Driving On the Road
Road Information
Tours
It is great fun to caravan together in a line of Porsches. Our tours last a few hours and often include a meal. Recent tours include a trip to Globe to see miniature animals and have lunch, the Amerind foundation and lunch in Willcox, and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The board of directors welcomes tour suggestions. Check for upcoming tours.
Have a look at the scrapbook for photos from previous tours.
Rallies
Rallies are usually driven on regular roads, with both a driver and a navigator. The objective of a rally is to follow a course to the precise detail specified in the rules. Competitive rallies dictate a certain schedule for the checkpoints along the way. Points are deducted by arriving at the checkpoint either early or late. Fun rallies may include a gimmick, such as drawing a playing card at each checkpoint and the best pokerhand wins the rally. Part of the challenge with a fun rally may be to discover the intended route, which may require other skills such as solving a puzzle or looking for obscure reference points.
Often you are given an average speed to travel in a TSD rally. If you slow down for a corner or stop for a sign, you will have to go faster than that average to make up the time you lost. The checkpoints, or controls as they are also called, will note the time you arrive at their location. Generally for every 0.01 minute (0.6 seconds) you are early or late, you receive one point. The team (driver and navigator) who scores the lowest total points for all legs (minimum error) wins their class. This would be easy if you knew where the controls were. That is a carefully guarded secret. You are provided instructions which will take you along a very specific route. This distance is carefully measured, and since the rate (S) is known, the perfect arrival time is known. However your team must not only calculate your perfect arrival time, but you must drive it as well.
The type of route instructions determines whether you are participating in a tour or course rally. Tour Rally instructions give you specific and clear instructions as to the rally route. Course Rally instructions may include traps that will if taken cause you to travel either shorter or longer than the intended distance. This will cause you to enter the control either earlier or later than your perfect arrival time, thereby affecting your score. Essentially in Tour Rallies, you only need to concentrate on staying on time. Course rallies require not only staying on time but on course as well.
A Pro Rally event is run on public roads, which are closed to the public while the event is being run. Frequently these are logging roads, but not always. Cars are sent down these roads one car at a time, at one minute intervals. The object is to drive as fast as you can, and faster than your competition. The winner is the team that has the fastest total time for all stages. SCCA and FIA are organizations that hold PRO Rally Series which are sometimes televised.