Rallying
(Rally Racing)
Done By : Feras Mohamed AlAhmed
Student ID : H00154893
Submitted to : Mr. Hedley Butterfield
Introduction
Rally racing is
a huge competition between lot of companies for advertising and proving their
quality and the performance. Rally racing is all about performance and
endurance; the route of the race usually is public roads and private roads. The
route is also mixed between on road and off-road.
Early
History
The first rally
race was in 1895 with a total distance of 1178km [Wikipedia] and it was held in
France. The average speed of the racing cars was 24km/h. After 8 years another rally
race was held on the same road as the first race but the difference is that the
average speed of the drivers exceeded the limits of safety and caused lot of
crashes and accidents. As a result the French government stopped the race to
fix rules of safety. In 1907 the first built track has been made in Brooklands,
England making rally race safe for both drivers and people who were watching
the race. In 1911 the first world Rally champion ship was held which was the
Monte Carlo Rally. The race was done annually until the outbreak of World War
1. Because of the World War 1 rally stagnated until 1924. The Monte Carlo Rally
and RAC rally brought the rally racing back to the stage. The rally competition
was held annually until World War 2. Rally races and competitions stopped for
the duration of World War 2. After the ending of World War 2 rally racing was
growing slowly because of the war effect. In 1950s rally had a new type which
was long distance road rally. The appearance of the long rally race made the
golden age of rally in 1950s causing it to be more popular than before. In 1951
RAC rally is finally an international rally event. The British government
placed some laws and rules for the race. These rules made the race to be
unpleasant such as the public roads would not be closed for any rally event or
stages, which made most of the foreign crews to be not interested in attending
the race. After 10 years the race was modified to have a special long road that
was well surfaced roads and gravel roads. This act transformed the RAC rally to
the most popular rally race in the world which is called Rally GB nowadays.
Modern
Rally
Nowadays several
changes happened to rally races; some of these changes are huge and others
small. These changes affected the drivers over the history of rally; the
modifications done to the car created a new type of rally racing. Rally driving
was considered as a hobby and it was done by amateur people; in some cases the
drivers were not paid to drive but they only did it for the fun of being in a
rally race. Rally drivers now are considered as professional drivers and they
are paid to drive the car. In addition being a rally car driver means that
driving a rally car is a job and they should be free of any other jobs. The
major change which happened nowadays was on rally cars. In the past rally cars
were offered from the company with small modifications to help the car in
getting through gravel and sand roads and that’s it, while nowadays the car is
brought from the factory with the original parts and then the team work on
every single part of the car. The type of modifications done to the car is
related to the suspensions, tires, engine and drive-train. The purpose of all
these modifications is to increase the acceleration, total performance of the
car, increase the safety of rally cars and to make the car able to endure the
rally race. Finally, a new rally race has been found which is different from
the others and it’s called Dakar-Paris Rally (Dakar rally is described in
details below in the report).
Rally
types
There are several
types of rally; two of them are considered the famous among all which are: the
road rally and the stage rally. The stage rally is considered as a general
rally where each team has a driver and co-driver with each driver there is a
navigator who helps in guiding the driver through the route of the race. The
role of the navigator is considered a significant role in scoring time. The
navigator should have the ability of giving the exact information needed by the
driver and the driver should be able to understand the information given to
him, therefore the information provided by the navigator should be specific and
exact. The goal of the stage rally is to finish each stage as fast as possible
and measure the performance of the each team by the time recorded in each
stage. The other type is the road rally which some people consider as a small
part of the stage rally. In this rally the environment is mainly public roads,
and for the purpose of safety this type of rally is only done by professional
drivers and not amateurs; the main reason is to reduce the risk to the public
watching the rally from streets and homes.
Dakar
Racing
Dakar rally is
an annual endurance off-road race, and it was first held in 1978. The name
Paris-Dakar indicates the start and the finish of the race; the route of the
Dakar rally starts from Paris in France to Dakar in Senegal. The length of this
race is estimated to be 10,000 kilometers. The route of the rally remained from
Paris to Dakar until 2009. In 2008 Mauritania was having some security threats
which led to the cancellation of the Dakar rally in the same year. In the next
year the race is relocated in South America and was to be held in Argentina and
Chile; since then Dakar is considered a special race because of the
requirements needed to finish the race. Dakar is all about endurance race which
is held in harsh environments. The race is divided into many stages; each stage
varies in distance (up to 800-900km). Also drivers consider the type of terrain
they are going to drive in, which are sand dunes, gravel and rocks. Another
special feature of Dakar racing is that there is more than one class of
vehicles competing in the race such as; motorbikes, quads, cars and trucks. As
being held in a huge dessert, Dakar race has witnessed lot of bad incidents
such as vehicles accident, drivers lost the route and they are lost in huge desert
and driver’s death. Although bad incidents occurred Dakar popularity is
increasing each year.
Summary
Rally racing is
one of the well-known racing competitions in the world. Started in the late of
19th century rally racing had several risks for drivers and people
who watch closely therefore the rules of rally changed with years to make it
safe to race and reduce the risk. One of the major rally races is the Dakar
race which is the most famous in the world. Rally racing witnessed several
incidents such as injuries, lost drivers and death although modern technology
and locating systems are used to prevent them.
References:
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