Tulpenrallye 1956

The story of 1956: Alongside the competition class, a touring class was introduced this year. It followed exactly the same route including the tests, but without having to be driven against the clock. Sadly it drew only seventeen extra entries. The French authorities again required regularity controls in the route: an average above 75 kilometres an hour — the rally's own figure was set at 55 — brought 30 penalty points, and above 85 meant exclusion. Scrutineering was strict this year and four crews were disqualified. Hans Tak, the previous year's winner, set off as number 1 in his Mercedes 300 SL, with the Swede Andersen and the Dane Bussler in similar cars. Kurt Zeller started in one of the two new Porsche Carreras — four had been entered. Approach routes of some 850 kilometres each, to be covered at between 50 and 55 kilometres an hour, brought the crews to Champagnole in the French Jura where the common route began. Nine special tests were built into it. Monaco was the turning point of the rally. At ten on the Sunday evening of 6 May the common route started, partly through Switzerland. The 80 kilometres to Gex were exceptionally twisting. At Gex the first test began, the climb of the Col de la Faucille; the second was the familiar climb to the Auberge du Pin. The next two were new to the rally: the Grimone pass and the climb of the Col des Lèques. At Monaco, with the Grand Prix in preparation, no parc fermé could be arranged, so the technical commissioner Cees Rijshouwer flew south with several pots of paint. Before the rest halt of about seventeen hours these were applied to bonnets and other vital parts as seals, so that nobody could work on a car while the rally stood still. The way back began by retracing the previous day's route. The fifth test was the Col des Lèques again, followed by the Col Bayard over 4.9 kilometres. The seventh, at 17 kilometres, was the longest of the rally: the climb to Chamrousse. Piet Nortier had wanted to use that mountain for years, and could only do so now that the road ran over the top, sparing the crews a turn at the summit. The Ballon d'Alsace was in the route once more as the eighth test. There was no Thousand Bends stage in Luxembourg and the Ardennes this year, so from Luxembourg the crews made for the Nürburgring by way of Echternach. The test there covered only five kilometres, after which they ran through the rest halt at Eindhoven to the finish at Noordwijk. The revised handicap system had a marked effect on the result. After the first test Brookes senior and junior led in their Austin A30, and after the second they were shadowed by four Standard 8s. Tak was fastest on very nearly every test yet never featured at the top of the standings, finishing 24th. At the finish only seventeen crews had taken any penalties at all. Fine weather had much to do with it, but a good many competitors again thought the event a little easy, and criticism of the handicap system rumbled on long after this eighth edition. Jetten and Van Noordwijk finished on nil penalties for the sixth time. The closing test at Zandvoort was held on the Thursday, Ascension Day, with Friday a rest day and the prize-giving and closing party on the Saturday. The races ran to ten laps, and unlike the year before all the cars in a class started together. The handicap for this test was 25 per cent rather than 50, which again told heavily on the result. Father and son Brookes won the rally in their little Austin A30, while Ruth Lautmann and Renate Utermöhl took the ladies' prize. For the first time, hand-forged silver tulips were presented as class prizes. The Netherlands won the Nations Trophy with Tak, Koks and Kreisel, while the Royal Dutch Automobile Club took the club team prize with Coenen, Heidendahl and Van der Wansem, and Standard the manufacturers' team prize. At the prize-giving Piet Nortier was handed a large box in the shape of a tulip, from the Dutch competitors, containing a pipe and other smoking requisites.