Some History

Car trials started out as tests of car reliabilty, and driver skill many years ago.
They are called Touring Assemblies in Australia and Road Rallies in America, and they seem to be called (Navigational) Road Rallies in the UK as well.

In N.Z. car trialing is a route-finding exercise - good for people who enjoy problem / puzzle solving. You start out with a list of instructions which should get everyone to a common destination. The trick is to find the deliberate traps set along the way.
Things like "Go riqht" instead of "Go right", or
"Left at CIVE WAY" instead of "Left at GIVE WAY",
or "Proceed ahead at McKay Street" instead of "Proceed ahead at Mackay Street".
Get the picture?

In general, trials are run for a good proportion of the route off main highways. So you get to see a lot of our fine country which you might not normally see. Trials are NOT speed events. Its not the fastest who wins, but the one who keeps best to exactly the speeds the organisers have set for each part of the course. Road rules must obeyed !

John and I have been involved both with the National Shell Gold Star Trials, (which have been a series of one-day events held in both the North and South Island) and with the AA Sundstrum Rally (which is a weekend-long event held once a year and includes a motorkhana).

The Sundstrum Rally

The Sundstrum Rally 2000
The Big One - the 50th event. A change in the way it is run is planned for this year, with competitors driving to Alexandra on Friday night, and then to Queenstown all Saturday. No map-reading, and you have to find your own way home on Sunday without our (ever helpful) assistance! More on this coming.

The Sundstrum Rally 1999
Well, we won again - even though our timekeeper spent much of the time carked out on the back seat - so we get to set it again next year. Not much here at the moment, except for some photos of John doing the field events in his Beastie Car (a bit of a panther) - he won the driver's cup again.

The Sundstrum Rally 1998
We won the Sundstrum three years running, have set the course for a couple of years and are setting the course for the 1998 Sundstrum. This year it goes to Wanaka - very appropriate for the year of the 150th anniversary of the province which was founded on gold, as the course runs through quite a few of the old gold-bearing hills ! (And the golden blossoms on the trees looks pretty spectacular too - you wouldn't think it looked like this a month ago when we started setting the course !!).

This year, for various reasons, the Sundstrum is being run much later than usual - from the afternoon of Friday October 2nd at 4:00pm to approximately 5:00pm on Sunday 4th October.
You leave from Mosgiel on Friday and drive to Wanaka getting in about 11:00pm. Sorry its late, but its a long way to go and we can't get you there any earlier. There will be a map reading section and field tests (a motorkhana) on Saturday morning, then you get the rest of the day off - to reconvene at the Edgewater Resort for dinner, and the results to date, on Saturday evening. This is where you get to talk about how much fun you are having to other competitors. These are the people you saw in a car going the other way last night, and neither of you had any idea where you were, or where you were going. But you weren't lost! We take great care not to lose you - we just try to get you to take a different route to our official one. On Sunday you start off again early in the morning, and drive back to Dunedin. We have a stop for lunch on the way home at quite a historic place. We hope you'll enjoy the scenery.

You can get an idea of where you might end up by looking at the Goldfields Trail webpages here. Given that the Sundstrum goes from Dunedin to Wanaka, some of the roads seen in this picture had to be used. This map will - no, sorry, MIGHT - show you some of the places you would see if you came on the Sundstrum this year.

Unfortunately, lack of entries this year means the Sundstrum may have to be cancelled - a pity because that will mean that the 50th Rally will NOT be in the year 2000 (late March or early April).
If you are at all interested competing in the Sundstrum this year (it is a fun thing to do!) then you could contact Mr G. Sharpe on (03) 4535-247 for further information. Or email me.
You can have a look at the letter to competitors and (print off, fill out and fax off ?) a copy of the entry form .

I'll get some photos of previous Sundstrums scanned and nicely laid out eventually, but in the meantime, you can look in this directory for photos of check point sites, and in this one for photos of field tests.

Unfortunately interest in car trialing seems to have died out in N.Z.
- maybe cars are too reliable these days ?????

Links

If you are interested in more detail about the sport, here are some links you might wish to follow up.

These URL's have some descriptions of the various types of MotorSport events.

Event Descriptions
An Australian Description of Events

Road Rallying in the UK
This site contains many links. You can get an idea of what the rules for car trialing in NZ were based on by reading these. Some of the more interesting (or amusing) are ...

Historic rallying in the UK
UK Road Rally Primer
An Introduction to Road Rallying in Wales
An Introduction to Road Rallying Navigation
A beginners Guide to Navigating
Steve's Road Rally Guide
Alternative Dictionary of Road Rallying
The Definitive Guide to Rally-Speak by Anon
And the very comprehensive How To Go Road Rallying

What do I mean by Motorkhana ? Check this out

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