Costa Brava Rally 2025
A few words from Richard
As you may know I have raced and rallied my Alfetta GTV since 1993. The idea of the rally Costa Brava has been in my mind since I first saw posters of the Alfetta GTV first competition debut there in 1974.
At the HRCR open day I discovered that a number of people I already knew were going this year. I asked my son James if he could join me, but he wanted to do the Ypres historic rally again and it was either or so I asked James Portway and he jumped at the chance.
My wife said I was barking mad, could I even stay awake until 4 or 5 in the morning!
But we soon found out a brave navigator and an experienced driver is not enough! A beautifully handling car is still necessary to constantly get out of trouble but it can be the simple things that trip you up
James Portway managed to set up the Brantz perfectly first go! I then decided to attempt to cut as many corners as possible. He said that the Brantz reading was almost the same. We later discovered that the phone app could not be set to rally time and inaccuracies in the app resulted in the constant need to adjust it.
After the last measured mile run the engine cut, everything was dead. I found the green wire from the alternator was disconnected. This I had had not touched for many years!
We pushed the car down the hill and the engine whizzed over furiously. It didn’t start.
We called the service crew and they put their battery on the car. Back in the service area they decided that the alternator was dead, this was given a clean bill of health by my auto electrician just 2 weeks previously. The auto electrician in the service crew decided to try to repair it (monumental mistake)
It then died immediately before the start!!
The head of the service crew found a brand-new alternator in Gerona, a 90 minute round trip. Thank heavens too for the Gerona Alfa Romeo owners club who sorted out the new alternator for me.
With a new alternator fitted, we were able to compete in the last stage of the day, finishing 11pm.
The event started at 4pm the next day and due to our poor results on the previous day, reseeding resulted in us finishing at 4am.
The next day for us was identical timing.
The Event used a lot of previous WRC roads and because of darkness, leaves and narrowness of the roads it was difficult to see that the next bend was a hairpin until you arrived at speed and needed to deal with the slippery surface, whilst deciding how sharp the bend was.
There was plenty of cars damaged but not a huge attrition rate.
There was very little time to catch your breath. Even the road sections required concentration as you needed to keep close to the speed limit. There were speed traps resulting in rally penalties and some speed cameras. Also driving standard observers, some manned by the police!
The Police were generally helpful, stopping any traffic where they felt that the general public might be at risk from an over exuberant driver. Even at 2am there were people in villages watching the rally go by, cheering us.
My arm and neck muscles have had an intense workout! And my calf muscles feel like I have walked a marathon. Perhaps a little training would be good.
As for timing, each car was fitted with a 2 way transponder (deposit €50)
With this the cars were tracked with speed, location and the interim times logged.
Apparently, there is a screen with real time location of all the cars and they will phone anyone who is seriously lost!
Would I go again? DEFINITELY.
Next year Tour de Corse Historique is under discussion but certainly there is unfinished business on the Ypres international historic rally.
I would also like to thank John at WSMC as he has been incredibly helpful to both James, James and myself over the years.
James’s view from the navigator’s side.
Richard had invited me to join him on this years Historic Costa Brava Rally. This is an event with a bold reputation. One of the fastest European regulation rallies held mostly at night (mainly so the roads are empty) over 1000km in the Spanish Pyrenees with over half of the milage being regularity stages.
We started at Sant Feliu de Guixols about 60 miles north of Barcelona and finished in Empuriabrava another 50 miles north. The rally ran over 3 evenings 5-10pm on Thursday then 3pm to 3am on Friday and Saturday nights.
Unfortunately, an electrical fault meant we could not make the start & we missed the first 3 stages but due to the fantastic support from the local support crew we were back up and running for the last stage on the first night.
We soon found out that the stages did not have one straight road and the average speed was very high – meaning no let-up round the curves.
Navigation (by Tulip) was not meant to catch navigators out and my main role was conveying speed information to Richard (“faster” “slower”) to keep to the averages as he concentrated on keeping the car on the tarmac.
One very narrow & twisty section on the second night saw many drop time early on.
But the stage just before supper put a smile on everyone’s face as the perfectly smooth contoured tarmac whipped you round the corners – apparent it had been used as a WRC rally stage in the past.
We soon realised that we had reached the accuracy limit of our equipment as our average speed calculator (an app on my phone) could not be calibrated effectively, so it had to be constantly corrected back to the Brantz mileages. Meaning that even when we thought we were spot on time (to the second) the incorrectly mileage was still throwing us out.
But we recorded 8 ‘zeros’ through the weekend. This is recognised on the scoresheets as a time control where you are recorded as being within a second of the calculated time on the road. – Pretty happy with that.
Due to the mechanical issue at the beginning, we were never going to trouble any podiums, but we never got lost (only a few wrong slots – quickly rectified). We ended up 72nd out of 96 but that was never really the point for us. This was an experience, and we were really happy to have been there and got round.
If you were thinking of entering in your classic, it is an amazing experience to do the milage on those roads (1,000km), as fast you are capable of, over such distances with the roads to yourself. – I would Highly Recommend it!
James Portway, November 2025
