Editorial S-Turns

SCCA ProRally: Real cars, real roads, real fast

By Dave Getchell
PORSCHEFORME Editor

You're standing beside a narrow gravel road on a mountainside somewhere north of Rangeley Lake. Then from off behind a ridge, comes a demented chainsaw blare, with turbo exhausts popping in a heavy-weapons stutter.

Suddenly, a hurtling rally car appears, a dust-streaked blue Subaru. Only this is not your neighbor's nice little Subie--it's a decal-bedecked, raucous 350-horsepower hooligan going 80 mph. The blue beastie leaps airborne over a bump and lands, BAM. It brakes hard, crabs sideways at an impossible angle, and bounces thru a 90-degree left turn with a ditch in the middle. It misses disaster by inches, the assembled fans by a few feet. The car recedes in a hail of clattering stones, fire belching from coffee-can caliber tailpipes.

Five hundred fans standing in the woods go bonkers. The Maine Forest Rally really reels ’em in.

For some reason, rallying remains obscure here in the land of the Indy 500. ProRally competitions run on normal roads in something like ordinary cars. Well, actually the courses are closed off and drivers race around the countryside in some of the ultimate automobiles ever let loose on public roads. These so-called Performance Rallies typically include several racing sections known as "stages," linked together by legal-speed "transit" sections.

Stages are regular roads temporarily blocked off so racers can go full blast without endangering civilian traffic. On transit sections, rally cars are strictly subject to prevailing road laws: speeders are kicked out of the event.

Concours nightmare: Brave 911 kicks up potato-size rocks on Maine Forest Rally. (Getch foto)

And if the Maine event is any indication, rallying's days of US obscurity are numbered. The July 27-28 event was stop #6 on the 10-race ProRally Championship tour sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). This year's starting field of 120 teams was the largest in SCCA rally history. Series manager Kurt Spitzer says, "ProRally is now America's leading alternative motorsport."

There was even a Porsche connection to this year's event--a lone '85 Carrera entered by Max Stratton of Northeast Region. Now, a shiny silver 911 is not exactly the kind of wagen you'd imagine slinging stones and dodging ditches, but these cars ROCK on gravel. Indeed, a '73 911T won the ProRally Production class last season.

Next year, SCCA is starting a pre-72 Historic class, and in the early 70s, 911s ruled the rally world. Here’s a high-adventure race series that’s wide open for a Porsche team, so why not a crew from DER? A 2.4-liter 911E would be THE hot Historic setup. Any DER folks out there who are up for a whole new adventure in Porsche driving….?

Dave

Top of Page                Back to Porscheforme articles