WHAT IS ENDURANCE ROAD RALLYING?
Endurance road rallying is an exciting, friendly and low cost form of rallying. It combines off-road special tests (called selectifs) with a road rally route, making it the perfect next step up from 12-cars.
Rallies are designed to test both the driver's car control and the navigator's ability to follow a set route and keep to a time schedule as accurately as possible.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
Selectifs are always on private land. The surface could include forest tracks, airfield runways, farm tracks and military training areas. The crew must complete a prescribed route and carry out certain manoeuvres in the shortest possible time. These selectifs can be anything from just a few hundred yards up to as much as 20 miles long!
The road rally section usually takes place at night, mainly on public roads. It uses straightforward navigation where the object is to maintain the correct time schedule, while following the right route.
On a typical endurance road rally, scrutineering, noise testing and signing on will take place first thing on Saturday morning, the competition starting later that morning or early afternoon. After a day of selectifs linked by non competitive road sections, there is usually a dinner halt before the night section begins. The night section, often a mix of road rallying and selectifs, is likely to have finished by around 11pm, although some go on until 1 or 2am. In total, rallies are usually around 300 miles long.
WHAT DO YOU NEED?
We use unmodified 1,400cc petrol (or 2,000cc diesel) cars fitted with a roll cage, sump guard and full harness seat belts. To keep costs down, tyres must be chosen from a restricted MSA list of basic road tyres – the Endurance Road Rally Championship uses a control tyre from that list. See the website http://www.endurance-rallying.co.uk/ for the full championship regulations. You will be required to present a valid MOT and V5 at scrutineering.
No specialised clothing is required. Helmets may be worn on selectifs only if you wish, however these must be removed before going on the public road and intercoms are not permitted.
Crews are made up of a driver and a navigator. Both drivers and navigators need MSA Non Race National B licences (no qualifications are needed, just send off the form) and club membership (either through the championship or available at signing on for each event). Some rallies have Clubmans sections – for these you do not even need a National B licence, just club membership.
WHAT EVENTS ARE THERE?
There are about five events in the Endurance Road Rally Championship’s calendar, plus a number of other road rallies offer classes for endurance spec cars. The good news is that your endurance prepared rally car will be eligible for other forms of low cost motorsport such as road rallies, autotests, gymkhanas and trials, making it very versatile and opening up a wide variety of affordable competition to get involved with.
While the ERRC co-ordinates the championship, the rallies themselves are run by the organising clubs – for full details see http://www.endurance-rallying.co.uk/
WHAT WILL IT COST?
While rallying is never cheap, a fundamental principle of the ERRC is to keep costs down and make motorsport fun and affordable. Entry fees for rallies are around £200, often including at least one meal, fantastic value when you consider some events are 300 miles long! Fuel and tyres must also be budgeted for. Rallies are designed so that overnight accommodated is not always essential, however this depends how far you have to travel to the event.
A Non Race National B licence costs £39 from the MSA (http://www.msauk.org/) and is valid until 31st December of the year of application. Club membership varies but £10 is a decent ballpark figure.
Once you have chosen and bought the car in which you want to compete, this can be prepared for competition for around £2,000. Of course this is an estimated figure which can vary depending on the car chosen and if you do the work yourself. The point is that car preparation doesn’t have to be exorbitantly expensive and once complete, you have a car you can use on a variety of events.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Head to the Endurance Road Rally Championship website for the full calendar, technical regulations and links to our Facebook and Twitter pages: http://www.endurance-rallying.co.uk/
Newcomers are warmly welcomed and there is always a friendly, experienced crew on hand to share pearls of wisdom, either at rallies or through our Facebook and Twitter pages. So, what are you waiting for?