The Alpine International Classic Car Rally

PSA Journal, June, 2004 by Elena McTighe

"How would you like to go to a classic car rally in Austria?" That question posed by my husband set in motion one of the most unique trips that we have ever taken. Truthfully, I only heard the word Austria. "Car rally"--I hadn't the slightest idea what that was all about.

Let me assume that many of you are like me and do not "know what a car rally is. First and foremost, it is a test of the car, driver and navigator's abilities. All three must function as a smoothly running team. A rally is a race which is NOT primarily about speed. It has everything to do with accuracy. Every day, rally participants are given a card, a map of the local roads, and a route. For instance, on the first day of the race we were given a route which was to take 3 1/2 hours to complete. The classic cars, all 118 of them, started at one point, one minute apart. There were check-points along the way where participants stopped and got their card stamped. The car, which came closest to the specified time period from beginning to end, and from checkpoint to checkpoint, was the winner. My husband was the driver and I was the navigator. It didn't take me long to realize that the navigator is the boss. Three days of unquestioned power! How could I not love this rally?

The first Classic Alpine Rally was held in 1910 and was continued until 1973 when the OPEC oil crisis forced an end to it. It was the dream of Wolfgang Inhester to revitalize the rally. After many years of hard work, he saw his dream come true last year when the rally was reborn and 80 cars entered the race. Only cars manufactured before 1973 were eligible.

We picked up our leased classic car, a 1964 red Jaguar Mark 2 (3.8) in a town two hours north of London. It was a beautiful, elegant car with a four-speed stick shift and no power steering. In British fashion, the steering wheel was on the right side of the car. We brought absolutely the bare minimum with us and miraculously, our luggage fit perfectly into the trunk. Then we set off for Austria.

After driving over a thousand miles, we finally encountered the Austrian Alps. We motored through the Tyrol Province of Austria and parts of the Italian Alps to arrive at our destination of Bad Kleinkirchheim (BKK). BKK is located in the Carinthia Mountains of southern Austria. What a thrill it was to see the majestic towering peaks of the Alps! It had been my dream for over 40 years.

When we attended the first meeting, to our surprise (why were we surprised?), everything was in German. That included the maps, the daily routes, the rules. Yes, everything! Neither one of us knew a word of German. Fortunately, the race officials were so ecstatic about having an American entry, that they assigned an interpreter to us, a lovely resident anesthesiologist named Nora Urbanek. Her father was one of the top race officials. Nora went over the route that we would be expected to drive on the first day and we became familiar with some of the words and signs that we would see along the way. Herr Inhester promised that next year there would be an English translation of all rally documents.

That night at the opening banquet, we were invited to sit with the top rally professionals in Europe. Somehow sensing that we were up competition, they were very convivial and helpful to us. I was a little nervous about navigating over strange routes in a foreign country, so I bombarded them with questions. That night I converted all of the kilometers on the map into miles. We had a lot going against us--no German, a steering wheel on the wrong side, no experience, a strange car, miles on the speedometer instead of kilometers, and a bare dashboard. Experienced rally cars have a dashboard loaded with rally accessories: tripmeter, stop watches, time of day clock, set of average speed tables, a compass, and map lights. In our car, we had three clocks and each had a different time.

Taking pictures was a very difficult chore. First, there was the crowd, estimated at 50,000, to contend with. Fans and classic car aficionados swarmed around the cars. Then, there was the unbelievably bright Austrian sky. I never saw a cloud--just harsh sunlight and bright blue sky. As we had been determined to keep our luggage to a minimum, all I brought was my digital Nikon D100 with a IGB compact flash card. a Nikkor AF 28-105mm lens, a monopod and my Nikon Speedlight SB-80DX. I had only been shooting with an SLR since December of 2002 and I am not an experienced photographer. Nevertheless, I photographed with enthusiasm.

On Day One the race was 3 1/2 hours, Day Two, 11 1/2 hours, and Day 3, 8 1/2 hours. We covered a total of 538 miles. It was a grueling and difficult ride, but we drove over some of the most beautiful Alpine roads one could ever want to see: majestic mountains, lush green valleys, crystal clear, glacier-fed lakes and streams, steep winding roads with roller coaster ascents and descents and hairpin turns. The routes were very well thought out and the maps expertly prepared. We took some wrong turns but were never hopelessly lost.