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| An pre-war Austin 8 will score 20 points for starters in the Amazing Rally. |
THE members of the Vintage Sports Car Club in Pietermaritzburg are
planning an Amazing Rally on Sunday October 1, and members of the public are welcome to
join the fun.
Carl Habermann told Witness
Wheels that a team of preferably two people can enter any vehicle, car or
motorcycle, but the drivers or riders will need a combination of careful
planning, time-keeping skill, word knowledge and lots of luck to collect the
most points along the way.
The Amazing Rally will be only about 140 km long, but it will take
about four hours to complete, as driving will be only on secondary roads, with
five stops at shops along the route where comfort breaks can be had and words
have to be found. Participants will leave the Vintage Sports Car Club grounds at
Oribi at one-minute intervals, where they will be handed an envelope with the
route information to all the shops to visit, as well as a form on which to log
all the necessary information along the route.
The total route time will be calculated at the average speed, based
on the speed limit, and crews will have 12 minutes at each point to find the
VSCC sticker and a word to log on their forms.
With the 10 words collected along the route and the two given at
the beginning, they will need to make up as many sentences as they can with the
12 words.
Each sentence gives the team 10 points and there are over 10
possibilities. Crews that cannot find the item in the allocated time will be
able to continue searching and lose time, or leave and lose points. The crew and
car with the most overall points wins. As this is a timed rally, drivers who
arrive at the end destination within a minute of the correct time get 30 points.
For every minute that a driver is early or late, one point will be deducted.
Vehicles will also score points on their age, with 20 points for cars or bikes
built between 1910 and 1919. The points decrease each decade, going down to
15 points for vehicles built between 1920 and 1929, and continue decreasing to
one point for cars built between 2000 and 2009, and no points for a vehicle
built after 2010.
