RTG Carrera Iberia The Daily Dispatch - all days - Flipbook - Page 3
7 to 17 October 2019
Day 1
Santander - Rioja (309km)
8 October 2019
Start as You Mean to Go On
Photos: gerardbrown.co.uk
When the history books are written. For the Rally
the Globe (RtG) organisation team, today will be
seen as the day when it all began. Just over a year
of intense planning and meticulous preparation
had led them to this. The first day of their first
rally and, maybe there were some anxious
thoughts which crossed their minds as they made
their way from bed to breakfast. Like all good
students though they’d done their homework
thoroughly, they’d understood the theory and
they’d completed all the necessary coursework
- not once but twice. Yet, their final exam (the
practical) still loomed large, and today, across the
hills of Northern Spain they’d find out whether
they’d made the grade.
It started well enough. Jim Smith was up first; as keeper of
the RtG “dirigible” it was his solemn duty to ensure his
inflatable arch stood proud and steady so that at the
appointed hour, each car could make its way beneath it, to
be waved away by Fred Gallagher armed with his rojigualda.
Many of the crews had also risen early, despite the
darkness and the chill in the air, for they were as keen as
anyone to see how the day would go. At 8.01am therefore
Gavin and Diana Henderson’s Bentley throbbed its way
onto page one of the route book and straight through
downtown Santander into the campo where we enjoyed
miles of traffic free wooded roads, passed through dozens
of sleepy villages and crossed scores of stone bridges over
as many little rios.
The timing was sensible, so no one was in any real hurry,
but soon enough, the first Regularity at Puerto de Alises
arrived on the trip meter. This section covered almost
12km of a looping tarmac hill climb to a summit at 674m.
The views were beautiful, and there was time to enjoy them
along with a delicious coffee at the first Passage Control
in the cafe at Ambasaguas where Jamie Turner and Jack
Amies had set up shop.
Gavin and Diana Henderson 1922 Bentley 3-4 1/2
Jim Gately and Tony Brooks, 1947 Kurtis Comet
www.rallytheglobe.com
