Rallye des Alpes 2010 - Geneva to St Moritz

	Though only just ahead in the points, the Barker/Cave Mini won the event outright despite a broken throttle spring on the last day

A close finish!

John Davenport Reports

After a two-year sabbatical to allow event organiser Raymond Gassmann to take some time out after running the event continuously since its revival under his direction as a classic regularity event in 1989, the Rallye des Alpes was back with a flourish in this, the centenary year of the very first Alpine Rally, the Österreichischen Alpenfahrt of 1910.

Though with an entry of fewer cars than when it last ran in 2007, its quality and camaraderie were still of the same high grade expected on this Category A, FIVA event. The rally was also favoured with some excellent weather and, though some of the open sports cars opted to start from the Parc des Eaux-Vives on the south bank of Lac Leman with their hoods up, the only rain came just before the mid-day lunch halt at the Col des Mosses high above Gstaad and even then was very light. The rest of the five days was Alp-to-Alp sunshine and the hoods were not seen again, though there was a high demand for sun cream.

James and Fiona Willis suffered all sorts of problems before the rally even started, but went on to finish third in their MGA

Before the Sunday scrutineering and documentation in the Hotel Kempinski in central Geneva, some of the crews had already had more than their fair share of adventures.

The tasks set by the Rallye des Alpes were relatively mild though, as it was, the first sections did cause more problems than perhaps they should have done. A neutral section out to a time control in the foothills of the Haut Savoie led to a self-start regularity section with three secret time controls and then another self-start with a single secret control. The problem was that one had to get the time at that first control precisely. If it was not, then both the self-starts would be wrong as well, and also the times recorded at all four of the secret checks. This is what happened to the father and son team of Barrie and James Haigh with their Jaguar XK 140 MC and to six other crews. It was a shame to have something quite that complicated so early in the event before everyone had warmed up to the competition.

By the time the rally reached its first night halt in Interlaken, the sun was out and the paragliders were landing on the lawn. Already top of the classification list was the 1275cc Cooper S of Peter Barker and Willy Cave with a mere ten and half penalty points but, ominously just behind them on twenty-four was the Triumph TR3A of Ben and Katy Stebbing.

From Interlaken, the route went south over the Grimsel, Furka and St Gotthard passes and thence into Italy via the Simplon Pass to rest for the night at Baveno on Lago Maggiore.

	Triumph TR3A of Ben and Katy Stebbing classified first and came second on the road

For Wednesday it was back into Switzerland en route for Lucerne. The leading Mini Cooper S broke its throttle spring on the last of three regularities of the day but somehow contrived to lose only four seconds, but the gap to the Stebbing’s TR3A was now just under ten penalty points mainly due to the realisation by the results team that, being a 1275, it should be placed in the ‘Invitation’ category for cars built after 1963 and thus subject to a larger penalty coefficient. The Triumph TR3A of Jean Steffen and Marco Schumacher had been steadily improving but had been halted on the road section with what turned out to be a faulty low-tension connection to the coil.

On Thursday, after sampling the scenery of eastern Switzerland through Appenzell, the rally passed through Lichtenstein into Austria and lunch in the Vorarlberg before arriving that evening at the wonderful Hotel Klosterbräu in Seefeld. The results showed that the Stebbing’s TR3A was now in the narrowest of leads with a one-and-a-half penalty point advantage over the Mini Cooper S. Friday was going to be interesting!

The Healey 100 M of Jean and Anne Steinhauser had been as high as third overall behind the Mini and the TR3 but dropped back to seventh with tripmaster problems.

And so it proved. The regularities in Austria saw the positions reversed and on the last three regularities in Switzerland leading to the finish in St Moritz, Willy Cave coaxed the Mini through with the loss of single second. Thus in the final reckoning, it was Cave and Barker at the head of the classification but, since they were in the Invitation Category, they could not win the event outright. Raymond Gassmann presented both crews with identical trophies – one for being first in the classification and the other for winning the event.

The rejuvenated Rallye des Alpes was warmly received by the competitors and not just because of the excellent weather. At the prize giving, some speculative details of the 2011 event were revealed along with an assurance that it would maintain the high quality tradition of its predecessors.