Took my Yaris on an adventure (TSD Rally)

[CoryM]

Hey guys.



Figured I would post a little of my experience on my first TSD. For those unfamiliar, a Time-Stage-Distance rally is where you are given a route, and an average speed you are expected to keep. The car that is closest to that time, as captured by random timing checks, wins. You get penalized for being too fast or slow. These take place on public roads, so the average speeds are usually 10% or less of the legal speed limit. This event is a winter rally, so takes place on unplowed gravel roads. In this case it rained, then froze just prior to the event so the average speeds were..... optimistic. Average speed of 72kph on polished ice is enough to be entertaining even while being cautious of oncoming traffic etc. I'd say 70% of it was on glaze-ice.



My end goal is Stage rally, but figured this would be a good learning experience for me and my Navigator. So I stuffed the factory shocks etc back in the Yaris, got some amazing studded tires, and went for a 800km trek through the backcountry. I have a lot of autoX experience, but very little loose surface experience so it was something new. Our closest competition was an Austin Mini. We were faster. but unable to keep our timing accurate enough to beat them. The biggest thing for me to have learned is that I am content to run a FWD Stage Rally car. When pushing, it's still fun enough on loose surface, and I am much more likely to finish events with FWD over RWD. We also learned my Navigator is pretty calm under pressure..... and doesn't get car sick (this is important!). We placed fairly poorly, but really didn't know what we were doing so that's to be expected. We met our goals of having fun, learning, and not stuffing the car. Only thing that broke was a headlamp bulb (which has been in there for at least 7yrs).



Was a fun weekend, and I would suggest if you have the time and the tires to do a winter TSD Rally, give it a shot. Well worth the time in this case.

Some vids here. Just dashcam quality, and of course I lost the most fun footage but this should give a taste of what it's about. Note: The driver tends to swear a lot so mute if you have sensitive ears around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLdXk2Ipw6k


Cheers.