Between April 19th and April 22nd 2018, the roads of Emilia, Liguria and Tuscany were the location for the 8th Gran Premio Terre di Canossa a regularity trial across Italy with 105 classic crews taking in the glorious scenery over four days and of course, enjoying the fine food, wine and parties all put on by top hosts Scuderia Tricolore.
The challenges across the four days include 60 timed trials and 6 average speed trials. All the trials were technically challenging, covering all types of terrain: road and track, uphill and downhill, high-speed sections.
We had a chat with British Crew Richard Tyzack and Peter Flood who competed in Richard’s 1960 Jaguar XK 150S and found out all about the event:
So how did it go?
Well, we came 85th out of 87 cars, we were going for last – as we hadn’t a clue what we were doing to be honest – and we had very little equipment in the Jaguar just a Halda Trip and that was it. We had no way of calculating average speed, so whilst we made all the check-points we just did them all at 30mph.
What about the event?
As usual the event was superb, the hotels, the dinner and extravagant parties are excellent, and the route was beautiful.
After the Modena Cento Ore, this event is rather too relaxing for us, there are 3-hour lunches and there is time to see the sights, go shopping, visit the churches, even lie on the beach! So, if you are after a fast moving rally this isn’t the one for you. But on the flip side, it is certainly easy on the car and we had no problems with the Jaguar, driving it out from home and back after the event, it isn’t hard on the cars at all. The 3.8 litre Jaguar even averaged 24 miles to the gallon.
Would you do it again?
Absolutely I would, just for the crack – we drove round and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was fun, fun, fun! It is also great value for money.
How do you win it?
I couldn’t believe how seriously some people take these rallies! The leaders had endless techno gadgets to enable them to calculate all the average speeds, even a strip of tape on the car to determine where the stop watch is clicked.
Some of the timed trials required you to do 50 metres at one speed, then 1 km at a different average speed then change again, and so on.
Did you have any problems at all?
No, very little trouble. We had the usual problem of rubbish quality fuel in Italy we rarely got 100 octane the best we got was 98 in France. But I have had a vernier fitted on the Distributor so I can move the ignition timing on the car back and forth to counter the pinking!
2018 Terre di Canossa Results:
Crew no. 10, John Houtkamp and Chelly Houtkamp, took third place in the final rankings in their 1928 Lancia Lambda Tipo 223 short spider.
Second place went to crew no. 3, Fabio Salvinelli and Guido Ceccardi, in their 1930 Fiat 514 MM, and the victory went to the current Italian champion, Andrea Vesco for the sixth year running with his co-driver Manuela Tanghetti in their 1934 Fiat 508 S Balilla Sport. They took home two gorgeous Cuervo y Sobrinos watches as well as the cup reserved for pre-war cars and the special ranking for average speed trials.
The Houtkamp Collection Team came first in the team ranking.
The Coppa delle Dame women’s cup went to crew no. 69, Daniela Guaita and Milena Guaita, in a 1961 Lancia Appia 3rd series, who were presented with two splendid watches from the collection of ladies’ watches by Cuervo y Sobrinos.
The ranking reserved for modern Ferraris saw crew no. 110, Franco Serventi and Daniela Maccini, coming first in their Ferrari 458 Speciale A, followed by crew n. 111 Serventi-Bercelli and crew n. 109 Carabelli-Carabelli.
The special prize for the youngest crew went to no. 59: Miguel Timmermans and Olivier Lenaerts.
The large turnout of foreign crews made the challenge to win the international cups even more exciting. It went to Dutch crew number 10, Houtkamp-Houtkamp, who took home two watches presented by the main sponsor.
