The Grit - Off Road and Rally Racing

With the development of vehicles over the years from starting as a simple mode of transportation, to the turn of the century Veyrons, Mustangs and 458's, one has to admire the revolution our four-wheeled friends have taken on, not only in stature but also in competitions.

We all have a fondness for circuit racing, or else we wouldn't be on this forum, but what about the more extreme grit-in-your-exhaust, dust-in-your-nose, cant-see-the-wood-for-the-trees type?

Off road and rally anyone?

Off road racing began in the early 20th century, I'm guessing as an alternative means to killing yourself off in the wars...kidding kidding. I for one am all for this kind of racing and have put it on my bucket list to join a rally driver at least once in this life time, though rally and off-road are 2 variants in themselves.

Off road races can take place on any course that isn't considered a circuit by most definitions, including up hill and even frozen tracks.
Desert races are a popular choice with the U.S and are usually set up on a government owned plot of land and involve different vehicles with varying suspension set ups.

In New Zealand, off road racing runs its own class structure and has a multiple-round national championship. The Taupo 1000 is a 2 day, 1000km endurance event currently held each year. It originated as the Bridgestone 1000 and involves teams from New Zealand, the United States and Australia.

Rally racing is a form of race that usually takes place on roads with modified or specially built road-legal cars. It's different to off-road in the sense that drivers and their partners work on a point to point basis where the drives are set between control points leaving at regular intervals from one or more of these points. These are usually won on a speed-based process.

It has become a popular choice among countries world wide, including Ireland, Italy and France.
Rallying became very popular in Sweden and Finland in the 1950s, thanks in part to the invention of the "special track" - shorter sections of route, usually on private gravel roads, away from habitation and traffic, and separately timed.

This article of LeeBee brings back a lot of memories. Rallying in South Africa is not as big as overseas but there are good following amongst spectators in the bigger centres.
When I was younger I was involved with the timing of each car through the special stages. This way one got closer to the action and the drivers, drivers like Sarel van der Merwe and Hannes Grobelaar to name a few. Although the rally cars of today are powerful and fast, they do not come close to the Group B monsters of yesteryear.
A few of us here have purchased and installed Grid Rally, awesome to drive and very good graphics.

Christo!

Those are some fantastic memories you have in the reserve bank.

For those of you who don't have Grid Rally (like me) try install it and join in on the action.

Quite a few drivers here, including myself play Rally games. Whole different ball-game, that's for sure.
Takes a special type of skill to be really good though and with the amount of different cars we drive, not so easy to change over.
Kamakazi is more like it!