fun driving.

"I can make it up!" is the best part.

I've done dozens of TSDs and really enjoyed them in the past. You get to meet like-minded enthusiasts, drive on some great roads and see all kinds of scenery you never would have known about otherwise (thanks, rallymasters!), compete in a battle of precision driving, get lost in the pitch dark woods on a single lane dirt road in the middle of the night and participate in teambuilding with a friend or spouse. Lots of great stories from my TSD days...

Quintessential PBX stage, except the rally is run at night.

In Ontario, rural roads that do not have posted limits are by default 80 km/h (approx. 50 mph). Most of our TSD's are run on these roads. There are at times stretches that have posted limits, sometimes as low as 40 km/h (25 mph).

In the winter these roads are a significant challenge to maintain the chosen speed. By the rules the CAS MUST be 10% below the speed limit. So the max speed permitted would be 72 km/h (about 45 mph). That is still moving on snow ice and in some cases dirt.

TSD's do not have to be slow or gimmick rallies to be fun.

On the TSD I did, there was a guy who was driving solo in an old Triumph without a speedometer. He would simply follow someone until he got bored, then go screaming off into the distance until he found someone else. That guy was having fun. Probably beat us, too.

I've always felt that in order to enjoy the Grand Touring class as a driver at Targa Newfoundland, you'd want the slowest car possible - then drive the wheels off it. In a competent car, it's a real test of self restraint.

We did the Coker rally a few years ago, and we had a dump truck totally block us a winding mountain road. We finally got past him but realized that our time was off.

In the distance we spotted the car that was ahead of us. Plus it was driven by two pros. If we stay a minute back, we figured, we'd be close enough.

We did a great job keeping exactly one minute behind them. Turns out they were totally off-time, too, and realized we were pacing ourselves off them.

Hal wrote: Want a little more speed? Try a "Shortest Distance" rally. All drivers have their odometer reading checked at the start line. They are given a set of directions to follow with no set speed. At the end of that stage which is 10 miles long odometers are checked again and drivers are given a new set of directions. The new set of directions consist of the location of the finish and X number of places they must visit before returning to the finish. At each spot there will be a sign with something on it for them to record (some times we had a person at one or more of the places to check which cars showed up). At the finish odometers were checked again and the car visiting all the checkpoints in the shortest distance was the winner. This type of rally might appeal to the "GPS kiddies", but they would probably lose to the team with the best paper maps.

This actually sounds kind of fun. It's not calculator nerdy or driving at a set speed whilst deciphering word games, it's trying to come up with a clever solution to a problem.

Poker Run, Road Rally, whatever. I always thought themed ones would work well.

Like when I was at Clemson do the Orange to Orange run. From Clemson SC to Knoxville TN

Right across the Dragon.

NGTD wrote: In the winter these roads are a significant challenge to maintain the chosen speed. By the rules the CAS MUST be 10% below the speed limit. So the max speed permitted would be 72 km/h (about 45 mph). That is still moving on snow ice and in some cases dirt. TSD's do not have to be slow or gimmick rallies to be fun.

Yeah, the only TSD I've ever run (Son of Sno Drift) was co driving in a NA Subaru with good all season tires, in winter. We almost died a few times, killed a tire (sidewall bubble) on some really bad gravel-pavement transition, and came pretty close to last, but it was a lot of fun. We were most certainly driving too fast for conditions to keep the correct average speed, crazy two track dirt roads through some seriously hilly terrain. There were at least 3 or 4 real stage rally cars running, to put it another way.

I'd happily do it again, it's just a bitch to have either a co driver or car and driver, and both be free at the proper time, and (to a lesser extent) have the money handy, all at the same time.

I did a TSD with my ex significant other. It was fun for both of us. She navigated and figured out stuff and I was the dumb nut behind the wheel.

True story. My cousin Dale would navigate for me. We're behind schedule on a numbered, paved highway northwest of Montreal and I'm doing about 75 MPH to catch up. Dale is looking down and calculating. We round a bend with a slight rise ( line of sight was short) and as I crest the rise there are two moose standing in the road, one in each lane!! I yell "Duck !!", Dale slams his face into the clipboards on his lap and I drive between the moose. The bull had to weigh close to what my Datsun 510 weighed. Dale pops back up and continues calculating. It wasn't until several minutes later, when we were back on time that he bothered to ask why he had been told to duck. Navigators have to trust the driver, and vice versa.A good navigator enjoys the challenge and can read all day without getting car sick.