Article and photos by Michael Schlee
The night before the Rally Dixie 2012 was to officially get underway, 70-plus vehicles littered the hotel parking lot where the pre-rally driver’s meeting was about to take place. As is customary for most participants, an obligatory wander around the hotel is required to check out who brought what vehicle to this year’s rally. As I rounded the final corner of the building, I found a group of five vehicles that best demonstrated the diversity Rally North America (RNA) strives for with their events. A smart fortwo, a Subaru WRX, a Dodge Viper, a BMW 328i and a 700-hp Ford F-150 Lightning were all sharing the same asphalt and would soon be rallying together for a great cause. From now on when someone asks me who can participate in a Rally North America event, I’m just going to show them a picture of these cars.
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From June 19th through the 21st, the CJ Pony Parts 2012 Rally Dixie took place, starting in Nobelsville, IN, making dozens of stops along the way to the final destination of Fort Walton Beach, FL. The event was put together by the non-profit organization Rally North America Charities. As with their past events, Rally Dixie 2012 was to benefit a great cause; this year, the beneficiary was the Accelerated Cure Project, which aims to find a cure for Multiple Sclerosis.
With over 70 vehicles and 140-plus people, the Rally Dixie was a large operation that was greeted with open arms in every city we stopped in along the way. After all, raising $51,000 for charity and promoting the notion that this car rally is not about reckless speeding or endangering the general public can go a long way to endearing yourself to the all those you meet along the way.
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See, these events are more like car scavenger hunts than reckless recreation of the Cannonball Run movie variety. Everyday, each team is given a route card of ‘checkpoints’ to find along the way to a final destination hundreds of kilometres away. There could be upwards of 13 checkpoints in a day and the locations are usually presented to the teams as merely a photograph or a location name. It is then up to the teams to find their way from checkpoint to checkpoint and arrive at the final destination as soon as possible. If you go too fast during the day (there is a minimum time), get any kind of traffic ticket or get photographed by another team driving recklessly, you are disqualified.
The beauty of an event like this is that there is usually a three-way split of what the teams want to do on the rally. The first group of vehicles goes for the win and will try to find all the checkpoints as soon as possible; food and restrooms breaks are seldom, if taken at all. The second group will check what stops are planned for the day, pick and choose a few, take their time at these stops, and then drive to the final destination for the evening. These two groups usually arrive on time at the final destination and are well into the evening’s festivities before group three shows up.
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And that brings up to the third group; the group I always fall into. This group is determined to see every checkpoint along the route, including a few of their own they discover along the way. See a giant pink elephant at the side of the road? Pull over, photo op time! People in this group tend to arrive at the final destination hours behind the rest of the rally. Case in point, the only other all-Canadian teams on this rally showed up well into the night at the end of days 1 and 2. As RNA organizer Tony Intrieri always states during the pre-rally drivers meeting, “This is YOUR rally, you will get out of this rally what you make of it”
So how was the rally, and what exactly did we see? Well, read on to find out.
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Day 1
We start off in Noblesville, IN. First stop is a figure eight racetrack where we are given free rein to drive around in our cars.
We arrive at the track to find it is locked. The world’s earliest tailgate party ensues across the street at 9AM as we wait for the track to open.
Track opens and my MX-5 is set out on the track second. It is surprisingly easy to slide sideways around the exits of the corners.
Figure eight track festivities quickly descend into a drift-fest. The Lotus Elise starts slaloming around the corner markers and the Highlander Hybrid does a lap in reverse to see if it can be done solely on battery power.
From there it was off to Columbus, IN for a few quick checkpoints before heading to Brown County for a covered bridge tour. One of these bridges was at the bottom of a steep, narrow gravel hill that the Ford SVT-Raptor laughed off as the rest of us nervously slid down the twisting road. The driver of the 600-plus hp Shelby Mustang was thankful the way back to the main road was paved.
