Time-Speed-Distance Rally. I run one so you don't have to.

While searching for local Rally-x events online I stumbled across the Northwest Rally council's website. They host monthly road rallies they describe as non-performance driving events.

Non. Performance. Driving.

Jokes aside it actually seemed pretty interesting. $20 for a good Friday night of driving. Being the kind of guy who will race anything anywhere I signed up. I opted to navigate and enlisted one of my fellow autocross buddies to drive. We rolled up to the meet site in a BMW M3 with an open mind, a stopwatch and a notebook full of average speed calculations.

The website stated that we would meet in the parking lot and gave an address. We got there and found that it was a six story parking structure. Thanks for being specific...

we finally found them and wandered into the crowd looking for whoever was in charge. There was a guy wearing an event staff T-shirt, but he wasn't event staff. he was just a guy competing who decided an event-staff shirt would be a good idea. this isn't starting out well...

We finally find the place to register get our car number on a crappy curled up magnetic 6 inch square and sit through the driver's meeting which explains exactly nothing.

My driver turns to me and says "this seems like something James May would enjoy."

Knowing basically nothing we pulled up to the starting line. The starter leans into my window and states "That number is going to fall off."

"uh... You gave it to me." "you didn't bring any tape?" I read everything on the website so that I would arrive prepared. they didn't mention anything about tape.

my driver says: "my tape is in my autocross car." the starter sticks his head into the window. "THIS IS NOT AN AUTOCROSS, THIS IS NOT A RACE!"

at this point I'm already ready to call it a night and go play some forza, but we'd driven over an hour to get here and paid the registration fee. so I just nodded. He passed in a loose pile of papers with route notes printed on them.

"you don't have a clipboard?"

"nobody said anything about a clipboard..."

"pfffttt... Good luck." he mutters as he waves us out.

The race had begun and I was just glancing at the pace notes. We were both ready to throw the car in reverse and back over the starter machinegun joe style.

The rally notes were written in a manner to intentionally confuse you, and given the quality of their "helpful" instructions you can guess how indecipherable these were.

I'll skip ahead to be polite to you here. we finished last in class due to missing the final checkpoint. Why would you put a black checkpoint sign behind a bush at night? That's just stupid...

Then we got stuck behind a freight train for 10 minutes and our average speed was just shot to hell. we finally arrived at the finish point, a pizza place.

one of the other competitors asked us if we'd be back for the next event.

"I don't know."

"well did you have fun?"

I don't know"

I've had a few days to think about it now and I still don't know. This was an event that they called a novice orientated event. I'd hate to see something not geared towards new people.

TSD rally seems a bit like the missionary position. It's only exciting if you've never done anything else.

I've also walked away with a greater appreciation for the clubs I've raced with in the past, including the NWR SCCA whom I've been auto crossing with this season. seeing how easy it is to screw up an night of driving, to make me hate my own hobby, has filled me with respect for the people, many of whom are volunteers, who enable us to do what we love.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I just wanted to say this all out loud.

Wow that sucks. I've thought about doing something like this as I figure my 8 year old could "race" but not if it's like that.

I've had a lot of fun doing TSDs, especially in the winter and over treacherous weather conditions at night. It sounds like you had organizers who weren't all that great and a bad route (who runs them over train crossings?)

Sorry to hear it didn't go well for you.

No, no thank you.

It seemed like a ton of fun and I've done similar non-performance events before. but these organizers were like sandpaper condoms. they took something that could be fun and just made it really irritating.

My point in writing this wasn't to knock TSD rally. It could be fantastic and I do recommend trying one if you ever get the chance. that is, if your local club doesn't suck.

I applaud your choice of similes.

Sounds like they need to make this more "gambler 500". You know..."it's not a race, but have a real good time getting to the check point, Charlie." I'm in Oregon, was the six story PA at clack-an-ass mall, or downtown PDX?

I used to compete in several TSD rallies held on dirt roads. In the woods. After dark. Set up by guys who also did performance rally.

I've also done the kind you describe and it will turn you off to the sport pretty quickly. Directions that intentionally try to get you lost are nothing but self-defeating.

