Every wonder what a Time-Speed-Distance Rally is all about?

Here's a Great Racer's view of running the 2005 Great Race!

BP Great Race home

Photo taken by Craig Davis

 

We took a 1959 Land Rover 88" that had been rolled, then left sitting derelict for years, and completely rebuilt it using parts directly off the shelf from British Pacific. This included one of our performance engines, rebuilt transmissions, and rebuilt differentials. Keith Money owns the 88, and he's shown standing, building it over months and late evenings at his home. Pat Young builds our engines and trannies, and he's shown kneeling. They did a great job screwing her together! The race tires are shown, and the difference between them and 'normal' tires is obvious.

We took the newly completed race truck out into the California desert to run time trials. The charts we developed in 3 separate days of running back and forth, and the data proved to be right on the money. We have a professionally laser-measured mile and a 1/2 mile around a corner. The cones we bring out ourselves.

We brought the Land Rover to Great Race Texas in April, a 3 day rally that's run the same way as the 'big' race. Here we are getting our very first score in San Marcos, Texas. The navigator was Guy McDorr, substituting for Janet who couldn't get off from work. He did a good job, finishing 10th overall in this year's race. This is a good chance for teams and new cars to test things before the 'big' race.  The Land Rover performed flawlessly, but we did come back with a list of things to do. The white trailer behind us is the same one we see everyday at the finish line. The Texas race is also good practice for the officials and crews. There are trophies and awards for regionals as well.

The British Pacific race truck was flat towed to West Virginia over 4 days for the race start.  Sponsor decals were applied before the start by race volunteers. As in any professional event, the sponsor locations were precisely defined.

96 Great Race race cars gathered in front of our nation's Capitol for the start of the 2005 Great Race.  From here we drove well out of the city to find our first timed run, starting the race at precise one minute intervals. As you can see, we were up against a number of out and out race cars! Here is an MPG video clip of the British Pacific Land Rover taking the green flag to start the race across the United States.

The Greatrace is a time-speed-distance rally, where you're given the time to leave, the route to drive, and the speeds to run, but not the distance. There is a perfect time, but you don't know what it is. To get a good score you must hit the checkpoints (locations unknown) exactly on time. That's done by remaining on the rally route, and executing speed changes, intersections, stops, and turns in a completely controlled manner.

For example: a stop sign is handled in a specific way. You calculate this by adding the time you were stopped, to the time you lost by slowing to a stop plus the loss accelerating back to the given speed. If you were given 15 seconds for a stop, and you lose 5 seconds stopping and 6 seconds speeding back up, you remain at the stop for 4 seconds. Do it right and there will be no time loss. If you are stuck at the stop waiting for traffic to pass, and it takes longer than the allotted time to do, you have to make up for the seconds you are late, but no more. Seconds over or under the exact time are penalty points, or your score. A good day will result in a score of 10-15 seconds. Single digit days are possible but exceptional.

Think of a conveyor belt moving along with sugar cubes spaced out exactly one inch apart. The conveyor never stops. If you pick up a cube and hold it for 2 seconds then set it back down, it will be behind where it should be. That sugar cube then has to move forward faster than the conveyor belt to get back on it's inch. When the race starts the conveyor begins. Your task is to stay on your inch. Tractors, trains, traffic, dogs, storms, or brain farts are all working to hold you back, or just as bad, push you forward. There is time to fix things, until you cross the checkpoint: the next leg starts fresh. You can't carry seconds over or under to the next leg. Completing a leg is just like finishing a hole in golf.

With an electronic speedometer, the only variable is the adhesion of the tire and it's growth/shrinkage due to heat and centrifugal force. The first route instructions each day is to verify the calibration of the speedometer, by driving exactly 50 mph on a marked course, usually an interstate, using signs for the split times. You are given the route, speed, the split and elapsed times, and the signs, so that at the end of the run you will know exactly how many seconds off from the perfect time you are (if you can hold exactly 50 over rough pavement, with trucks whizzing by, crosswinds, and traffic). If your speedometer is off, you can calculate the percentage of error (paper and pencil, no computers) and apply it to your 'factor', which is the distance the tire travels in inches. The speedo has 4 dials in back, with values from 0 to 9, and you dial in a number like "444.9". It works: we always use those speedo test areas on the interstate if we're on a transit, and we usually get 00:00:01 or 00:00:02. Beat that!

