Rally
What is a rally ?
In a town-to-town race, the rules were very simple : the road was totally normal, you had a start town, a finish town, and you had to go from the first to the latter the faster you could. The conditions were often awful : race cars had to avoid the others cars, which were allowed to travel normally ; the spectators put themselves as they wanted and often tried to cause accidents ; the cars were all experimental, as the only non-experimental car in this time was pulled by a horse.
In these conditions, what had to happen happened : in 1903, the Paris-Madrid race was stopped in Bordeaux because of the accidents which had happened.
Today, there is only one town-to-town race : the Panamericana. It is run in Mexico every year, with special cars with 60's appearance.
To continue road racing, it was necessary to find another method, to increase safety. Two ways were used : track races, with the construction in 1911 of the first permanent track : the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and rally.
The rally is close to a town-to-town race in that it starts in a town and finishes in another ; but the difference is that a rally is divided in liaisons and special parts. Only the special parts are taken in account. In liaisons, cars have a minimal average speed. It is quite slow, to avoid accidents. The road is open (other car can go normally), and the highway code must be respected. In special parts, it is the rush ! Speed is the only important thing. No car is allowed, but rally cars ; so, only rally people and spectators can be injured, an accident with other cars is impossible - this is theory...
Then, people have been especially taught how to increase safety ; they are called on rallies. They are :
- Cops. Cops'use is to order people to go where they will be safe. Cops are very useful (believe it or not !) when spectators put themselves on the road or get drunk - that happens more and more frequently.
- Intendents : they are rally people. They belong to the organisation of the rally, and are formed especially to rally risks. They are also useful because they have the knowledge - or, exactly, they should have. They know what can happen and what must be done when something happens.
And there come the cibist.
Because there were three solutions : a GPS in each car, but that was expensive and didn't give information on what had happened ; Radio Amateurs, but they were very expensive ; and cibists.
A cibist has often a good knowledge of radio conditions. A cibist is often a person who drives a lot. So a cibist often knows the safety conditions linked to speed and cars.
Today, there's at least a cibist every two kilometers on each rally.
