It’s that time of year again – rally season! We’ve got supercar rallies like Gumball 3000 and the GoldRush Rally being held this month, but we also have another big name to add to the calendar – Bullrun. The rally will be held during the week of June 22nd – 29th.
This year, the rally will be travelling in a west-coast loop, starting and ending in Los Angeles. The beauty of the route is that nobody knows where the rally is heading each day.
Most of the big players in the rally world try to make their event stand out from the rest. One notable element unique to Bulltun is their decision not to announce the daily checkpoints ahead of time. The rally drivers don’t even know where they are heading until they receive a route card at the beginning of each driving leg. The route cards often leads them to another destination where they must pick up another card and attempt to locate the next checkpoint in the quickest time.
The rally organizers schedule track events, live shows and lunch stops along the route – but the driers never know where you’re heading next. Sometimes its one of America’s hidden gems that nobody has ever heard of, and other times it’s a well-known city such as Las Vegas. Though the rumour mill is always churning, nobody knows for sure where the rally is heading the next day until they hit the road the next morning.
At the start of each driving leg, the drivers are given a timing card, which they use to clock in at their lunch stop and final checkpoint of the day. These times are used to determine who was able to navigate to each checkpoint the quickest. At the end of the rally, the team that had the best time overall is awarded with the Bullrun Navigator award.
The rally organizers stress that it’s not a race, and always remind participants not to drive recklessly. But this doesn’t mean that Bullrun is not competitive. Drivers are always seeking out the quickest route to the next checkpoint and trying to beat their rivals. Every year the competition gets more intense, and it’s already looking like there will be a battle for the Navigator Award again this year.
Defending champs, Seth Rose and Tony King, will be returning this year in their 2009 Nissan GT-R full of police-countermeasures equipment and some very top secret upgrades. The car is heading to the shop to get some more electronics and stealthy gear. Seth and Tony are dead set on taking home the trophy again this year. But there’s plenty of other teams that will argue otherwise.
Nobody has ever claimed the Navigator Award two years in a row – could this year be the first? Of course, Bullrun regulars; Claus Ettensberger of Team CEC and Team LuckynutZ will try their best to prevent that from happening. The rally will being in Los Angeles on the morning of Saturday, June 23rd and will end in Los Angeles one week later.
The start line location has yet to be announced by Bullrun, but info should be made available in the next two weeks.
Stay tuned for daily Bullrun coverage as the rally makes its way around the Western United States. The rally begins June 23rd, with rally registration being held on the 22nd.
