Organising a rally

Organisation

Of course, we can't ask cibists to improvise. A rally is something like a stunt : if not prepared, it can lead to a catastrophe. That's why cibists have asked rally organisations to obey a few rules. Here is how a rally is prepared.

First, an ASA (Association Sportive Automobile, Sport Car Association) decides to make a rally. It needs : a name - for example, "8è rallye des Terres du Diois" -, a date - the second week-end of June -, and a place - some sand and gravel tracks around Die.

When ASA contacts CB club, we must know exactly where and when the rally will take place. We must have the way followed by rallycars from the first special part (called "prologue") to the end of the rally.

The ASA contacts CB club at least one month before the date of the rally. Whatever the conditions, a CB club will refuse the assistance if this condition isn't obeid. Then, the work will be done by CB club and ASA.

At least three weeks before the rally (in normal conditions, at least one month and a half, because it can be necessary to ask for other people), there's a first meeting between CB club and organisation. The ASA says how many cibists it wants, and every CB post is discussed. For example, when ASA wants to put two cibists seven kilometers far from each other, the CB club disagrees : in this conditions, if anything happens, it will need quarter an hour to find the crashed car ! In this case, the CB club force ASA to put three more posts, for obvious safety reasons.

There is another problem : will the transmission be good ? Depending on the weather, the sun wind and overall of the topography, the range of a CB liaison can change from five kilometers to more than ten thousand... (later, we go on the place to see if our predictions are good).

At the end of this first meeting, ASA and CB club know exactly how many cibists they will need and where they will put them. It is often two or three cibists more than the first ASA's evaluation...

When the club know how many cibists will be needed, it starts searching for operators. One or two weeks after the first meeting, it decides :

- We can do it ourselves, we have enough people and not too much work: we accept the assistance.

- We can't do it ourselves, we need additionnal people : we ask other CB clubs that we know.

In this case, an important problem comes : How will we share the work ? Generally, we decide to work on some special parts and let other "invited" clubs do the rest of the work. In fact, other clubs often take their own decisions with ASA.

If, even with help of other cibists, it is impossible to reach enough cibists, we refuse the assistance and the rally is canceled (fortunately we have always managed to do it).

When it has been decided to do a rally assistance, we must go and see the roads. We go with three or four cars, about two weeks before the rally, to prepare it. We check the quality of radio between start and finish lines and each CB post ; if a post can't be reached, or has a too bad radio, it is decided to put it elsewhere or to put a QSP somewhere, where it will be able to reach at least the lost post and the start line.

After this, we know exactly how many cars we will need. Because we're now quite used with the job, it is almost always exactly what we had predicted, so it happens that we do it after the discussions with ASA...

During this reconaissance we also paint the post numbers on the ground, on trees or on walls. It allows persons who weren't there to find there post easily and immediatly.

When it is finished, we're ready... Rally can start.

What is a rally Index

The rally day