Tour of Madeira Classic Car Rally

Each year the Madeira Classic Car Club (Clube de Automóveis Clássicos da Madeira) holds its annual Tour of Madeira Classic Car Rally. This year it will take place between the 24^th and 25^th of June. The event is recognized by PAKF (Portuguese Automobile & Karting Federation) and has become an annual sensation.

What is it?

Classic rallying is a type of road rally suitable for most standard classic cars, with no special equipment needed (the equipment allowed depends on the particular rally). These rallies are more about enjoyment than speed, and can be a good introduction to historic motorsport (which also include race meetings, classic endurance, and hillclimbing). A classic road rally is not about speed; in fact, there are severe penalties for finishing too early. The idea of a rally is to travel from a point to another within a certain time (time controls), not too fast or too slow, trying to match a speed average set by the organizers.

Classification?

Classic rallies can be classified as regularity rallies, endurance rallies, and touring rally.

In regularity rallies, a series of intermediate time controls must be visited in the correct order. At each control point, the team stops and has time recorded on a card. At the end of the event, the competitor who has visited all these controls and who has the fewest early or late penalties overall is the winner. Note that with the introduction of electronics, control points can be replaced by sensors which trigger the cars at their given time thanks to a transponder, enabling much accurate penalties system.

Endurance rallies are long-distance motor rallies for vintage, historic and classic cars.

Touring rallying is all about enjoying countryside and the company of classic car owners, which is the case of Madeira’s Tour of Madeira Classic Car Rally.

Classic rallies try to relive some of the great events of the 1960s and 1970s when man and machine were often alone for hours, even days, with little support. Cars now have expendable parts and a gearbox can be changed in twenty minutes. On the long tough rallies of yesteryear drivers had to drive 3000 km exclusively up and down the French Alps, for example, against the clock for most of the way, and look after the gearbox and every other part of the car, since changing them was impossible.

As a rule participants are given a road map, a straightforward ball and arrow system to show the route. The map also provides a diagrammatic representation of the road junction.