THE STORY OF 2004
Course setters Hans Brinkman and André Jetten had indicated before the start of the 2003 anniversary edition that they would be ending their activities. This posed a new challenge for the organizing committee of the Tulpenrallye after 10 particularly successful editions of the International Historic Tulpenrallye and great popularity among participants. The search for a new course setter had to commence, which was no easy task given the limited number of available and experienced setters. A conversation with the winners of the 2000 Tulpenrallye, Adrie Brugmans and Jaap Daamen, provided enough leads. While they had experience in setting regularity trials, they had never set a large multi-day rally before. Impressed by their ideas and meticulous preparation, the committee decided to collaborate with them, with the understanding that the committee would be available to support and assist them as needed.
Starting abroad had been greatly appreciated by participants and the organization in the previous edition, and so it was continued. Over the weekend of May 8th and 9th, Beaune, in the heart of the Beaujolais region of France, was taken over by an invasion of classic cars. While a number of large trailers were used to transport participating cars, the majority of teams opted to drive their cars to the start themselves. Unfortunately, in some cases, this proved challenging, and certain teams were unable to reach the start. For instance, Poen and Rogier Buijs crashed their 1965 Ferrari 330GT on the French highway in the rain, causing severe damage to the front and rear of the car, rendering it unable to start.
Ultimately, 189 teams gathered on Sunday, May 9th, at the Mercure Hotel in Beaune for document checks followed by a cocktail party at the beautiful Bastion Médieval, built in the 17th century, in the center of Beaune.
A challenging route through the Jura was set for the first day from Beaune, with participants returning to Beaune in the evening. Although the route had been checked for the final time on Sunday, 20 cm of snow fell overnight, rendering parts of the route impassable and necessitating adjustments. The route then led to Epinal on Tuesday, where a loop was also driven. On Wednesday, participants tackled all the major Tulpenrallye mountain passes in the Vosges before returning to Epinal in the evening. The hotel was unable to provide dinner for all participants on Tuesday but demonstrated their capabilities on Wednesday.
The route continued via the Champagne city of Epernay, where the reception was provided by sponsor Moët & Chandon, and where overnight stay took place on Thursday, leading to Ieper. Around this well-known rally city, several challenging sections over the routes of the special stages (“Kemmelberg” and “Dikkebus”) from the rally of the same name were driven, with teams being received on Friday evening at the Lakenhal. On Saturday, the route led through Zeeland to the finish in Noordwijk. On the way to the final check at Duinrell, “sportpark de Kooltuin” was indicated in the route book, which turned out to be the military airbase Valkenburg, where a 9 km regularity stage was set up. This kept the competition exciting until the finish.
Key participants included Bert Dolk / Erwin Berkhof, Cock Goedegebuur / Robert Rorife, Eddy van den Hoorn / René Smeets, Hans van Beek / Gerard Heimerikx, Jan Ebus / Jan Berkhof, Karel Westerman / Martin Roosenboom, and Renger Guliker / Pim ’t Hart.
Bert Dolk won the Tulpenrallye for the third time, navigated by Erwin Berkhof, who was only 21 years old.
The organization looked back on a particularly successful event. The new course setters had designed a beautiful and challenging route, and the excellent weather contributed to a fantastic atmosphere throughout the event. The new scoring system proved to be very effective, keeping the competition exciting until the very last day.
