dictionary.com doesnt seem to have a definition for car rallies. Although, I think non-dirt "rallies" are referred to as "Road Rallies"

 

"rally" in the strictest sense merely means to meet up at a specified point, i.e. the rally point. Sounds like this thing is a road rally (sometimes spelled rallye). Rallies do not have to have dirt (Rally Corsica and Rally Deustchland spring to mind).

 

I am still going to be a stubborn *** ok?

 

Rally means a lot of different things to different people, To the SCCA, it used to mean either road rally or performance rally.

The World Rally Championship would fall into the "Performance rally" catagory.

Performance rallying is no longer sanctioned by SCCA, because their risk management folks felt that they could not justify the insurance costs and liability exposure, so now those events in the US are sanctioned by either NASA, or a spin off group from SCCA called Rally America.

Road Rally has several different formats, but generally they fall into either Timed or non-timed catagories.

Timed road rallies sometimes referred to as Time Speed and Distance or TSD rallys generally have an assigned speed or speeds that contestants are attempting to average over a specified distance, variations include Monte Carlo formats where the perfect time to checkpoints is given, and it is up to the contestants to determine a route to get to those points on time, SCCA also sanctions TSD rallys where there are "traps" or potential wrong routes so that contestants are challenegd to stay on course as well as staying on time.

Non-timed road rallies also have a few different formats, "AB" and "coursemarker" being the two most commonly used in this area.

What all of the above mentioned rallys have in common is that they are legal, insured and sanctioned events that do not involve breaking the law.

Road rallys can be enetered and won by regular people in their street cars, while Performance rallys require race-car safety equipment.

AKA and Gumball "rallys" are outlaw street racing speed events which generally are all about stupid people with more money that they know what to do with flogging themselves and their cars around wrecklessly endangering themselves and the general public.

Sadly, because people too often associate "rally" with these glorified street racing events, it is getting harder and harder for people trying to put on legitimate rallys to get road permissions and insurance, so if let to their own devices, these outlaw events might very well lead to the end of rallying for everyone.

 

There is one other TSD variation that Pete missed ... Open Road Racing or Rallies. These are basically one stage TSD's, but done at much higher speeds - 100 mph to 200 mph - on a legally closed section of regular road. These rallies are open to regular folks with street cars, as well as race prepared and modified cars. These events are sanctioned by the Department of Transport, insured and do not involve breaking the law.

Jane Barker
MKM Street & Touring Ad Hoc Rep
www.openroadracing.com

 

Actually I didn't forget them I figured they fall right under the basic definition;

What makes the open road variety different is that safety equipment is required, and the faster you want to go the more you need to invest in safety gear.

But in terms of what the format is- its a single leg of fixed mileage with one speed that you try to average, and like Jane mentioned, its legal, sanctioned, and insured.

 

speaking of rally i better get that skid plate built