Motorcar Rally Courses London

Rally is also unique in its choice of where and when to race. That is to say, rally happens on all surfaces and in all conditions, asphalt (tarmac), gravel, snow & ice, all surfaces are valid and sometimes more than one on a single rally. You can also find rallies in every month of the year in every climate; bitter cold to monsoon rain. This contributes to the notion that top rally drivers are some of the best car control experts in the world. Because the drivers don't know exactly what's ahead, the lower traction available on dirt roads, and the driving characteristics of small cars, the drivers are much less visibly smooth than circuit racers, regularly sending the car literally flying over bumps, and sliding the cars out of corners.

A typical rally course consists of a sequence of relatively short (up to about 50 kilometres) timed "special stages" where the actual competition takes place, and untimed "transport stages" where the rally cars must be driven under their own power to the next competitive stage within a generous time limit. Rally cars are thus unlike virtually any other top-line racing cars in that they retain the ability to run at normal driving speeds, and indeed are registered for street travel. Some events contain "super special stages" where two competing cars set off on two parallel tracks (often small enough to fit in a football stadium), giving the illusion that they are circuit racing head to head. These stages, ridiculed by many purists, seem increasingly popular with event organisers. Run over a day, a weekend, or more, the winner of the event has the lowest combined special and super special stage times.