Don't hate the sport, hate the organizers. Try a different club or group.

What you didn't bring a train schedule?

Our region is trying to bring back road rallys, we had a Poker Run gimmick rally a few weeks ago, about a dozen entries and it was much fun. I ran some TSD's with my dad in the late 70's/80's and thought they were fun, hoping we get those going too. Hopefully they won't be the wet-sock adventure you had.

Some clubs are staffed by jerks, sounds like you found one.

A TSD can be fun, especially a gimick run, and double especially a gimick run set up for novices. One of the clubs nearish to me actually does this.

As a still notice competitor, toss the stop watch and just try to stay on course. That alone is hard enough for the first few events. My first few events had us circling the parking lot repeatedly until we mastered the trick of getting out. Involves the difficult to grasp concept of "go straightest", not "follow the yellow lines on the pavement".

Once you've sort of mastered the art of staying on course, then start trying to figure out how to stay on time. Another thing that is remarkably complicated for the navigator, especially if the event has time buying.

That said, it is not a race. It is a precision driving event. It's not about being the fastest, it's about being the most exactly on time. A lead foot will not win a TSD. The little old lady who can in fact drive precisely at 37 mph for 13 minutes will win. Especially if she can calculate the time lost behind that moped, and adjust to 39 mph for the 28 seconds necessary to correct the course and get back on time.

I did TSD rallies for several years. A good organizer can make the instructions a challenge without making them impossible to decipher.Speeds are normally set to average 10% below posted speed limits and that will require spirited driving at times to stay on time. I enjoyed rallying a lot as a driver and my cousin was a pretty good navigator. Find another club, or try their next event to see if the situation improves. My favourite rallies were run on dirt roads, in the Quebec winter, at night. Great fun. Don't give up without giving it another try.

I personally would never think a TSD is fun, unless it was an offroad in beaters like the Gambler 500, but even that is more of just a 'cruise' from checkpoint to checkpoint, more about the experience then speed limit racing.

of course if we are talking the quickest Time, with the fastest Speed, over X Distance...

My first ever rally was a gimmick style, hosted by the college case club. I navigated, not really WTB I was doing. Surprisingly, we came in first.

My second rally was a TSD, hosted by a Saab/VW dealer. I drove, navigator had never done a rally, but was familiar the concept. We came in second.

I've done a bunch more gimmick rallies, at Mini Meets and various other non-car groups.

All had been well organized and a lot of fun. Sounds like you found a bad organiser.

Sorry you had a bad experience. A TSD rally I was invited to navigate for was the first "car enthusiast" thing I ever did and got me started on this path. They can be a lot of fun, especially if you've got someone who has done it before to help get you sorted. The instructions and supplemental rules you get at the day of the event are meant to build off a much larger set of general instructions that you really need to familiarize yourself with in advance. You need those fundamentals to properly decipher the route instructions which often throw you curve balls to see if you're paying attention. TSD certainly isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy the combination of technical challenge, driving precision, sightseeing, and camaraderie that forms at these events I hope you give it another try.

Our club runs TSD rallies, and has for decades. In the '60s and '70s they were huge events. Now, they struggle to break into double-digit attendance, even though I subsidize them with the autocross profits and there is no entry fee for the rallies. I have tried my best to promote the rally program, but the organizers just don't do anything to help themselves, even when they try to.

One thing I have noticed in common with ALL rally programs - THEY understand how it works, but they don't understand why YOU don't understand how it works. Seriously, even looking online, resources that explain exactly how to participate in a TSD rally are almost nonexistent. It's like a freaking secret society or something. I've given up asking them to explain at the drivers' meetings. I've figured out the basics, but I'm still very very unsure of myself.

I took part in the Glenwood Springs MG Rallye a few years back to prep for the Targa Newfoundland. We showed up in a fully prepped and caged road rally car with computer and scrubbed RA1s, then proceeded to turn the wrong way out of the parking lot

It was not enjoyable. It was mind-numbing. All the speeds were set at 2 mph below the speed limit, and the speed limits were all conservative. There aren't many intersections on mountain roads. There wasn't a lot of foolishness with obscure instructions, just pretty roads in a pretty area driven at slow speeds. Having a rally computer took any challenge out of the work, as it showed average speed and could easily be reset at every change with a single button push. So basically, we went for a slow drive in the country. It would have been totally different in an unreliable old car (there was a 20 minute stop at 10,000' - poor carburetors!) without the precision equipment.

