South Florida Jaguar Club - Texas 1000 Vintage Rally

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2000 Texas 1000 Vintage Rally

note : this article is being written everyday with new pictures uploaded. It will be updated every evening and revised / modified as we go along.. larger versions of these pictures and many more are in the daily galleries, see the links at the bottom of this page.

Informal car show on the Alamo Plaza

The crazy marathon...

Saturday, November 11th, 9:30 pm... the South Florida Jaguar Club annual Concours is ending. Dinner is over, awards have been given, speeches are finished and everyone is heading home or back to their hotel room. Everyone except Russel Glace and myself, we're not heading a few miles from Delray, we're driving to Texas, right now, right then... and the car has to be part of car show in front of the Alamo the next day... Of course one might question the sanity of driving to Texas with Florida plates 4 days after the presidential election but that's another matter...

I had entered the Texas 1000 Vintage Rally after enjoying two other similar events, the Forza Amelia and the New England 2000, all organized by Jean and Rich Taylor and their terrific crew. The problem is that the rally started the day after our Concours and I wasn't going to miss either so the only solution was to drive that night and morning in order to make it on time.

The choice of car might sound surprising for a Vintage Rally but being sponsored by Ford, any high performance car powered by Ford or one of their Marque is eligible including of course my XKR. In nearly one year of driving the car and 13 000 miles, the longest trip I took was 650 miles so I figured it would be a good idea to stretch its legs...

While a little tiring because of the lack of sleep, I only took a 30 minute nap in a rest area, the trip was uneventful and fast. Averaging over 80mph we got to San Antonio in just under 16 hours and after a quick stop at a car wash, we made it to the informal Concours in front of the famous Alamo in downtown San Antonio. The XKR proved to be a great car for such a marathon, fast of course but very comfortable and rather economical as we averaged close to 17mph, not bad for high speed cruising.

As expected, the quality of the rally cars already on display was amazing. Ferraris, Maseratis, Mercedes, Lotus, etc... the best the 50s, 60s and later had to offer.A few modern cars where there too including the eye catching Panoz Roadster... Seeing all these cars in such a historic and popular place as the Alamo was great and the public loved it as hundreds of people walked through admiring the cars.

Syd Silverman's 1958 Ferrari Tour de France

One of the oldest car, and also most admired, was a very rare 1958 Ferrari Tour de France driven by SFJC member Sid Silverman.

The nice things about Vintage Rallies events is the organization; everything is carefully planned and works as it's supposed to in a relaxed way... Rich and Jean and their team are always in control, ready to spend time with their guests and this event was no exception. After checking in, and the diner with last minute instructions, it was time for a real night sleep, the first in 2 days...

Day One, discovering a driver's paradise...

The days are split in stages, some timed and some untimed called transit stages to go from one point to another one. The first 2 stages of the day, Monday morning, took us outside San Antonio into the country side and the beginning was a little bit disappointing. Flat roads, average scenery, not that great. Then gradually things started changing we got into what's called Texas Hill Country. No major mountains but endless waves of rolling hills and canyons offering the very best road one can find. I've driven in many states and it's either flat and boring, twisty but congested, straight and boring; it never offers the variety of conditions we experienced on that first day. From long empty straights where traffic is virtually inexistent to sweeping curves and tight corners up and down hills.

The format of these Vintage Rallies is very simple. You follow the directions in the route book and when you get to the end of the stage, you can wait before covering the last hundred yards; as long as you cross the finish line on time, you're fine. As driving enthusiasts they understood that we don't want to crawl on these beautiful roads at an assigned speed. Of course some people do while other just want to enjoy the driving.

First checkpoint, 4 yellow Ferraris and one XJS, the only
other Jaguar in the rally

We spent most of the day running with a few interesting cars such as a big block Stingray, a Mercedes 250 Rally team car, and many more. At the first checkpoint, a series of no less than 4 yellow vintage Ferraris turned out at the same time in a roar of V12... where else do you get to enjoy such a symphony...

