The autoX rally Gypsy puts on its racing boots once again. But, this time, it’s out-gunned by the competition. Perhaps it’s time for more power…
The last proper rally I did was the Raid-de-Himalaya in 2008. And that ended in tears. Well, in as much as we wound up stranded on the side of the road at the start of the second day – mercifully, not upside down off the mountainside I suppose! The year before, the 2007 Raid, we got snowed out. But it was probably for the best – as, prior to that, we had already broken an engine mount, and the radiator consequently. 2006, on the other hand – my first Raid – was pretty memorable.
The Raid-de-Himalaya is probably one of the toughest motorsport events on the planet – and certainly the highest, with rallying virtually all the way up to 18,000 feet. When the autoX Gypsy was still relatively new, we finished second in class (T2), and fifth overall in the Xtreme category – the final results say third and sixth, but that’s another story altogether.
The end to the 2008 Raid left a bad taste in my mouth though, and rallying took a back seat – the rationale being that its takes too much time and money, which seemed convincing enough. That is, until I visited Rally Sweden earlier this year. Getting a behind-the-scenes look at the uber-professional VW World Rally team lit the flame once again.
The rally bug is a tough one to get over. Once it bites, it just gets under your skin and stays there. I got back from Sweden in mid-February and began getting the autoX rally Gypsy back in shape once again. The engine had been rebuilt last year anyway, and was fitted with slightly larger pistons and a mild high-lift cam. The body was repainted, and the cabin fitted with a new set of FIA certified Spacro seats and a five-point TRS harness that’s valid till 2018 – in order to comply with the new FMSCI regulations. Race Dynamics provided a brand new piggyback ECU, which adjusts parameters such as air-fuel mixture, ignition timing, rev limit, etc., to generate more power. Not only are RD ECU’s used in virtually all homegrown racing machines, but Race Dynamics also provides road car applications as well. The ECU was tuned by Phillipos Matthai at Speed Sport, who figured that we were probably producing only about 95bhp, versus 140 generated by the tuned twin-cam Gypsy’s at the top of the pack – mixed in with the 1,600cc Gypsy’s fitted with the engine block from a Maruti Baleno. Amanpreet Aluwhalia, meanwhile, was taking no chances, as he had the twin-cam head of the Suzuki G13B engine, which was fitted to the Swift GTi in the mid-90’s, mounted onto the 1,600cc Baleno block – presumably giving him both low-end torque and top-end power.
Coming back to the autoX Gypsy though, Phil suggested that the aftermarket cam fitted last year was of poor quality, and wasn’t allowing the valves to close properly – thereby causing a loss of compression and power. He suggested installing a stock head instead, but there just wasn’t time. Putting whatever power we had down to the road were super sticky rally tyres provided by the good folks at Yokohama. They’ve done a lot to promote rallying in the country over the past few years. They’re world renowned for their competition and high performance rubber, so it was no surprise that their purpose-built rally tyres provided massive amounts of grip – especially on turn-in, allowing us to be a lot more aggressive than before. In addition to grip, they’re also quite durable, even on this exceedingly rough terrain – allowing us to throw the autoX Gypsy from one bend to another and cut corners with confidence.
SJOBA, the rally in question, is organized by the St. John’s Old Boys Association – hence the name – and has been run over the past two decades in the sub Himalayan ranges from Chandigarh to Kufri, and back. To say that the terrain is rough would be quite an understatement (see our on-board video, ‘The Bobbleheads’ at www.youtube.com/autoxtv). As it turns out, the Gypsy is still the only vehicle that can withstand this level of abuse – perhaps because its so basic that it can largely be mended with just a hammer should anything go wrong.
