Tulpenrallye 1954

The story of 1954: The required average was raised again this year: 50 kilometres an hour applied on most of the special stages and on the sections between them. The system of bonus seconds was used once more, under which extra points went not to the winner of a class but according to how many seconds separated a crew from the one next behind. It did, unfortunately, encourage crews to come to arrangements among themselves. Twelve hundred French gendarmes were posted along the route to keep everything running smoothly. Two hundred and eleven crews came to the start. The previous year's winner, Count Hugo van Zuylen van Nijevelt, was not among them, being in Singapore at the time. The foreign entry was just in the majority at 108, with England (52), Germany (18), France (10), Denmark and Belgium (5) among the countries represented. The approach routes again started from the seven established towns across Europe, each about 500 kilometres long. Everyone then gathered at the Nürburgring, from where the 2,885-kilometre common route began, with fourteen special stages in it. The Ring itself was the first of them: the circuit had to be covered in the opposite direction to usual within a set time of sixteen minutes. Only twelve crews took penalties there. The route went on through the Eifel and the Hunsrück — where the crews met fog before Trier — and the Vosges to Belfort, taking in four more special stages and three special tests, two of them on the Ballon d'Alsace. The third test was an acceleration-and-braking exercise on the Ballon: just 300 metres from a standing start, ending with the car stopped astride the line, two wheels past it and two before. One stage had to be cancelled because of snow and the state of the roads after a hard winter. Then came 365 kilometres with two special stages by way of Saint-Claude to Champagnole, and on to Chambéry, another 280. Four special stages and a test — the seven-kilometre climb to the Auberge du Pin — were built into the 800 kilometres through Valence and Bourg-en-Bresse back to Belfort. The fifth test was the Ballon d'Alsace once more, closed entirely to other traffic; the western automobile club also laid some three kilometres of telephone line along it so the marshals could talk to one another. By way of a 21-kilometre stage from Kautenbach to Soultzbach the crews then covered the 415 kilometres to Luxembourg. The last 470 ran from Liège through Eindhoven to Noordwijk. In all the route held fourteen special stages totalling 404 kilometres, five special tests and the now familiar closing test at Zandvoort. The sixth running was without question the hardest so far, chiefly because the special stages came so thick and fast and because of that average of 50 kilometres an hour and more. Jan Flinterman went out on the third stage when he swerved to avoid two spectators and hit a tree. After that stage it was clear the fight would be between the Belgians Pierre Stasse and Olivier Gendebien in an Alfa Romeo and the German crew of Werner Engel and Gilbert Ambrecht in a Porsche. Tak and Niemöller, also in an Alfa Romeo, failed to reach the finish after hitting a boulder that had somehow found its way onto the road. Rob Slotemaker retired in the Ardennes after going off into a ravine. Of the 128 crews who reached the finish in a storm, 44 — 21.5 per cent — were still on nil penalties. Having finished at Noordwijk on the Wednesday, the crews ran the closing test at Zandvoort on the Friday, the Queen's Birthday. All ten classes had their own race over ten laps, run as Tulpenrallye tradition had it in the opposite direction to usual. Stasse and Gendebien won, while Sheila van Damm took the Coupe des Dames with Miss Hall and Miss Clarke, largely on the strength of what she did at Zandvoort; they also came tenth overall. Gendebien missed the prize-giving altogether — he was already on his way to Brescia to start the Mille Miglia. A new award this year was the Nations Trophy, for teams of five crews from the same country. Germany won it, and took the club team prize as well.