We didn't do too bad on the first day, which included 3 timed stages since we ended up with 2 points, good enough for 11th place overall. We had managed 2 perfect 0 points score on the first 2 stage but I got confused on the last one and approached the line on the wrong side of the cone and flag... no big deal except that I got distracted by the checkpoint worker gesturing and didn't focus on crossing on time... My fault, nobody else, I did try to blame my navigator but he didn't fall for it...

This first day was a real eye opener on the qualities of the XKR as I had never driven it on tight curvy roads and it turned our to be great. The amount of grip the sports suspension and the 18" PZero provide is hard to describe, the car feels glued to the road and inspire confidence. While it's a large and relatively heavy car, it feels very nimble on such roads, reacting very quickly and adapting to the changing conditions, staying very balanced even in succession of quick opposite turns. The J gate provides excellent control over the transmission allowing for downshifting all the way down to 2nd with a flick of the wrist. Acceleration is phenomenal, out of a corner the car just rockets back up to speed and keeps pulling strongly even way into triple digit speed till it's time to hit the brakes again for the next turn... The supercharged V8 is not only powerful but also very smooth all the way to red line, never showing any sign of straining. After a few hundred miles of hard driving on the backroads of Texas, I am now convinced that Jaguar has indeed produced their best car ever.

Day two, a perfect day...

Navigator Russel Glace at the start of day two... 31 degrees...

It's 30 degrees outside when we leave the hotel to go to the car. It's covered with ice, which enhance the silver paint, but is really unpractical... Scrapping the windshield with a credit card is a must and the heater and seat warmers are welcome to fight the cold.

After a short transit stage to visit a private auto collection and a second one to reach the confederate Air Force museum in Burnet, the first speed event awaited us in the form of a simple autocross setup on the taxiway of the local airport. A wide loop, marked by cones setup in narrow gates with a couple of tight turns.

As usual I can't wait and I am the first one trying it out with 3 runs gradually improving to a time of 18''11 despite the fact that the course was just too tight for a nearly 4000 lbs Jaguar...

Exercising on the autocross course

The experience gained over the past months at the monthly speedtrials helps as this would turned out to be the 2nd best time of day, beaten by a Panoz roadster who scores an 18" flat.. I must say that the Panoz was really impressive on that course, turning very easily and hugging the ground with its wide track and wide tires.

After the autocross, we start on the first of the day's three stages taking us across some fabulous hill roads, mostly empty except for animals, especially deers. They are everywhere and often decide to cross the road or jump across when you don't expect them to. Considering that a deer will cause a lot of damage to the car if you hit them, ok and also because they are cute animals, deer watching becomes more important than trooper watching ! I jump on the brakes a few times, often on Russel's "DEER ! " command, that's also the navigator role....

River crossing on a ranch road

While we are on this subject I must say that I have an excellent navigator. Russel (standing next to the car above) has done this before as a driver and he's great to have as a navigator. I must say it's something I wouldn't be able to do... sitting in the passenger with a book in my laps while somebody else is driving the car at high speed on sometimes narrow and twisted road... it takes some courage...

There are two things unusual about Texas road. First are the ranch roads, which cross through private ranches, often with very little traffic and sometimes narrow and twisty. Sometimes they are called open range roads because of the lack of fences and the fact that cattle can actually wander on the road. Every few hundred yards, you'll come across a cattle card, a few feet of steel tubes laid in the road surface with fences on each side that the cows don't cross. These can be rough sometimes so you often need to slow down.

The other unique element are the water crossings.

waiting zone at a Texas Winery, a Ferrari 275 coming through

There are so many streams and small rivers that bridges would be too costly so instead, there are series of drainage pipes under the concrete roadway poured across the river. These large pipes are usually enough as the streams are nearly dry most of the time but for rainy days, flood gages indicates how deep the water is over the concrete so that people know how unsafe it can get... most of the these water crossing are usually pretty rough and you must proceed slowly even if there is no water on the concrete.

