OldStories

FRENCH - ITALIAN CHALLENGE June 9^th and 10^th, 2001 The rally was organized by the Club Autos Italianos, the Club Renault Gordini Sport, the Groupe Auto Francaise and the Rally Automovil Club; all of them working together to give us a very funny week-end. This event took us to the Hidalgo State, which is located in the north-east of Mexico City; the Capital of the State is Pachuca, known as the "Windy Beauty", and the second City is Tulancingo. Both places are really nice typical Mexican towns The starting point for this event has been the parking area of Comercial Mexicana Lindavista supermarket, in the north of Mexico City, where the competitors started arriving on Saturday at 7:30 hrs. The first car started the competition at 9:01 hrs. and we were more than 25 participants.
			As a special rule for this Rally, the organizers allowed to have up to 4 co-drivers, some of the competitors invited friends and some others had the family into the car... our friend Luis Medina deserves a special mention since he had as co-drivers his wife Claudia and their two kids, Roberto 5 years old and Armando, only seven months old. They drove their nice black R5 Mirage TX. Claudia took this picture in which you can see Armando asking his father to push the gas pedal and drive faster, teaching him with his foot how to do it.
We ran the rally in the Ceci's 1090, since she could not accompany me I invited my friend Javier Gonzalez as co-driver. It was the first time Javier participated at a rally so he received a fast training the day before; he is a really good student as you will notice later. The first stage was a 99 km transit which took us from Mexico City to the Tulancingo "Bosques del Angel" Race Track, where we had the first special stage, a speed test in the whole circuit.
Our Dauphine with its 845 cc. has been faster than some 1200 and 1500 cc. Fiats; the general winner for this stage was a powerful Cobra. Once living the track we drove in a transit stage to Tulancingo down town, participating there in a parade with local classic cars and a very antique firemen truck. People from the town crowded the streets to enjoy the parade and received some gifts from the sponsors. After a delicious lunch offered by the Tulancingo Chamber of Commerce we drove out of the town in order to start a 28 km "time and distance" stage which first kilometer should be drove at 66 km/h. It took a little long for our engine to reach the 66 km/h so we passed the first controls having some delay, but in the middle of the second kilometer we reached the ideal time and speed point trying to keep it during the whole stage.
			We had to change our speed 27 times, increasing or decreasing it to run over every kilometer in the exact quantity of seconds set in the "route book". Javier was a little nervous but did a great job giving me the information, I was checking the speedometer all the time and sending the instructions from Javier directly to the gas pedal; we really enjoyed those 23 minutes with 44 seconds.
Once we finished the "time and distance" stage the "route book" sent us to a beautiful place called "Father Tembleque's Arcs", where we met all the competitors for the official picture of the Rally.
From there all the competitors drove to Pachuca City and had an exhibition in the "Clock Square" parking all the vehicles over the "plaza" around the nice colonial clock tower and having a big party organized by the local authorities. People from Pachuca is very interested in classic cars, and specially in old Renaults since the Renault factory was established in that area from the 60's to mid 80's when closed definitively.
All the competitors left the "Tower Square" at 8:30 p.m. and drove to the hotel for a deserved sleeping. On Sunday we had a full day party in the "Pachuquilla Race Track", where we had slow touring, fast touring, ladies touring (also called "sleeping" touring by some of the husbands...) and a really funny slalom. Our Dauphine was competing in the "Classics 4 cylinders" category.
			After the slalom we had a lunch with tacos and pastes (tipical pastries from Hidalgo State) and finally took place the awarding ceremony in a very cloudy and almost rainy atmosphere. Javier and me won the first place in the "Time and Distance" stage, and made better times in the speed test and the slalom than some of the 1200 cc. and 1500 cc. competitors.
Push the images to enlarge them and see more pictures of this event.