One reason I entered the Summer Trial rally, organised by the Peking to Paris organisers, was to learn the competition itself.
England’s rules are distinctive, unlike anything I had met in a rally before, so the route book handed out on the day was full of things I could not follow.
There is a map, but even if you get lost, using your phone is against the rules and costs you a penalty.
Day two, and I started fired up again, to review yesterday and fix what had gone wrong.
English competition is built mainly out of three parts.
The first is called a Test — a set course, driven as fast as you can within a set speed.
There are classes, and I am ranked within the pre-war class.
Since my real goal is finishing on the 1929 Buick, the points gap here does not matter much, so I did not push it.
The second is Regularity — also called Average in Japan, and this is the core of it: drive a set route at the set speed limit and reach the finish at exactly the right time.
Some instructions give only the mileage (distance) and the time, as above; others come with text like the following — and naturally it is all in English, so working out what it meant was a real struggle.
The clearest ones come with a diagram, like this — but there are traps, such as “Follow sign to ○○” versus “Do not follow sign to △△”, and which way to turn depends entirely on reading the words correctly.
Grasping instantly whether you are heading towards ○○ or must not go towards △△, and navigating on it.
The third is called TC, time control. Start at the specified time, finish at the specified time. This, it turns out, is where the points gap really opens up.
Going off route here is genuinely fatal. And the time allowed is very tight for a pre-war car.
At one point, not knowing where I was, I ended up running on foot rather than driving — and made it in time, just.
Day two’s big mistake was this. Casually asked for a signature at a rest stop, I signed without thinking — and it turned out to carry an important notice.
That sent us down a closed route, a total navigation failure, and we missed the TC.
Looking back, English rallying can feel like nothing but difficulty — but there are real pleasures too.
At every time control point, home-made snacks and coffee are handed round.
A real relief for a tired body.
And there was a playful question on the route map too.
“Remember to write your answer on your time card! What animal is on the warning sign?”
Hmm? I puzzled over it and wrote “Duck” — though whether it was actually a duck
or some other kind of waterfowl, I still don’t know (laughs).
This was all new to me, so it was one mistake after another — but if this were the real thing, 14,000 km from Peking to Paris, a mistake like this would be no laughing matter. So I mean to focus properly and drive the final day, day three, tomorrow.
Above everything, drive with a smile. A day that made me feel: with a smile, the world is at peace.