The first stage takes us to a winery where we have lunch, no wine tasting though as we driver must drive and they, navigators must navigate... The setting is nice especially the waiting area before the checkpoint, the winery's driveway lined up with trees. It's pretty narrow so it soon turns into a big traffic jam of Ferraris, Jaguars, Mercedes, etc...

a 74 Ferrari Daytona... we were not passing across that
double line, just sliding over for the picture.

We have a great time for most of the afternoon running fast and catching up with some of the cars ahead, including many miles driven with a yellow Ferrari Daytona which Russel takes pictures of as I am driving.

The second stage ends with a tense last 15 miles which we spend with a Texas trooper on our tail, radar detector screaming and driving way below the speed limit... my guess is that he must have been as frustrated as us... him for not being able to give it ticket to these Floridians in the fancy Jaguar and us for driving so slow. He pulls off just as we reach the checkpoint and we later hear that he got the bright red NSX that was coming behind.

Another perfect score and we are on the way for the last stage taking us to our overnight destination, the Yo Ranch resort in Kerrville. More fun roads, some high speed sections and another perfect 0 point finish.

We end up the day in 7th place, tied with 3 other cars. The first 4 cars have a perfect 0 point score, and 2 have only 1 point. With 2 more days to go, things will change and we can either drop in the ranking or maybe climb up if others make mistakes, we'll see.

Day three : boys will be boys no matter how expensive their toys are...

Classic and not so classic traffic Jam at the first
checkpoint of day three.

The day started around 8am, as usual, leaving the wonderful YO ranch resort. No ice on the car but still pretty cold and cloudy. Again, wonderful roads with many turns, often challenging, up and down hills with terrific scenery. As usual, we run fast and hard and pretty soon catch and pass cars which had started ahead of us. After 30 or 40 miles, we go through some narrow ranch roads, sometimes bumpy, before we make it to the first checkpoint which we nail.

The second stage will turn out to be decisive for many of the cars entered because of the relatively short allotted time to complete it. add to this a couple of hard to find turns and a few cars, even some of the top contenders got in trouble arriving late at the 2nd checkpoint. Even for us the margin of error was reduced as we arrived with only 11 minutes to spare instead of our usual 20 or 30... As we sit and wait we see the Jensen Healey coming in real fast through the driveway and going right three the finish line... 44 seconds behind.

We cross the line with a perfect score and park in front of what we thought was the kid's playground to the race track, an indoor cart track.

Post Office at Luchenbach, Texas

The route book mentioned a track event and I had assumed it meant a real track event like those we had done on previous rallies. Surprise ! no real track but 3 hours of play with carts as the organizers had rented the entire complex for us to play... Disappointment at first but then I quickly discover how much fun carts can be and, as many other drivers and navigators, I just had a blast. Teamed up in group of 5 or 6 we just spent most of the next 3 hours on the tracks having fun and battling real hard even thought no real scores were kept.

It was just amazing to consider that we had a bunch of grown men ( and some women), playing with 3 hp carts like little boys while we had 300 to 400 hp sports cars sitting in the parking lot ! How many time have we heard our wives repeating ... the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys ... untrue today !

After playing, we rush on the next short transit stage to Gruene, a great old town where we have lunch in an old restaurant overlooking the river.

Russel and the genuine Cobra... the white and
blue top only works up to 5 mph...

Two more stages in the afternoon, the first one to Lukenbach, a very small picturesque village, where we collect another point for being 1 second off across the line. Luckenbach is the small place where time seem to have stop 30 years ago. It has a dance hall, a general store with a bar in the back where a trio is playing music for 3 customers smoking and wearing hats... A dark place with license plates all over the walls and other memorabilia that contrasted with the collection of cars parked outside.

We then finish the last stage in a drizzle and fog at the Guadalupe River Ranch where we finish right on time. The ranch is a great hotel / cottages with a lot of character; very rustic with stone walls, natural wood, no TVs, but very elegant. Great choice !

