Tulpenrallye 1974

The story of 1974: When the Polish authorities refused, in the spring, to approve a repeat of the previous year's rally between 22 and 27 April, the Tulpenrallye looked to be finished. The petrol shortage had led to a ban on all motor sport in Poland. Bob de Jong and André Jetten thereupon founded the Nederlandse Rally Stichting, with the aim of organising a Tulpenrallye on Dutch soil together with the Tulpenrallye committee. The plan was for around thirty special tests on completely closed roads, with connecting sections between them to be covered at a very low average speed. A committee was formed which, alongside De Jong and Jetten, included Maarten van Wamelen (sponsorship), Willem Reij, Jan Hulsker and, as chairman, Ton Zwikstra. Sponsorship of 75,000 guilders was raised — Transavia, Uniroyal and SRV were the principal sponsors — and Autovisie underwrote the fine payable to the F.I.A. should the event prove unable to go ahead after all. Work went on day and night, and the rally did indeed start on 26 April. During the event 1,300 officials and marshals were on duty. The organisers wanted the rally to be a model event in every respect, and to show that a rally of international stature could most certainly be run on Dutch soil. Among the entries was the Opel ace Walter Röhrl, runner-up in the previous year's European Championship. The Swedish ace Lars Carlsson also drove an Opel. Other foreign competitors were Ingvar Carlsson, the Portuguese driver Borges, the Hungarian champion Ferjancz Zsembery, the Pole Robert Mucha and the Belgian favourite Gustavson. Kees van Grieken, in a Ford Capri from Hertz Autoverhuur, Man Bergsteijn, the leader in the Dutch championship standings, and Rob Slotemaker were the leading Dutch representatives. On the Friday afternoon the competitors started in Amersfoort for the southern loop of roughly 600 km. On the Saturday morning they returned to Amersfoort for a six-hour rest halt, before setting off in the afternoon on the northern loop of 650 km, which finished on the Sunday morning. To prevent damage to the roads used for the tests, competitors were not allowed to reconnoitre freely beforehand; instead there was a guided reconnaissance on the two days before the rally. The rally had eleven time controls and more than thirty special tests. One of them, the Transavia test, was run at Schiphol-Oost. The route ran around a Transavia aircraft, in which the press photographers could take up position. Other tests were run in the Goffert stadium in Nijmegen, at the Beekse Bergen in Tilburg and on the Vlasakkers near Amersfoort. A number of tests were to be held on motocross circuits. For various reasons, eleven of the planned tests could not go ahead during the rally. Noordwijk was anxious not to lose its ties with the Tulpenrallye, and when the competitors called at the seaside resort every car was hung with garlands of flowers. Röhrl was said to have been caught early in the morning at Waardenburg doing 96 km/h in a place where the limit was 70. The police officer at the check maintained that it was number 1 — Röhrl's number — but at that moment the photograph had not yet been developed. Röhrl denied it and wished to carry on at his own responsibility, which the organisers allowed him to do. The photograph later showed that it had in fact been number 7. The Pole Gierowski was duly disqualified. Only half an hour was left of the planned rest halt in Amersfoort, because the tests in Brabant during the previous night had run late, so the crews began the second loop less than fully rested. At the rest halt Röhrl already led by four minutes, followed by Carlsson, who was only 18 seconds ahead of Borges. On the second loop a number of tests were cancelled when competitors became stuck, and the test planned for the beach at Noordwijk was lost for the same reason. The final test on the Vlasakkers could not be held because too large a crowd had turned out for it (at least 15,000 spectators; some media spoke of 150,000). Walter Röhrl and Jochen Berger won the rally by more than four minutes.