Ravindra and Gaurav Prabhakar turned up in a beautifully modified, and fully rally ready, Subaru Forester – which was sold in India as a Chevrolet several years ago. And the car, which they’ve been working on for a couple of years now, was an absolute rocket ship. But, perhaps it was too fast for the conditions, or maybe they faced mechanical problems, because on stage two of the rally their car left the road and landed upside down in the trees. To say that it was badly damaged would be another understatement. Thankfully, they weren’t too badly hurt, and I hope they’re already readying another one of these mean machines. There was another entrant in an XL-7 Vitara, which looked downright sinister in all-black, with massively flared wheel arches and seriously long-travel suspension – but they didn’t get far either. So, it was the Gypsy’s fighting it out for supremacy once again – with Aman taking the win, followed by Abhishek Mishra in another twin-cam Gypsy that soared through the field.
In our case – well, lets just say that we didn’t exactly start on the right foot. This being our first attempt at SJOBA, the organizers decided to give us last place – Car # 24 – in the starting order. They then decided to water the super-special stage – held in Chandigarh the day before the actual start of the rally – three-times over, which was three times more than necessary! Following this, they reversed the start order, which meant that we would be the first ones to have a go. So much for a triumphant return to rallying.
I did everything I could to keep the car pointing in the right direction, which was virtually impossible once the tyres were caked with mud after the first few meters. The only saving grace was that everyone after us either spun or stalled more than once during their two laps around this skating rink masquerading as a super special stage. Naturally, though, the bottom half of the field dried the track completely – creating ideal conditions for the top half.
Nevertheless, we set that aside, and began making our way past a couple of cars once the rally started in earnest – not easy to do on the tight and twisting mountain stages with virtually no room to pass whatsoever, and certainly no room for error. A few stages in, and a few niggling problems aside, both Sidhartha (my navigator and partner in crime) and me were beginning to really get into the groove – rhythm and confidence are everything if you want to go fast when rallying in the mountains, and neither are easy to attain on foreign terrain after a break of a few years. But, we were getting there. Apart from one stage, during which it felt like we had serious engine trouble, we had a reasonable day under the circumstances – ending up in 12th place.
But, it was the downhill stages on day two that we were really looking forward to. Since our power deficit would be marginalized, we could make up some more places. But, it wasn’t to be!
We awoke on Sunday morning to a terrible storm that showed no sign of waning. Initially, stages 1 and 2 were cancelled. Then, as we made our way to stage 3, the rain came down even harder. As a result, we ran all but one stage on day 2. It was the final 15 kilometer stage on broken tarmac. Naturally, we decided to throw caution to the wind and give it everything in a last ditch attempt at some salvation in our first SJOBA rally.
Well, it appears that everyone else had the same idea as well. Add to that a slipping clutch during the second half of the stage, and it meant that we finished as we started the day – in 12th. So, it’s safe to say that we didn’t exactly set the leaderboard on fire, but we enjoyed trying all the same. And it was very much a team effort as well, since both Ishan and Jared drove the two service cars.
Yes the end was anticlimactic, and the organization of the event could have been much better, but some of the stages were still epic – with fast flowing corners framed by an unforgiving mountain on one side, and an even more unforgiving drop on the other.
During the post-event parc ferme, Navaz Bhathena, one of India’s most successful lady drivers, pointed out that we’ve been rallying Gypsy’s for over two decades now – and it’s probably time to finally retire these ageing stalwarts of Indian rallying. And she’s right, but the truth is that the Gypsy can withstand the beating handed out by the unforgiving terrain of the Himalayas better than any other machine. Plus, they’re cheap to run, and are now actually quite fast courtesy of the tuned twin-cam engines. Handling on dirt is surprisingly good as well, thanks to the Yokohama tyres, which reduce the ride height just enough to improve the balance slightly, while also providing pretty impressive grip on any surface.
The question now is – is it time for another spell of retirement, or more power and action? Well, when in doubt, more power is always the right answer. Isn’t it?
We’d like to thank Yokohama India, Race Dynamics, Methods Automotive, and Speed Sport for helping us ready the autoX Gypsy for SJOBA.
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