Tulpenrallye 1966

The story of 1966: Until 1965 the Tulpenrallye was made financially possible by a Council of Support consisting of DAF, Vredestein, Esso, BP, Caltex, Shell and the National Flower Bulb Committee. Over the first 17 years of the rally these companies together invested one million guilders in it. In 1965 it was announced that this financial support would come to an end. Fortunately the organisers Piet Nortier and Sybren Roest managed to interest BP International (as main sponsor) and BP France (paying for all the oil and petrol for the 50 highest-placed amateurs) in taking over the funding of the event. The ever-busier traffic was making international rallies harder and harder to organise. It could only be done by avoiding the busy main roads and running the tests on closed roads. In France the police had to be paid to close the roads for the tests. For the first time the rally was run under the new Annexe J of the F.I.A.: group 1 for series touring cars of which at least 5,000 had to have been built, group 2 for touring cars of which 1,000 had been built and on which further work was allowed, and group 3 for the Grand Touring cars of which 500 had been built. This year, for the first time, the various systems of handicaps and coefficients devised in the past to produce a general classification were abandoned. The rally was now simply run on scratch, with the competitor setting the fastest time winning the final classification, regardless of the class or the car he or she drove. Organised service to competitors along the route was forbidden. Even so, an orange Citroën Break of Racing Team Holland was to be seen going about, and when Erik Carlsson retired with carburation trouble on his Saab he was then picked up beside the route, quite by chance, by a Swedish tourist in a Saab. The De Wild brothers entered a Volkswagen 1600 TL which at that point had not yet been homologated. The F.I.A. did not finally discuss the matter until the day the rally started, so the brothers were unable to take part. Rosemary Smith did not start either; she gave preference to the Shell 4000, run in Canada at the same time. The rally consisted of two full days and two nights of continuous driving. There were eighteen special tests, six of which had never before featured in an international rally, as well as a great many special stages. A number of the tests in the Vosges were the same as in 1965, since exceptionally heavy snow had made it impossible to run them then. For the first time a test was held on the way home on the Vlasakkers military training ground near Amersfoort. The secret test at Soesterberg airfield was new as well. Marking out the two tests took 2,000 straw bales. The route once again led to Genève. After the start in Noordwijk the first test followed at La Reid, 2.5 km long. The second test was the well-known climb from La Roche to Samrée in Belgium, followed by the climbs of Kautenbach and Bourscheid in Luxembourg. In the Vosges the familiar tests of Charbonnière and Ballon d'Alsace were included in the route, while on the way back the tests of Ballon d'Alsace, Col de Bramont, Trois-Epis and Breitenbach were run as well. Before the return run began, however, there was first a southern loop to Genève taking in the tests of La Croisette, Mont Salève and Col de la Faucille. Further north, the homeward run then brought the Bourscheid test, run for a second time, the Route de Mont in Belgium and the two tests at Leusden (the Vlasakkers and Soesterberg military grounds), with the test on the Zandvoort circuit to close proceedings. On the Friday a slalom was laid out in Noordwijk which did not count towards the classification. There the Pole Zasada put his Steyr Puch on its roof. The contenders this year included Erik Carlsson (Saab) and Peter Harper, who started at number 1 in a Sunbeam Tiger. Other well-known entries were Simo Lampinen (Ford Lotus Cortina) and Vic Elford (Ford Lotus Cortina). Rauno Aaltonen and Timo Mäkinen both drove works Cooper S. The two men tossed for it, and Aaltonen thus won the seat in the much faster group 2 version, after which Mäkinen had to make do with the standard group 1 car. Among the Dutch favourites were the two Porsche 911s of the Stichts Racing Team with Gijs and David van Lennep and Joop Heidendahl and Jooks Klein. Dick Schwarz and Gerard van Lennep (Fiat 2300), Rob Gorris and Bob Boekhout (BMW 1800), Dries Jetten and Jan Horbach in an Opel Rekord and Rob Slotemaker and Ferry van der Geest in an Alfa Romeo GTA also belonged to this category. Pat Carlsson Moss and Elisabeth Nystrom had exchanged the Saab for a Plymouth Barracuda this year. Slotemaker was thoroughly looking forward to it, together with his co-driver Ferry van der Geest, whom he had taken in place of the Italian Ignazio Giunti, originally assigned to him by the factory. He made a fast start in Noordwijk and was quickest on the first test, together with the Van Lenneps. The second test was won by 'Sloot' as well. Slotemaker was not exactly known for treating his machinery gently, and on the fifth test he duly had to retire with a broken half-shaft. After the sixth special test Vic Elford led, followed by Peter Harper. The Van Lennep brothers were third at that point. By half distance Rauno Aaltonen had taken the lead with the BMC Cooper and the Van Lenneps had dropped back to fifth place. Gijs and David van Lennep slipped further back in the second half with tyre and clutch trouble. At Morez the Saab works mechanics replaced the clutch on one of the cars. That also meant taking the engine out and putting it back in, and they completed the whole job in 31 minutes. Afterwards they fetched a gas burner from the car and roasted a chicken. Unlike in previous years, there were no protests at the finish this time, proof that the rally had run smoothly and that the atmosphere could hardly have been better. Rauno Aaltonen and Henry Liddon won the final classification. Dries Jetten and Jan Horbach (3rd) and the Van Lennep brothers (6th) were the best-placed Dutchmen. Pat Carlsson-Moss and Elisabeth Nystrom won the Coupe des Dames. The prize-giving was on the Saturday again this year (30 April), to give the results office more time to calculate the results.