Kitzbuehel, 25.-28.05.2011
This year's Alpenrallye was held in its 24th edition in the last
week in May around Kitzbuehel. 207 classics and their crew
found their way to Austria to enjoy 3 days of driving around the
famous winter sports domicile. The scrutineering was on
Wednesday and Thursday morning on the car park of the
Hahnenkamm, place of the famous ski downhill. Chassis
Numbers and registration were checked in beautiful sunshine but
the forecast already predicted the forthcoming bad weather of the
next days. With a long hot and dry period over Europe that was
also visible at the Mille Miglia a few weeks earlier with the
absence of snow on the Monte Terminillo it was just a question of
time when this would come to an end and the change in the
weather comes usually fast in the mountains.
The cars ranged from an early Rolls Royce Phantom I, a pair of
Lagondas and Bentley, three Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 to youngtimers
like the BMW M1 or the first Lamborghini Countach. The Rolls
Royce was driven all the way from Monaco just to fail in
Kitzbuehel and one could get the impression that he did not want
to become wet. Two Ferrari 250 GT Lussos and a 275 GTB took
the 470 km of the next days under their wheels, an additional
Daytona Spider was present but not seen on the road. VW as
one of the sponsors had a couple of rarities from their Zeithaus
with them including Beetles, Karmann Ghias, a very popular T1
Samba and a rare Puma GTS and a SP2. Being part of the VW
classic program now Porsche entered a 550 Spider and two
Carrera GTs.
In the afternoon the first leg was held on 60 km with the start in
nearby Kirchberg. The crews were sent on their way with a 30
seconds time difference, among them several “celebrities” as
every year with Hansi Hinterseer (TV host and musician) on his
debut, actors Andrea Sawatzki and Herbert Knaup, German
football world champion Paul Breitner or more familiar to the
classic car world Strietzel Stuck in a yellow Porsche 914/6.
Being a regularity event they had to challenge several time trials
and checks along the road and as some of them were on the
open road the waiting classic cars in front of the checkpoint
caused some irritations for the regular road-users. Most of the
cars came home dry that day but the last ones already saw some
rain drops on the way back to Kitzbuehel.
What looked like a shower after a hot day in the evening should
become a continuous rain on Friday. The first cars left Kitzbuehel
at 7 am in the rain with their hood up and they should not have
many opportunities to take it down again in the next 2 days.
Usually convertibles are preferable on such events but this time
many crews could be happy with their hardtop, those who not
even had a soft top had to be sorely afflicted. But even the closed
cars had to fight with steamed up windscreens making the time
trials more difficult due to limited visibility. But not just the
pressure tubes on the road were difficult to see but also the
panorama of the Alps as the mountains lay in the clouds most of
the day. After just a few dry spots on the 275 km the day ended
with heavy rain again.
The Saturday with the final loop of 135 km to the Walchsee
(therefore called the Lake-loop) started under the same conditions
as the day before but weather improved over the day and in the
late morning the sun was out again for the last miles. After a
lunch break the cars were lined up in Kitzbuehel for the final
parade through the city where they were admired by the crowds.
The event ended with the prize giving in several categories with
Dr.Horst Keil and navigator Thomas Linhardt on Mercedes-Benz
300 SL becoming overall winner in their 10th attempt to win this
rally.
Next year will see a jubilee with the 25th edition of this classic
and one can hope that the weather will honour this as well so that
the participants can see along the road what is essential for a
rally in the Alps: the mountains....
Text&images: Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
|