The guy having the most fun was in an old Triumph. He didn't have a functioning speedo or odometer. He just followed someone until he got bored, then blasted past and waited at the next intersection to see where he should go.

It DID work out well as a shakedown on the car, and we discovered a few things that needed to be sorted out for 14 hour days. It also got my navigator her first experience with her rally computer. So it was useful for that. But we haven't been back.

Duke wrote: One thing I have noticed in common with ALL rally programs - **THEY understand how it works, but they don't understand why YOU don't understand how it works.** Seriously, even looking online, resources that explain exactly how to participate in a TSD rally are almost nonexistent. It's like a freaking secret society or something. I've given up asking them to explain at the drivers' meetings. I've figured out the basics, but I'm still very very unsure of myself.

Yep it's a real problem. The offroad rally I compete in is a TSD. Luckily we have occasional training sessions to help the noobs into an otherwise noob-unfriendly format.

In my experience there are some sections of boring driving at a fixed pace but they're the exception, usually it's fun, sometimes miserable. However, when they send you off-road with an average speed of 60kph, make no mistake, that's a special stage in everything but name.

Ah, the days of the Halda speed pilot. Fitting an extra odometer to an un driven wheel. All sort of gimmicks. I haven't seen much of that sort of enthusiasm in along time. There was a local club that seemed to hold road rallies regularly. Seems to have faded into the clouds. When ever I entered a rally, it was with no expectations, just a way to enjoy a drive in the country, following some one else directions. Seems the mentioned rally was poorly organized.

I have set a few rally's for my club. They were not too technical.

Back in the 60's, speed limits, and how they related to cornering speeds were far closer to the vehicle limits than we are today.

Take an old Triumph with skinny tires around a corner at a posted 35 mph, and the experience is MASSIVELY different than any modern car- not just a sports car, but any modern car.

IMHO, that's why they used to be a lot more fun.

Must have been a friday nighter out of bellevue.... Thats too bad I have been thinking of trying one for a long time.

I've done plenty of TSDs that were predominantly unpaved with aggressive average speeds, sometimes at night on what are barely single-width trails through the woods. Half the fun is "making it up" after missing a turn or getting lost instead of taking a time allowance. Also, if you're doing calculations either by hand or with a computer, and you're running an event where you either know where the checkpoints are or can derive that information based on the route instructions, there's nothing stopping you from blowing through the stage as fast as you please and then stopping out of site of the checkpoint, letting time catch up, and then rolling through right on time for a perfect score. Lots of ways to have fun in a TSD, just have to find the right type of event.

Armitage wrote: Also, if you're doing calculations either by hand or with a computer, and you're running an event where you either know where the checkpoints are or can derive that information based on the route instructions, there's nothing stopping you from blowing through the stage as fast as you please and then stopping out of site of the checkpoint, letting time catch up, and then rolling through right on time for a perfect score. Lots of ways to have fun in a TSD, just have to find the right type of event.

The offroad TSD I do sets routes in a way to discourage this. Checkpoint locations are rarely pointed out in the route instructions and if they aren't, there's no way to know where they are. The "stop and waste time" tactic is still used regularly (and isn't against the rules, so you can do it in plain view of a manned checkpoint) but it doesn't give you a blank cheque to drive as fast as you like all the time.

Ah, I'd been wondering what the appeal is on a TSD rally; I hadn't really gotten the appeal. It seems like there's two ways you can make them fun:

1. Set the event on gravel roads where whoever set the speed limit had a warped sense of humor.
2. Run the event in something that can barely keep up with traffic, and feels completely out of control when you do.

In a modern car on paved roads, I have a hard time seeing the appeal.

MadScientistMatt wrote: In a modern car on paved roads, I have a hard time seeing the appeal.

that is because most people call this 'going to work'