Syd Stelvio Peking to Paris 25 - Day 29 – Ankara top Istanbul – 483km

‘Welcome to Europe’, read the sign as we crossed the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, across the Bosphorus Strait. It was a significant step; the rally had crossed an entire continent and after 29 days of travelling crossed into geograhical Europe. For those that have made it this far, that is an achievement in itself. It wasn’t just the geography that was noteworthy today though, some geometry had also got in on the act.

The rally would be leaving Asia with a flurry of competitive action, with three regularities and a test. If it wasn’t the busiest day of competition so far, it certainly felt like it, and despite a pair of time controls to break up the leg, it seemed to go by at a canter. Competition aside, if is worth noting that the roads were tremendous, a glut of twisting, turning and flowing mountain stretches, that climbed and descended in the midst of incredible scenery, far reaching views and gargantuan rock formations. Anyone with an aversion to heights may not have enjoyed it quite so much, but for those who were brave enough to peer over the edge as we travelled, the visual reward was magnificent.

The fun began before we had even left the hotel though, with the crew of the Fiat 500, Fabio Longo and Stiven Mucciolo confused by which barrier to exit the car park via. They chose the wrong lane, and when the barrier refused to open, so they decided to simply mount the curb and drive the tiny car around said barrier. Whatever works.

All of the regularities today were Hillclimbs, the first of which was mostly on tarmac, broken in places and with some wide sweeping bends, and bucked the picturesque trend that would follow for the rest of the day. In fact, it was plain old ugly, and the route was inhabited by more stray Dogs than I think I have ever seen. The majority of these went quietly about their business as the rally passed by, but there was one group of four who must have been the Droogs of the pack, intent on fighting every vehicle that came their way. It wasn’t the Dogs that were the issue for the cars though, but a couple of triangle junctions on the reg, that had to be followed as the road book decreed to stay on the right course and maintain an accurate trip and time. Most of the field don’t appear to know the difference between their adjacent and hypotenuse though, and navigated the triangles incorrectly, which also led to most of the field picking up minute penalties on the second timing point of the reg. Suffering on a regularity again was the 75 Porsche of Harold Goddijn and Corinne Vigreux, who amassed nearly two minutes of penalty, adding to the errors experienced by the Classic leaders over the past few days, they may not be looking back on Türkiye with fond memories!

After the first reg there was a time control in the town of Ayas, that at the request of the town had been moved to the start location of a stage rally that was running this weekend. The cars were greeted by the mayor himself, a nice touch of hospitality on our last full day in Türkiye. Sadly, there wasn’t time to stop and enjoy too much Turkish coffee, not that anyone enjoys it in any case, your coffee be damned! Onward to the second reg! This was a much steeper climb, surrounded by much improved scenery and at the top broke out onto a ridge road with drops either side of the tarmac. It was great fun, and so was the run through the mountains afterwards, on a mixture of tar and gravel. We still couldn’t escape the police, they were positioned regularly along the route, though I expect car seven wished they weren’t. They had the misfortune to pick up a speeding ticket the previous day, but in a bizarre turn of events the rozzers issued the fine to the navigator, clearly confused by the right-hand drive car – or perhaps they just know that the navigator is the one who is really in charge.

Reg number three was a real treat. An even steeper ascent that seemed to continue infinitely, and this time the surface was loose gravel. It was tight and twisty, with huge drops to the side of the road. I daresay if the pressures of time weren’t on the crews, they may have enjoyed it more, but for anyone who was able to relax it was certainly one of the driving highlights of the trip. Everybody lost time on the tricky climb, but car 65 performed the best, picking up two seconds to the first timing point, and cleaning the last section, a fantastic performance from Steve Osborne and Robert Smith in the Escort, but what is most impressive was Steve’s resisting the urge to bang the tail of the car out on every bend!

Once the regularities had been concluded a run across the plateau of the mountains served as entertainment, followed by a drop down to the valley floor. There was of course the standard highway run to eat up the miles as well, but this took place along a three-lane motorway for the first time in a long time.

Rounding out the day was a test at the Korfez Circuit, an hour or so outside of Istanbul. The tests are a real opportunity to put a bit of space into your nearest competitors, and for this year’s visit to Korfez there was the addition of an offroad section to the test, making it into a wonderful rally cross track. Reaching the test with only 15 minutes to spare before they were OTL were overall leaders Tony Rowe and Mark Delling. Their day had been going wrong from the first reg, when they found themselves baulked and then heading in the wrong direction, costing them a 1:24s. The bad luck continued when they ended up sliding off the road into a slurry pit in a village, luckily, they were towed clear by another competitor. If they thought their excursion into the effluence was the shit hitting the fan, things were actually about to get worse when their gearstick snapped. Miraculously, and with the help of the sweeps, they managed to get it welded back up and made the test before they were over time.

After all that they put in a decent performance at the test, but nobody could get near Laurenz Feierabend, who recorded a time of 2:46, in flamboyant fashion it should be added, and he and Gerd were 8 seconds faster than anyone in the Porsche. Fastest of the pre-war cars were the Companc’s, driving angrily in the Chevy, with the car back on song after their rotten luck of a couple of days ago.

With the day’s closing MTC at the test as well, all that remained was for crews to make their way at their own pace down the highway to Istanbul, giving them time to contemplate one of the great questions of life; is it Istanbul or Constantinople? Once that had been given some thought, it was time for some results, and with car 75’s continuing misdemeanours first place overall in the Classics is in the hands of Brian Palmer and David Bell in the Peugeot 504, and they also claim the bragging rights of being at the top of the table as we hit Europe. The first of the Vintage machines, and therefore first overall are Tony Sutton and Andrew Lawson, putting the Chevrolet back on top of the pile for the first time since the very first day of the rally. It could be a timely climb back up the leaderboard for the pair, as we head over the border into Bulgaria tomorrow, and our first proper European country.

Syd