Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/118157
MER M S R . SU . CL A 1 10 ❂ SS IC CA The Newbie's Guide to Rally Racing by Robin Esrock Portland, Oregon Barely minutes into the rally, I'm already clutching our clipboard, shouting out directions and, map flailing, sweating bullets over my cohort's last-second advice: "It won't help if we're on time, but off course." Fortunately, said cohort's 1964 silver Porsche 356, entry number 43, seems to have a mind of its own. The vintage supercar hugs a looming dogleg, then fires like a cannonball into the Oregon countryside's maze of pastoral backroads. And we're off. Driver Dave Cohen, the grizzled 20-year rally veteran, me, in my navigator debut, plus 113 more dynamic duos from as far afield as Colorado and B.C. – all of us jockeying for first place out of the starting gate in the oldest classic-car race in the U.S., the annual Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Car Rally. Yesterday's race prep involved a leisurely eight-hour drive from Vancouver to this starting line in downtown Portland, where, by 6 p.m., the crowds were already gathered to ogle the dozens of classic cars parked on SW Alder Street as first-timers like myself were initiated into the art of time-distance rallying. The basics: it was important to race my own race, to watch for "tricky" directions and, most of all, have fun. But even more relevant, I learned, is that ralliers are not so much competitors as collectors and enthusiasts who have no intention of keeping their vintage classics hot-housed under lock and key. These folks love their cars; the only thing they love more is driving them. Case in point: Dave Cohen, my rally ObiWan Kenobi and a West Vancouver entrepreneur who owns more than a dozen classic cars, including a pre-World War I Bentley and Rolls-Royce. Together with his wife, Cohen THERE'S WINNING, THEN THERE'S WINNING Competitors in Oregon's Northwest Classic vie for several awards besides "best time," including the team that most obsesses over their car; that breaks down; or that "cracks up." Northwest Classic Rally and Robin Esrock p26-37_Summer101.indd 27 has run the 30- to 35-day Peking to Paris challenge (twice), the Perth to Darwin in Australia, Italy's Mille Miglia and other rallies too numerous to tally in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and South Africa, mostly in his beloved Bentley. But for this year's Northwest Classic, open to pre-1981 collector cars, Cohen has opted for old reliable. The Porsche, he explains, enables us to focus on the race as opposed to the struggle to keep one of his more temperamental classics going, though "race" might not be exactly the right word. Post starting-gate blast-off, the rally is suddenly, surprisingly, more like a Sunday drive – with 226 good friends and a purpose. Humming out of Portland, our classic's shiny silver chassis reflects a blur of foliage tunnels, canola fields and old farming towns – nothing to distract us from the act of driving itself. So Cohen takes the opportunity to follow up on last night's intro class with more rallying basics. Each of our two days of racing will be divided into 10 stages, he explains: a start, a finish and a dozen time checks by volunteer marshals camouflaged en route. Drivers and navigators must follow instructions to the letter – and to the second, with each car spaced one minute apart at speeds enabling entrants to reach, say, a particular stop sign in exactly 2:43 seconds. Odometers finely calibrated, teams must then factor in traffic and traps designed by our cunning rally master to bamboozle even the most alert navigator. Any offcourse adventures will result in lost minutes or penalties for exceeding time limits. Nudging above posted speed limits, on the other hand, is verboten – unless we're running late. In which case, well, these are classic sports cars; it's fun to see what they can do on an open country road when there's no rally marshal in sight. Lastly, he warns, avoid blindly following the car in front. It's just as likely to head off a cliff as to the next checkpoint. Navigator newbie that I am, I'm WESTWORLD >> S U M M E R 2 0 1 2 27 4/19/12 7:17:03 AM