If the speedo is measuring distance in inches per revolution, you can see that the diameter of the tire must remain consistent for this to work. The trouble is that it's made of rubber. As the tire gets warmer through friction and the temp of the pavement, it gains pressure, usually 4-5 lbs. from cold to operating temperature. One lb. equals one second per hour. Other variables are ambient pressure, which also affects the tire size, and speed. Slow speeds tend to compact the tire, while higher speeds expand it. If your speed sensor is on the front wheel, hard braking will affect it as well. If on the back wheel and you spin the tire, it's way off.

When we produced our performance charts in our practice area, it measured tire growth as well. You start with a baseline pressure, warm the tire, check the hot pressure, then run your maneuvers. As long as you use the same tire at the same pressures the charts should work very well.

 

Here is Janet at work. Her lap board has the time of day clock with sweep second hand, and she uses colored pencils to mark things like when we leave on a start, speed changes, and elapsed times. Also shown is the official stopwatch for split times, timing maneuvers, and running the speedo calibration. Also prominent under her left hand is the route instructions, the sole means of determining the route to follow and the speeds to run them at.

The first thing you do when you get them is to make sure all the pages are there, and in the right order! In this shot we are on an actual timed section. The instruction at the top has been completed and its sequence number lined out. The highlighter is for special or unusual instructions, or in this case a speed change. The arrow indicates the direction traveled, and since the sign is depicted to it's right, we know the sign is on the right. The charts visible on the bottom are our speed and performance numbers that we worked on out in the desert at home. The official Greatrace wristwatch is on her left arm: no other timepieces are permitted, including GR watches from years previous, nor calculators, GPS (which isn't nearly precise enough anyway), or any other electronic device such as a PDA or Blackberry (which have calculators included). There's nothing to it! In the rearview mirror is a racer not doing well, should be a minute back...

Armed with only these tools and a speedo, we were only 4:18 seconds off from perfect time at the end, after over 45 hours of timed legs! The winners were only 1:48 off from perfect, but since they were in 'Sportsman' they had an another day tossed out from those of us in 'Expert'. Second through 19 were all within 2:00 minutes of each other.

Part of the race takes part on crowded roads where "civilian" traffic can interfere with speeds during a timed leg of the race. This however is a 'transit', a period 'off the clock' so that you can get through the really heavy traffic, or cover some distance. Transits are calculated for the traffic or an average 50 mph, and you can drive as fast as the law or conditions allow, but you do have a limited time to get through it. Transits aren't designed to catch you, but dawdling isn't a good idea either. Old cars can overheat in this stuff, and you can lose a day if you can't keep your cool. The Auburn in front of us had to pull off or overheat, just miles from the finish. It happens. This picture also shows the original speedo covered up: you are only allowed one speedometer, and tachs must also be covered up because they can be used for speed calculations as well.

Much of the race is out in the country, where the traffic is lighter and we can focus on following the time and distance rally instructions.  We have encountered hot humid driving days, heavy thunderstorms that the wipers could not keep up with, and yes, even good weather.  The T-Bird in front of us is off his time; when you can see another car that closely one of you is wrong, or you're on a maze where the cars can get 3 deep for the same space! Through all this the Land Rover has performed flawlessly, allowing us a good nights sleep, while the less fortunate were up all night rebuilding engines or performing other major maintenance on their vintage racers.

The Great Race route included a couple of laps around the Kentucky Speedway. Model A woodies are a rare sight on a high banked speedway, but then again so are Land Rovers.

We never know in advance where the checkpoints are, and most of the time they're hard to see much in advance.   The instructions don't tell us when we are supposed to be at a check point, and it's against race rules to drop below 10 mph or stop within view of a checkpoint. The instructions can give you clues, however: in this case the last instruction on the clock was coming up, so we had the camera ready. We were off the clock and on the interstate in the rear to head in for the day.

