TSD stands for “Time, Speed and Distance,” the primary elements in most car rally events. Forget those images of cars flying over a rise, all four wheels in the air! Those are professional events with cars prepared for the most rugged form of racing in the world. If you can follow instructions and operate a stopwatch, you will get a charge out of running a rally.

A TSD road rally is a test of your ability to follow directions and maintain a given average speed. It’s a team sport in the sense that the driver works with a “navigator,” the person who interprets the instructions and keeps time. In a typical TSD event, each car is given a set of written instructions and sent off at one-minute intervals on public roads. Each team tries to follow the course, as well as maintain a given average speed, which is always legal. Checkpoints are set up at various places on the route where your arrival time is clocked to the second. You receive a score based on how close you come to arriving perfectly "on time.” That is the basic description of any road rally and the purpose of every rally is to have fun, tell stories and “win” bragging rights.

Many people seem to think car rallies are elitist events for owners of fancy sportscars or classic automobiles. They envision events with high participation fees and the most luxurious accommodations and dining available along the route. OK. High dollar rallies do exist, but so do everyday rallies that don't require a large outlay of cash.
 
Almost every make of car has an enthusiast’s car club and a high percentage of these clubs organize road rally events as fun social events. To participate, do a Google search on the car you drive and see if there is a local club. Or you can join a local chapter of the Sports Car Club of America and participate in their rally events, many of which are open to all types of cars, not just sportscars.

When you sign up for an event, you’ll get a registration package that explains the rules and procedures for the checkpoints on the route. You’ll need to bring your car with a full tank of gas, navigator, clipboard, pens/pencils, a watch or stopwatch that reads in seconds and a calculator. Assorted snacks and beverages are always appreciated, too.

When you get to the event, there will be a “team meeting” and the Route Instructions will be handed out. They generally have four columns of data. Here’s a typical SCCA route instruction. It follows a certain “code,” but it is relatively easy to decipher.

Mile Delta Instruction

0.27 91. RIGHT AT T. PAUSE 30 (18 seconds). CAS 30.

0.22 92. LEFT. PAUSE 40 (24 seconds). Then LEFT AT STOP.

93. RIGHT onto River.

46.11 0.17 94. "SPEED LIMIT 25". End Morning section of the Rally.

Key Time 11:19.17 (11:19:10). BTZ of 75.00 minutes.

Follow instructions to break.

47.24 1.13 95. SAP RIGHT to stay on River.

The first Column is the Official Mileage (OM) column. This is the mileage, from the official odometer, at which the instruction should be executed. Thus at OM 47.24, you execute Number Route Instruction (NRI) 95 (SAP RIGHT to stay on River). The second column is the Delta Mileage. This is the difference, in miles, between the last instruction and the current instruction. Thus, there are 0.22 miles between NRI 91 and NRI 92. When two sequential instructions have Official Mileages, you can calculate the Delta mileage yourself. (i.e. the Delta Mileage between NRI 95 and NRI 94 would be 47.24 - 46.11 = 1.13) The third column is the Number of the Route Instruction AKA NRI. Thus "93. RIGHT onto River,” is NRI #93. The fourth column is the instruction or action that you are to execute/perform.

Other rally events will use much simpler instruction sets, but they all give you time, distance and speed targets to hit and all road rallies use “hidden traps” to make sure you don’t put the pedal to the metal after getting lost to make up time and distance. At the conclusion of the rally, there is almost always a picnic or dinner where you can tell your “road” stories about how you screwed up or what happened at a particularly sneaky checkpoint. It’s all great fun and many find it very addictive.