The last two checkpoints for the day were in Louisville, KY. First up was some great food from Dizzy Whizz, followed by a visit to some horse racing track called ‘Churchill Downs,’ where some sort of ‘derby’ is held each year.
We finally arrived in Bowling Green, KY at the end of day one to find out car number 203, a BMW 335i, had taken first place that day. Three Canadian teams who had spent most of the day sightseeing and signing autographs finally rolled in around 9:30 pm.
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Day 2
We started off day two at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY. Anyone who is a Corvette fan, or even just a car enthusiast, needs to check this place out — so many amazing Corvettes from 1953 right up until 2012. There are also some concept cars, one-off show cars and tuner modified vehicles on display.
Next it was off to Clarksville Raceway, a 1/8-mile drag strip. Here, grudge matches were run as vehicles flew down a reportedly ‘slick track’. I did not notice this as I was in a 167-hp MX-5 and had plenty of traction. I was able to achieve a 9.96 1/8 mile time on my second of two runs. The winner of the day here was the heavily modified Ford SVT F-150 Lightning, which ran a 7.43 at 93.07 mph.
The second checkpoint of the rally was the Statue of Athena Parthenon Nashville TN. Basically, it is a recreation of the Statue of Athena in Greece. Team Stimpygato and their Cadillac Escalade EXT were a big hit with a children’s group at this stop.
Checkpoint 3 for the day was one of my favorites: a visit to the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, TN. Unfortunately, I was driving so no sampling was allowed… until the end of day three, that is.
The final five checkpoints of the rally all took place at Little River Canyon in Fort Payne, AL. Think of this as a miniature version of the Blue Ridge Parkway mixed with a little Grand Canyon. The roads here were some of the best we drove all week.
We ended our day at the Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, AL. Team number 275 and their 2011 Subaru STI sedan took top honours this day.
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Day 3
We began day three in downtown Gadsden, AL with a rollout through town.
First stop for the day was the Noccalula Falls, which was more like Noccalula Trickle as a current drought in this region of Kentucky had momentarily dried up the falls.
Next up was the highlight of the rally for many; 4 paced laps around Talladega Superspeedway. Due to insurance and safety concerns, we were limited to 120-135 km/h around the track. However, there were bursts where we could achieve 160-plus km/h. At these speeds the MX-5 was screaming in 6th gear. It was discovered by most that around 145 km/h, cars require no steering input on the banked corners. Anything slower than that requires a slight counter intuitive steering input to the right… while turning left.
As we leave Talladega, I can’t help but smile as I remember the image of a Toyota Highlander Hybrid and Ford SVT Raptor ripping around the banked corners of Talladega at 160 KM/H.
The rest of the day three stops occurred in Montgomery, AL. Upon arrival, we were greeted by a television crew who conducted a quick live interview with Team Canada and Team Diehard (the number 69 Ford Shelby GT500 Mustang)
We then visited the ‘Old Town Alabama’ which is a throwback 1800’s era town complete with period-correct dressed actors. The man who greeted us at the gate was equipped with a guitar but turned down our requests to play Freebird or the theme to Deliverance.
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Two more stops in Montgomery included the first White House of Confederacy and the Alabama State Capital.
We were then off to the beautiful beach town of Fort Walton Beach, FL. After surviving some horrendous traffic, it was ocean-swimming time.
Team 78 and their Volkswagen Golf TDI took top honours this day.
As fun as the rally itself is, a lot of teams have been making the drive home their own personal rally as well. This year, some teams headed to Chattanooga, TN for a visit to the famous Choo-Choo as well as to see some Double A baseball. Others took a detour to the Dukes of Hazzard Museum in Nashville, TN and a different group of teams headed to Memphis. You see, once you participate in one of these rallies and get hooked on the experience, it is hard to leave and you find yourself looking for new checkpoints on your way home. That explains how I ended up at Bristol Motor Speedway and the Blue Ridge Parkway during my drive home.
