MOTORING
Corning Round the
By GORDON WILKINS TO read Haas's account of his ride on the back of a giant ray fills me with a sense of my own inadequacy as a swimmer, and I have no desire to try it. Col. Fawcett's stories of sixty-foot pythons and the dreadful depredations of the piranhas only reinforce my determination never to be lured into the Brazilian jungle. I can stand on the terrace at Banff Springs and look northwards over the desolate mountain peaks beyond, without ever being tempted to join Mowat in sharing the privations of the Thalmiut Eskimos. But offer me the chance of going without food and sleep for days, nursing a sliding car over ice-bound mountain roads at totally un- reasonable speeds, and I am with you. That is rally driving, and the season is upon us.
The Monte Carlo Rally holds a special appeal for the British, because of the romantic idea of escaping from the dim dampness of our northern winter and battling through the worst of the continental snow and ice to the Mediter- ranean sunshine, but there are signs that Western Europe in its post-war form is becoming too small for the modern car, driven by an experienced and well trained crew.
The character of the Monte Carlo event has changed greatly since the war, through force of circumstances. It is shorter than it used to be, because there are no longer the distant starting points in Estonia and Latvia. Athens is now included again, but the competitors follow an easier route which is unlikely to lead them into the flooded rivers, trackless mud and impassable snowdrifts that were the regular lot of starters from Athens before the war.
It is no longer sufficient simply to arrive. Artificial hazards have had to be introduced near the end. Tired crews are diverted into the mountains of the Auvergne, where snow and ice lead them a nightmare dance over narrow tortuous moun- tain roads, with unprotected edges and towering precipices. for every second of deviation from his speed on the first section. The catch lies in the fact that the second section is the most difficult, a frantic climb and descent of the 3,700 ft. Col des Leques, so the competitor does the easy first section, not knowing how fast he can really go over the second section whose innumerable hairpin bends are almost certain to be covered with snow or ice-bound. The works teams will prob- ably have radio or other signalling systems to advise their drivers on the best average to aim for, but 'maintaining the average remains a pretty problem in driving and split-second timekeeping for 'crews already tired by three days and nights on the road.
For the winners, there are considerable cash rewards and for the makers of the winning cars, world-wide prestige. Other rallies will follow through the spring and summer, including ten major events on which the world touring championship will be decided. Ice and snow will give- way to driving rain and mist, then dust and blistering heat;• the speeds required will be higher and the roads will be rougher. Yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to find hazards sufficient to try the modern car and its crew without making the event unduly dangerous for them and for third parties. Cars and crews are achieving a high factor of indestructibility.
During one of the more difficult Monte Carlo Rallies, Ken Wharton went over the edge in the Massif Central and his car landed upside down on some hard objects covered in snow, which proved to be two other cars which had gone over the Idge earlier on the same night. ' And, in the year when he won, Sydney Allard had a front wheel skid which left him With one wheel hanging in space, but an experienced and well equipped crew rectified such aberrations in a few moments. &other crew were not so lucky. They " lost the front end " 6n an icy hairpin, and both front wheels dangled in space. They tumbled out, and prepared to snag into action with the snditching gear, but, as they did so, the car tipped forward uite slowly and fell two hundred feet. Some events, like the Alpine Trial, have a sort of Tail-End Charlie, who tours round after the competitors in a jeep or something else well-nigh indestructible, helping with emergency irrangements for the tired, dirty and dishevelled crews, who ave fallen by the wayside, laden with stop-watches, thermos asks and old sandwiches. They are usually vowing never to come again, but by the time they have reached the next control they are busy planning the modification to the car which will enable them to win next year's event.
Such endurance on the part of man and machine poses a problem which is difficult for rally organisers to solve within gle confines of Europe. Our own RAC Rally does not attract gh international entry because it is manifestly impossible to devise a searching test on the roads of Great Britain, and the road run becomes a tedious waste of time and petrol, leading from one driving test to another.
But it must be admitted that the spectacle of rally cars moving at high speed has also produced unfavourable reactions 113 other countries. Rally organisers now avoid Switzerland as far as possible and the most severe tests take place in the French Alps, the Dolomites, the Vosges or the Ardennes. Hazards for other road users are now reduced by closing passes temporarily for tell miles or so and timing the ascents, but it is still necessary to introduce some fast motoring down mountains to test brakes to the utmost.
The successful rally car has been developing into a very special kind of sports model, and Britain has produced some very good examples, but the situation has been changed this year by restricting the world championship to strictly stock touring cars, and the ordinary purchaser will benefit, for only' first class steering, suspension and brakes will stand the punishment. High speed motoring over Alpine passes resolves itself into a steady rhythm; accelerate, brake, change down, brake, corner, accelerate, brake, change down, and so on for hour after hour, with corner following corner every fifteen or twenty seconds. Engines, clutches, gearboxes and back axles are stressed in a way that never seems to be reproduced in ordinary hard driving, cooling systems show their failings, fuel systems develop obscure faults and the rough loose surfaces of the high Alpine roads find every weakness in springs and shock absorbers.
The problem is how to prevent the sport falling victim to its own popularity. The vast spaces of Africa beckon, but the British industry has so far shown no interest in the Algiers to the Cape Rally, and letters which reached England when the spate of trans-Africa record-breaking was at its height suggested that residents at key points on the route were already growing tired of being wakened at inconvenient hours by wild-eyed strangers demanding help, or signatures on log- books. There are signs of interest in North America, and sections of the Trans-Canada highway are at present ideal rally terrain, but these stretches will soon give place to smooth motor roads.
For the drivers, the sport is its own justification. To conquer fatigue and keep intact the fine edge of judgement that will pull a sliding car away from the icy edge of the precipice; to keep it sliding, for it is less likely to catch you unaware that way; to slow down on the gears into third, into second, into first,-with only a rapid tap, tap, tap on the brake pedal, never stamping on it no matter how dire the emergency, for then the wheels lock and all control is lost; to accelerate constantly to the verge of wheelspin and yet not overstress the engine; all this resolves itself into a fascinating rhythm, while the navigator, bracing himself against the movement of the car, works at his charts, computers, maps and stop-watches, speaking only to give the driver his instructions. And after it all, to check in at the final control on time; to drive into the parr fernze and relax; this brings a rare thrill of achievement.
Has it any practical use ? A great deal. The mechanical failures that happen on a rally could probably be reproduced on a rig in the laboratory, if anyone were ingenious enough to devise the rig, but the results might still be dismissed as inapplicable to normal car use, and relegated to the filing system. Even after failure on the road, action is not always very rapid. L can think of one make which has repeatedly been put out of rallies by cooling fans breaking up and going through the radiator. It may be only coincidence, but as long ago as 1939 a member of my family had a narrow escape from losing an eye with a car of the same make, when the fan disintegrated as he was adjusting his carburetter in the garage at home. On another make, disaster was narrowly averted when a small brake part came unscrewed during a rally and put the whole braking system out of action. No effective modification was devised and the following year it happened again. This time the cure was swiftly found and applied. Fortunately there are signs that the compulsion of competition is cutting down the time lag between failure and rectification, for the competitors include a growing proportion of factory tech- nicians who see at first hand how their cars and components behave, who share the risks and find the answers. The hard discipline of international competition is becoming a powerful safeguard against complacency.
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