This is an actual checkpoint: in this case, the last one on Stage 10. The green sign on the right is the official notification and line marker, so you can see that it can't be spotted from too far away. Trash cans, mailboxes, even garage sale signs will send a chill up your spine. If you haven't made your corrections by the time that sign is visible, it's usually too late.

The truck trailer and banner is for us; we usually start seeing signs outside of town as we're coming in, and some of them are pretty cute. In this case the crew was cleverly obscured behind the truck, so we didn't see them until we had a minute to react: we saw the sign first. Crews can be on either side of the road, same with the signs.

The crew is in green, with their official vehicle equipped with satellite uplink, and video camera to record the exact second in tenths as we cross the line. As we hold the speed, I call 'mark' to Janet as we cross the sign, and the crew member yells out 'MARK' as the audio confirmation on the video of the exact second. Janet then writes down the time to the second on her route instructions, and just the 'seconds' on her palm.

At lunch stops many navigators compare palms to compare scores. If there is a consensus, this is the only way you have of knowing how you're doing during the day, and you feel good. If you're way off, it's ominous. The checkpoint data is sent by uplink to the headquarters trailer and the score is computed and logged well before we reach the finish line. If our time doesn't match the time slip at the end of the day, we can file for a challenge, but that's very rare. The crew usually gets up real early and sits out there for 3 hours, on the side of the road, in rain, wind, downwind from hogs, whatever. The teams chip in to buy them all a nice dinner on the day off. They're all volunteers, and many come back to do this year after year. We couldn't run the race without them.

At each official hosted stop, the race cars are put on display.  The cars get a lot of attention, some more than others, and some towns go all out to welcome us.  This is where we hear about how they used to have one, but it was blue, a Jeep, etc. We usually get a half hour at a pit stop, an hour for lunch. The first cars pull out as the last ones come in, to keep from overwhelming the smaller towns. These stops are a great opportunity for us to meet other Land Rover enthusiasts and to get to meet some of our customers in person, plus the local folks in the town. Some people drive 200 miles or more just to see the race! This picture was taken from the lowered tailgate during a lunch stop.  These stops usually require 300 or more community volunteers who decorate, escort, park, and feed the racers. We have received tremendously warm welcomes, and regardless of how we scored, it's the best part of the day.

At the end of each day's run we receive a slip of paper that tells us how we did on that day's 'Stage' of the race.  It lets us know how early or late we were on each' leg', and it's reviewed by the rallymaster to make sure it all looks correct. In this case John Classen, director of competition, is confirming our information on the Trophy Run. We see him and Rachel at the end of each day; until you see them, your day is not complete, and if you don't have Rachel stamp your Route Instructions for that stage, you are a DNF! We have seen cars that have completed all of the timed sections but didn't make it through the gate. It's tragic, but with old cars anything can happen.

There is a rectangular archway that marks the finish line of each day's race.  There is a ceremony each day, which includes the National Anthem, the presentation of colors, and entertainment before the first cars arrive. Each team gets his final score as they come through the gate, and you really have no idea how you did before then. The last timed leg of the day ends well before crossing the finish line.  This allows the staff to process the results, and presents a good show for the race fans who have shown up to see the cars and meet the racers. It takes an hour and a half for all the cars to come in. There is a crew who sets up the arch for each lunch and overnight stop. The 'scary gate crew' loads it into a truck after lunch, takes the direct route to the day's finish line and reassembles the arch well before the first race car arrives. We generally get in between 6:00 PM and 7:30, with the cars on mandatory display until 8:30 PM.

Ace stickers! Our support crew member Laura G. is putting on our coveted fifth Ace. Ace's are awarded for each leg with a perfect score of 0, or zero error, the equivalent of a hole-in-one. The one being put on was for an almost two hour leg, so it was hard earned. Some legs are as short as :10 minutes, others take hours.

The team with the most Ace's (this year it was 9) wins an award, and all teams get $50 for each one earned. The picture in the circle is the 'Geico Gekko'. Geico sponsored this program, so some called it 'gettin' lizards'. There were several teams with 5 Ace's, and hundreds were awarded this year. Competition is tough!

Thanks to everyone who helped in our race efforts, a big thanks for all the e-mails expressing support, and to those of you who took the time to come out to meet us.

 

 

BP Great race home