Click on this to relieve eyestrain--

For anyone who doesn't know, here's how [a navigational rally] works. At the start, each car is given a set of directions telling when to turn and how fast to go. The directions are not cryptic, but you have to spot signs and landmarks, which might happen every fifteen or twenty seconds (if you go a minute without one, you become convinced that you're lost . . .) or you will wind up in the wrong place. You have no idea where you are going or what road you are on; you just follow the directions and hope it works out right. At unexpected times along the way, you get to "checkpoints." The trick is to arrive at these at the precise second that you would theoretically get there if you followed the directions exactly. You are then given a new start time and off you go again. At the end, you add up your total error for each checkpoint, and the car with the low score wins.

All this is run on public roads at perfectly legal speeds. For instance, if the speed limit is 40 MPH, the directions might have you run at 38 MPH. The problem is, 38 must be your average speed until directed otherwise, and since much of this is on little winding backroads, you end up doing some pretty sporty driving.

Obviously, you have to have an accurate measure of your speed. If you can do a little math, a digital tachometer is a precise means of determining your speedometer error, so I spent the afternoon before the rally getting one hooked up. I really wanted to show up with the car all shined up and pretty, but had to abandon the idea because of a 35 MPH wind trying to relocate the beach into our driveway. Oh, well.

The next morning, [my wife] Marsha and I headed for Buellton, ninety miles up the coast and the starting point of the rally. We were supposed to start our run at 9:02, so we planned to get there by 8:30, in time to get our watches synchronized, review the rules, drink a cup of coffee and say "Hi" to a few people, but we ran into a traffic jam going into Santa Barbara. A semi-truck had crashed and burned on the freeway, and the entire traffic of the 101 had to go through Montecito village. It took an hour to go three miles, by which time we figured that running the rally was a write-off, but we decided to go on up anyway, see if we could figure out where they went, and get in on the picnic at the end.

We were surprised to find John Self of the Alfa club still at the start when we arrived at 9:30. We explained what had happened, he gave us a new start time (9:31), we grabbed the directions, jumped back in the car and roared off in a bit of a panic with instructions to tell the people at the first checkpoint to wait there a bit in case any other really tardy cars showed up after us (that is, if they had not already packed up and left). So much for reviewing the rules, drinking coffee and getting organized. We actually left after the revised start time at that, and had to make up the time by the first checkpoint.

After that, things went well enough. We missed a few turns, but realized it right away. We got to the first checkpoint in time to catch Karl Grimm still there. After a bit, we were passing Alfa Romeos, which meant that either we were going too fast, or they were going too slow. I put my faith in the new tachometer, and we pressed on for another three hours or so to the last checkpoint (Karl again). We made an immediate stop for gas (driving three miles an hour through Montecito does terrible things to your gas mileage), found the picnic, got the sheet of "true times" and started figuring.

For the first thirty-minutes-long leg, we were fifty-six seconds off the theoretical time. For the second leg, which was an hour-and-a-half long, we were exactly five seconds off. And for the last leg, also an hour-and-a-half, we were a minute and twenty seconds off (this is because we got stopped by cattle being herded down the road for about ten minutes, and had to guess about how much time to make up -- I know, excuses, excuses . . .). This added up to 141 seconds of total error, which was good for first place. This was ironic, because we couldn't even get to the starting line within a half-hour of the right time, and we were the only Volvo that showed up (last year, we had four) versus about twelve Alfa Romeos. Our old 122S had bested the Italian sports cars! I half expected them to play the Swedish National Anthem, but they didn't.

Of course, this was all just for fun (and it was), and we did get a pair of nice, engraved (plastic) trophies, saw some fine scenery and had a picnic with some friendly people. I encourage everyone to come out next year and help us support the marque!

Rallymaster Karl Grimm's immaculate '70 1800E

The text of this article originally appeared in the May/June 1995 Volvo Sports America Western States Magazine.