Where man and machine reach their limits
Rally participants, especially those with open cars and no top, want dry weather with pleasant temperatures for their rides and events. Unfortunately, nobody can choose the ideal weather for them and so it happens that regular rally participants have already had to endure a weekend that was anything but "pleasant".
600 km in an open pre-war car in pouring rain and around 10 degrees Celsius can really push the team (and the car) to its physical limits. Last but not least, you have paid a lot of money for these exertions and the next working week is not spent in the office but in bed.
This is exactly what happened to the participants of the 2013 Mille Miglia and the 2013 Gaisbergrennen.
Under such circumstances, it is not only the drivers and co-drivers who suffer, but also the organizers, and especially the marshals, media representatives and photographers.
It is always said that there is no such thing as the wrong weather, only the wrong clothing.
There is some truth in this, but with the masses of water and low temperatures in 2013, some of the equipment has capitulated.
While in Brescia you could at least occasionally enter a packed bar for a hot tea or coffee, the situation was inhumanly extreme, especially on the Gaisberg. Standing in the pouring rain four times for around an hour and a half in barely three degrees Celsius and strong gusts of wind in order to get a picture of each participant almost borders on a work camp.
After about an hour, the thin raincoat releases the water into the thick winter jacket. This, in turn, slowly but surely channels everything to the fiber fur. Sweater 1 soon sounds the alarm and has to give up the fight. So the wetness reaches sweater 2 and finally the skin feels the increasingly wet T-shirt.
As the wetness spreads, so does the cold. After almost two hours, the cars are led back down to the start.
The only restaurant far and wide is closed, so the only dry place available is your own vehicle.
After the second run comes the long-awaited lunch break. This is used to get the camera back into shape. Despite full protection of the camera and the impossibility of changing lenses, the water has found its way into the memory card compartment.
The third and fourth runs in the afternoon do not improve the situation.
Many participants throw in the towel and head back to the hotel. Most of them take it in their stride, a few give free rein to their stinking mood.
At the end of May, the media were full of reports about the floods that had not only hit Salzburg, but also large areas of southern Germany, Austria and Poland. As a result, some rally participants only made it home with long detours and several hours' delay.
At the turn of the year, we hope that the organizers will have a bit more luck with the weather in 2014 and are already looking forward to a new year full of kilometers.