At dinner time, when the results are announced we are please to see that others misfortune allowed us to climb to 6th place overall. 2 cars still have perfect zero score and 3 have 1 or 2 points.

Day Four : rain rain and more rain...

Despite the gray sky and damp environment, there was something special about walking on the ranch grounds early in the morning with a warm up of coffee; the ranch being on top of a hill, the view over the valley was spectacular with some patches of fog hanging in the trees below.

another river crossing, yes they call these "bridges" in
the Hill Country of Texas.

We're second in line at the checkpoint and soon get underway for the first stage on wet but quickly drying road. The best about this part of Texas is the variety of roads, from long straights where the car could be pushed close to its exhilarating but illegal top speed, to tight corners and long sweepers; this final day would provide us with a great assortment.

hand feeding the deers on the YO Ranch

The other highlight of the day was a stop at the YO Ranch, a 45,000 acres property featuring a Texas size 8 mile driveway... Some of you might have seen the name of the ranch before as they were one of the sponsor of a Trans Am serie car this season. Included in the stop was a bus tour of some of pastures where over 50 species of exotic animals are bred often for zoos and reintroducing the species in their original habitat. Lunch was served at the ranch, including a delicious buffalo meatloaf... oh and a butterscotch pecan brownie that alone would be worth the 8 mile rough driveway.

Of course the best way to digest such a earthy meal is driving on country roads and the afternoon included a 20 mile section of up and down canyon road, where I spent most of the time either at full throttle shifting close to red line or then jumping on the brakes ( and horn ) for tight and sometimes blind 20mph corner. The whine of the supercharger, the high power of the engine combined with the incredible grip made it pure pleasure enhanced by beautiful scenery. Even though you can't push a car on public roads the way you would on a race track, such environment is the real thing, it's after all where cars are meant to run in the first place.

Closing on the Cobra, crew in full wet suits

An interesting moment came when exiting a corner we come across a pair of SUVs taking more than their fair share of the road on the inside of the turn, causing me to run a bit wide a dropping a wheel off the edge. I swerved a bit, with a guard rail on the right and the rocks on the left but the XKR proved very forgiving brought back in line with a bit of opposite steering.

We caught up with a few cars along the way including the Cobra whose crew was driving in full rain suits in a wonderful rumble of pure American V8 power. Catching up and driving along other great cars is one the fun elements of these rallies, whether it's following a genuine big block Cobra, passing a Porsche 356 or just playing with a couple of Daytonas or Dinos, that's something you can't do anywhere else...

We finished the second stage with a perfect score, which will put us in 6th place overall with 4 points, first in class. Not bad

another Texas style bridge

The final evening took place at the historic Menger hotel in San Antonio where the award diner was the last occasion for a few more laughs and receiving prizes.

700 miles of rain...

Friday morning we left San Antonio heading back east in steady rain that would last all the way till the Florida panhandle... Traffic was heavy especially through Houston, Beaumont, Baton Rouge causing our average speed to linger around a low 72 mph. Thankfully after Mobile, both rain and traffic cleared up and we were able to make up for lost time arriving in south Florida after 2 am, an 18 hours trip.

After dropping off Russel at his home in Lake Worth, I made it home in Miami and looked at the trip computer as I got in the garage. Over 3800 flawless miles in 7 days, averaging 67 mph and 15 mpg fuel consumption. While a troublefree trip is expected from the such a luxury GT, the long and hard running with the engine kept between 3000 and 5000 RPM for extended period of time, frequent shifting and heavy braking is a proof that Jaguar has created a reliable high performance car.

Pictures Galleries :
note that I have higher resolution versions of these images, if you see your car in the galleries and would like one of the larger pictures, Email me (pascal@pam-trading.com) with the picture number (visible when you leave you mouse pointer over the image) and I'll email it back to you.

Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four

For details on Vintage Rallies, please visit their website at www.vintagerallies.com