Tulpenrallye 1978

The story of 1978: The 1977 format was broadly repeated, with part of the rally once again run in Belgium and Arlon serving as the rest halt and turning point. The organisation ran into a great many problems this year, and for a long time there were rumours that the rally would not go ahead. The financial guarantee was one of the biggest problems, but that was eventually solved by Gulf. The regulations were not published until a month before the rally, which was the main reason why hardly any foreign works crews appeared at the start. The rally was secret once again, yet many crews went out beforehand to reconnoitre the area in which it was to be run. Russell Brookes's trick of 1977 was banned in the regulations this year. He had arranged a reconnaissance car that drove the special tests an hour ahead of the rally caravan and made pace notes of them. These were then handed to Russell Brookes and Peter Bryant in a sealed envelope by the chief of special tests. Because the rally was secret it was given only a low coefficient for the European Championship, as the F.I.A. preferred rallies that could be reconnoitred three weeks in advance. The leading crews naturally still went out to reconnoitre at length, and the route of many special tests leaked out before the rally had even begun. This caused a good deal of tension between the organisers and a number of drivers. To discourage reconnaissance in the Tulpenrallye further, the regulations this year stated that no pace notes or detailed maps were to be carried in the cars while the special tests were being driven. Inventive navigators found a way round this as well: notes were thrown out of the window before the finish, learnt by heart before the test, or hidden in the crew's underwear before the finish. Afterwards the organisers announced that this had probably been the last secret Tulpenrallye. The best-known competitors were Brookes and Bryant with a Ford Escort RS 1800, also active in the previous Tulpenrallyes, Gilbert Staepelaere from Belgium and Bror Danielsson from Sweden, together with the entire top rank of Dutch rallying in Jan van der Marel, André Jetten, Henk van der Lee and John Bestebreurtje. There were two ladies' crews at the start this year: Randi Tangeland and Ellen Syberg from Scandinavia and the Dutch crew of Titia Westerhof and Anja Beltzer. The permit for the first special test, at Zestienhoven airfield, was withdrawn the day before the start. The battle therefore began, after the start at the Doelen in Rotterdam, on the Vlasakkers at Amersfoort. Two further tests followed on the military grounds around Amersfoort, the test on the tank track at Stroe being in particularly poor condition, as a result of which many competitors became stuck. Next came the gravel test on the Dikkenberg near Rhenen, of just over 10 km. The tests in the Netherlands were run in sunny conditions and therefore in a great deal of dust. In Belgium it began to rain and the first test there could not go ahead, because the necessary permits were not in place. On the test at Marche it was possible to cut off part of the route, something known only to a limited number of crews. After the rest halt at Arlon the competitors turned back towards the Netherlands. By then it was raining again and a good deal went wrong in the organisation. On the test at Celle several crews went off the road at a dangerous bend. Towing these cars away caused delays, after which a number of officials left the test. That made it possible for an ordinary road user to drive down the test in the opposite direction and collide with a competitor. This in turn led to the test being struck from the results. When another test was then cancelled as well, the rally no longer had enough competitive kilometres to count towards the F.I.A. championship. The rally had 32 special tests in all. One of the last of them, special test 30 near Goirle, was not properly marked out, and as a result a number of crews went off the road. Russell Brookes and Peter Bryant set the tone immediately on the first test with fastest time, and were fastest on most of those that followed. Staepelaere and Bessem did claw a little back on the Belgian tests, but by the rest halt at Arlon Brookes was already eighty seconds ahead. Martens and Van Waardenburg had retired by then. Some months earlier somebody else had eaten and slept at a hotel under the name Martens without paying, and he therefore had to go along to the police station at Huy. Brookes headed fairly directly for victory, even though he did briefly go off the road at a slippery bend on one of the last tests in Belgium. Staepelaere and Bessem clocked in 15 minutes early on one occasion. At first the organisers did not penalise this. Danielsson and De Jong protested against it, after which the Staepelaere team lodged a counter-protest against them. That second protest was not upheld, so the two crews swapped places in the results. Danielsson finished second and the Belgian Staepelaere had to settle for third place. Brookes and Bryant went on to win the 27th Tulpenrallye by almost two minutes. Titia Westerhof and Anja Beltzer won the national class and were also the best-placed ladies. The prize-giving at Motel Gilze Rijen was not a particularly festive affair, given the many tensions between organisers and competitors.