by Wayne Elvin – Brandywine Motorsport Club
The 2021 Coatesville Vintage Grand Prix is ON – this year, it started with the Coatesville Vintage Grand Prix Rally on Saturday, August 14th! Brandywine Motorsport Club sponsored a rally in 2019, after the CVGP event that year, to allow all members to run a TSD-based fun event to Coatesville. Using the actual streets on the course allowed members and any entered rally car to (almost) experience that event. (Think Walter Mitty in a fantastical vintage-racing fantasy.)
This year, for 2021, the decision was made to run a similar fun event, but a month in advance to publicize the CVGP to run on September 17th. The format was similar: a single 24 MPH average speed throughout the timed portion. There were no open checkpoints, only 4 Do-It-Yourself (DIY) controls with times to be calculated and entered by the Navigator on the score sheet. The scoring included 20 questions needing answers that could be found along the route. The Questions were placed in the route instructions, interspersed in sequential order, throughout the easy-to-follow Routes. Easy, low pressure, fun but with a premium on attention to staying on a straightforward course while being alert to clues that would provide an answer to questions. Interesting back roads completed the tour.
One main draw and a feature of interest on the rally was to include the actual racecourse in Coatesville for part of the route. For 2021, the route was changed to cover about a 2-mile race course starting along Route 30, then up the hill and back across a few blocks, to where the downhill portion zigged and zagged (as much as city blocks can) back to Route 30 – The Lincoln Highway – returning to the Start / Finish line for a race lap. The rally took two laps on the racecourse using public streets, open to the public (civilians), unlike on “Race Day,” when the course is over the same roads. Race day, the streets are lined with fencing, bales of hay in the roadway, and closed to all vehicles and pedestrians except the Vintage Race Cars, Motorcycles, or BMC (Delaware) race officials and Police.
On the actual “day of” the CVGP, the course will be studded with large hay bales placed to strategically eliminate city blocks’ dreaded straightness and present a driving challenge to Vintage Racers in a speed exhibition (the noise is gonna happen anyway.) It will be a timed event allowing each entrant to compare their lap race times. For those of us who do not happen to own or race a Vintage Auto, it was a genuine pleasure for me to ride as Navigator in a 1964 Austin-Healy 3000 outfitted as a works rally car of that time, not to mention a fresh set of new tires. My driver, Jim Martin (BMC), has been instrumental in working with Coatesville to coordinate the dynamics of the Grand Prix. Bob Turner (BMC) worked with him to organize the personnel, technical aspects, and the plan to execute the Grand Prix race event with an all-volunteer crew.
BMC will provide the Grand Prix operations and personnel. BMC member George Alderman served as Rallymaster for the 2019 Rally and again this year. George has designed the racecourse in years past, and with the leadership of Jim Martin and Bob Turner, the changes mentioned earlier were made to improve the racecourse and the operations on race day. This year’s Vintage Grand Prix in Coatesville retains the use of Route 30 (closed to traffic for the day) with a relocated START / FINISH line, electronic scoring, and the City of Coatesville’s full support, Police, and First Responders.
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The rally experience in a top-down Austin-Healy provided its challenges to me as the Navigator. The first was getting in & out (definitely needed help – thanks, guys!). Then there was the ‘gentle’ warmth emanating from all sides of the passenger seat – where a steering wheel should be on a British car, and when I attempted to open a vent under the dash on my side, it turned out to be the hood release – at least we were parked.
The slight handicap of an odometer that displayed only tenths of a mile, albeit a stock mechanical readout, which allowed estimating in hundredths for more accurate time calculations was mitigated by the new tires needing a + 5% multiplying factor to adjust the lower mileage readings against statute miles. (Bigger new tires roll fewer times, measure less, in a standard statute mile.) This was all balanced by the fun of handing out CVGP flyers in Coatesville along the course to potential fans while riding in a Vintage Racer (a.k.a. an Austin-Healey Abington works prepared Rally Car ala Walter Mitty, remember ?). Forget that I tried to shorten the return to Route 30 and the race finish line by looking ahead (classic route following error) by shortcutting a group of instructions but still staying on the rally and racecourse. Meanwhile, insisting to my driver, who intimately knows the racecourse, that I knew what I was doing (I did not). Bottom line: rusty Navigator in a nicely prepared Vintage Race (Rally) car and some good luck (guesses) managed to get our team a “Runner Up” glass trophy.
For the rally finish, we returned from Coatesville through Springdell and Chatham back roads into Hockessin at the Six Paupers Tavern for food and drink to turn in our score sheets and exchange rally route (racecourse) stories and award trophies.
2021 Coatesville Vintage Grand Prix Rally Results
The Novice Award went to Liz Wilford & Matt Hamilton. Wayne & Treba Thompson 2nd Novice. First place in Expert was successfully defended by Mal Kroeber & Paul Alderman in his restored vintage 1966 Mustang with both racing and rally credentials = using a hundredths reading kilometer Halda odometer (now there’s a conversion factor to miles). A very close second was Bruce Gezon, with total 0.10 minutes error through 4 DIY checkpoints, and both teams were 100% correct on all questions (we don’t say ‘right’).
NOTE: George Alderman has graciously offered to provide additional copies of the route instructions to anyone to run the rally (racecourse) on their own. If you would like a copy, please request from George Alderman via email: georgealderman@comeroadrallywith.us.