Background

It all started off as a harmless drive involving 2 cars that got permission from their spouses to do a 2-3 day drive. After talking to a couple of people, the feeling was that there was a lot of people interested in indulging in a bit of “Automobile based Recreation”. So the word was put out inviting whoever wanted to participate. To help pull in other like-minded individuals the event was called rally fb@w (Rally for Free Beer @nd Worldpeace pronounced Rally EffBaw). There is also a school of thought that Rally fb@w stands for Rally for Free Beer at Work. After false starts from about 15 cars, only 5 cars and 8 people finally made it to the final starting line.

Car No Driver Navigator Car 12 Rahul Cherian Auto Zen 1.3L 22 Rahul Mohandas Stock Petra 1.6 31 Sudhir A Anil K G Stock Ikon 1.6 41 Biju Jacob Novex Alex Maruti 800 53 Sreeni K Vinay Satyan Maruti 800 For the cars, vinyl stickers were printed with the car numbers and as an afterthought T- shirts were printed for the participants.

Rules

While publicizing the event 2 rules were put out No women& only one driver per car, so that nobody would have to share his drive On popular demand, rule# 1 was reframed as “No Spouses” and subsequently to “Sex no Bar as long as your heart pumped out petrol”. After all that fuss about reframing the rules, it was a bit of an anti climax that no women/ spouses came along. Rule# 2 was never meant to be serious as long as there were no fights in the car on who would drive!!!!

Rally Details

To ensure peace on the road, in keeping with the world peace theme of the rally, it was decided that the rally would be in convoys of a minimum 2 and maximum 3 cars. Convoy Synchronization Points (CSP) were set up every 50 – 70 km or at confusing junctions to ensure no one got lost and that all cars were coming along fine. The first car from a convoy to reach a CSP, was expected to wait till at least one more car from the convoy reached before he could start off again. The route was from to and back Via – – Kollegal – – Gundalpet – Bandipur – Madumalai – Theppakadu covering a total of about 300+ km. The drivers could choose between the 36-hair pin bend route or the route via gudalur between Theppakadu & Ooty. Given the nature of the crowd, it was not surprising that everyone took the 36-hairpin bend route both ways!!! There were also to be a few eagerly awaited optional sections around Ooty. “Rally fb@w for Dummies” handout was prepared and handed out to the drivers the day before the rally during the kick off dinner at Koshy’s, giving driving instructions and route details including distances, average driving speeds (considering road surfaces) and expected driving times were given out.

The Rally

Section 1A Bangalore - Chamarajanagar

With a starting grid of 5 cars, there were 2 convoys, the first of which started off from Khodays Factory on Kanakapura road at 0715hrs and the second one at 0730hrs. The second convoy caught up with the first one after Kanakapura at an Idli joint. The first synchronization point after Kanakapura Idli stop was at Malavalli where all the cars reached within a few minutes of each other. At Malavalli we took a left and took off towards Kollegal. One of the cars (#12) lost his way between Malavalli and was late in reaching Kollegal. As per driving plan, only Car# 22 waited for Car# 12 since both belonged to the same convoy. At Kollegal another car (#41) decided to take a route completely opposite to Chamarajanagar despite consultations with half a dozen locals and frantic calls from the other cars which saw car# 41 take the wrong turn. A phone call got them back on track. There was a major break immediately after Kollegal where all the cars pulled up for Tender Coconuts and a photo session.

The cars strike a pose The cars strike yet another pose Section 1B – Chamarajanagar Ooty

Between Chamarajanagar and Gundalpet, the road got a little rough. However to the credit of the drivers and the cars, this section was covered pretty quickly with all cars reaching Gundalpet with just 15 minutes separating the first car from the last. At the end of this stage, all cars swore that they would never ever trust the judgment of car# 22 when it came to the quality of road sections. Go figure!!! Anyway, the bad roads had taken its toll on the appetite of the participants all were ready for lunch much sooner than anticipated. So everyone pulled up at Pug Marks restaurant in Bandipur, run by the Jungle Lodges group. The first car pulled in for lunch at about 1300hrs. After a long relaxed and elaborate lunch, we started off again by about 1415 hours. By the way, less said about the Mutton Biriyani at Pug Marks, the better. The next few stages were the most scenic ones of the day. The suggested average speed was adhered to not because of road conditions but due to photo breaks!

Quite a few breaks and snaps later everyone except car # 12 decided to take a break together after the hairpins, though it was not an official Convoy Synchronization Point. No one was really sure about Car#12’s whereabouts, with someone saying he had stopped to take a call from a troublesome client and someone else saying he had already reached Ooty. In reality he was a few kilometers ahead and catching up on beauty sleep!

An unofficial convoy synchronization point

The black boys pull away…

The next scheduled stop Hotel Lakeview, Ooty was reached by about 1530hrs. This was to be the camp for the night. Cottages at Lake View were pretty decent with lot of parking space. At 350rs per head for a night it was a steal. Only issue with Lakeview was the color of the water in the taps. Most people after taking the first leak break at the hotel would tell the person going in next something like “I HAVE flushed the toilet” or “I did not take a leak in the bucket”

Optional Section OS1 Ooty – Kotagiri - Ooty

After checking in at Hotel Lake View car #’s 12 & 22 couldn’t wait to hit the optional stage from Ooty to Kotagiri and they started off almost immediately. They say it was one BIG blast with 26 kms of ghat roads being covered in under 35 minutes. After reaching Kotagiri, they were scared to blast back lest they come across other “like minded maniacs” coming in the opposite direction. After waiting for 15 mins they started back in a very sane manner. Few kilometers on they saw car# 31 enjoying the sunset. Car# 41 was nowhere to be seen. After waiting for another 5 – 10 minutes, the 3 cars blasted across the ghats. Halfway through the blast they came across car# 41 ambling along indulging in some MAJOR photography. Due to space constraints those snaps are not here. You may contact [email protected] to check them out Car# 53 did not participate in the optional section, opting to visit relatives in Coonoor instead.

While some tripped on the Road… … others tripped on scenery & photography (This snap is best viewed with above average brightness on the monitor)

That night there was a detailed working session at Hotel Lake View to work out strategies to get Free Beer at Work. Mass prayers for world peace followed this.

Section 2A Ooty Gundalpet

The optional section OS2 Ooty Pykara Ooty was abandoned since everyone decided to sleep in late; rather the late night prayers had taken its toll on the drivers. Car# 53 started off a little earlier than the other, since they wanted to take it easy on the return drive. Hence they were not around during the morning group photo shoot. The other cars started off after the photo shoot at about 1130 hrs from Ooty.

No one really wanted to risk the Mutton Biriyani at Pug Marks, Bandipur on the way back. So sandwiches were packed from Hot Breads near Charring Cross in Ooty. Car# 22 pulled out of the rally at the end of section 2A to go vacationing in Kerala,.

Section 2B Gundalpet Bangalore

The last section was rather uneventful with people just wanting to reach Bangalore before sundown. All the cars reached the outskirts of Bangalore by about 1830hrs congregating at Khoday’s factory before going their own way. It was decided that the next time around the return stages would start a lot earlier

The last stage did have its moments with cars pulling out all stops in trying to get back to Bangalore before sun down….