[livetodrive]

Times Group partnered with Indian Automotive Racing Club (an affiliated member of FMSCI), to organize the largest & most celebrated all women's car rally Times Women's Drive (TWD). The rally reached its 9th year and it was celebrated with lot of fervor and enthusiasm. Celebrating womanhood and spreading breast cancer awareness is the motivation behind this drive. I got a chance to be an on looker as my wife participated in this mega event. 527 cars participated in this drive from Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad, with the final destination being Goa.

The rally is not a normal race, but in TSD format(Time-Speed-Distance). In team BHP there are threads discussing TSD rallies. Thought to share my views after going through the presentations and brain storming with the participants. Feel free to correct me with your views and experience.

How does TSD work? Each team comprises of minimum 2 participants - a Driver and a navigator. In this case, they had a 3rd member in every team, who worked as the team correspondent, basically helping with
updates on social media/live photos,videos on Instagram/Twitter etc.

At the start of the rally, each team is handed over a Tulip chart, a Speed Chart and Time Card. The Tulip chart gives the direction to be followed but with no clear name of the locations. So the basic idea is, you get the route, you get the average speed you need to maintain in different sections of the drive(from speed chart), on the basis which the navigator is expected to calculate the time needed to reach the destination. There are surprise check points to ensure you are maintaining the speed limits. At every check point, the Marshal enters your entry time in the Time card. For every seconds delay, there is negative marking.However if you reach a second early, you are penalized double. So the idea is,when in doubt, reach a second late but never early. There are negative markings for missing check points and also for stopping/slowing down on spotting a Check point. So, rather than speed, in TSD rally its accuracy what matters.

In a briefing session 1 week prior to the drive, the teams were given speed and sample tulip charts and t-shirts for the drive.

Few snapshots of the briefing session in Bangalore. The presentations are freely available in timeswomensdrive.com without any watermarks or copyrights:









As it can be observed from the below speed chart, that the third column displays the speed a car should maintain while driving from point A (mentioned in first column) to point B (second column). So, from the given data, a team should create a fourth column which should be the estimated time to reach the destination (correct to the resolution of seconds).

Definitely its a team effort to do swift and correct calculations and guide the driver as well. While the driver focuses only on speed and trip odometer, the navigator needs to keep a check on the landmarks given in Tulip Chart to ascertain they are on correct route, and also keep a track of the distance pending to be covered within the stipulated time. Many factors like time spent at check points, speed breakers, tolls/village traffic amount to change in average, so the navigator needs to keep recalculating the speed needed to maintain. This becomes a tough task where there is no separate trip odometer which the navigator can use to check the distance traversed and the car odometer might not be accurate and synchronized with the speed chart provided to the participants. Also considering the unannounced check points and the heavy penalties for every mistake, making up any time lag or lead should be a gradual speed change rather than a quick surge or drop in speed. Quite interesting isn't it?



There is a zone called "Free Zone" in the speed chart above. This means, in that segment, there will be no speed checks to monitor the car speed. A team is expected to reach the next milestone within a stipulated time. It can be observed that the Endpoint of the free zone is same as the start point of the next segment. The odometer is reset at the start of the next leg once the free zone ends. Free zone generally is given for areas with thick traffic, ghats, forest areas etc.

Similar to "Free Zone" there are also "Free Runs" which is usually at the end of rally. Team is again allowed to run at a speed they wish to, but must reach the final destination within a stipulated time.

Below is a sample tulip chart I got from the same source. This chart should not be mixed up with the speed chart. Its more of a guide to the navigator what he/she should expect in the route at a certain distance to make sure that they are following the correct path and did not get lost. In the third column (Directions), the black dot denotes the car and the arrow denotes the direction the car needs to move. So, for example, when ODO reading is 1.08 and part reading is 0.54 (3rd Row), your car should take a right and join NH7 instead of going straight. That becomes the directional guidance from the navigator the driver.



At the end of the day the day, overall performance is calculated basis the timings entered by each check points during the day.





Rules and regulations were explained and cars were also insured specially for the rally.

Assembly time was at 5 am when cars started lining up. There were awards in various categories like 'Best Dressed car', 'Best Dressed Team', 'Best Social Message' besides winners of rally from each city. Ladies utilized the opportunity to the max and decorated with lot of innovation and strong social message ranging from Saving Girl Child to Spreading Breast Cancer Awareness to Saving water. I found the decorations creative and funky. One of the teams whose decoration and dressing was as extremely innovative is also below. My wife's car focused on the theme of Stopping Child Abuse.

































Wife in her new Avataar:



Wearing #IAMTHEDRIVE T-shirt:



Their team was called 'The Karkinos Queens'. One of the queens from the car




All the best to the participants:



The rally was split into almost two equidistant drives. For Bangaloreans, the first day halt was at Shimoga (around 310 KM from Bangalore). Cars from Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad halted at Kolhapur, Ganpatipule and Bellary respectively. I found the drive a good chance to know about TSD rallies and also drive and relax at Goa. Booked "Green View Clarks Inn" at Shimoga for one day and "Go Green Spice and Eco Friendly Resort" at Cavelosim beach, Goa for two days well in advance. Idea was simple, while wife is busy in calculating TSD, I can chill in Goa with my Abarth

Drive from flag off point at Devanahalli, Bangalore to Shimoga was 6 hours. In evening I found my beast is surrounded by beauties who were also lodged in the same hotel :-) :

[livetodrive]

Next day rally restarts from Shimoga to Goa:




In the mean time I check in at "Go Green Spice.." at Cavelosim and relax. Compared to the costly surrounding hotels at Cavelosim, this resort is not only cheap but has neatly decorated and well maintained cottages.









Wife is happy completing the rally and receiving a medal for participation:



Next day ladies were allowed to roam around Goa. We spent the day driving around Goa, shopping and visiting an old mansion ending with a great lunch at Fisherman's Wharf.




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As much Goa if famous for beach, beer, and holiday spot, it also has a rich heritage of Portuguese colony. We visited one such mansion, 'Palacio Do Deao', a 213 yr old bungalow, by the Kushawati River which is being restored and maintained by the Portuguese Govt. The guide, Mr. Ruben Vasco Da Gama took us around the mansion and showed some rare artifacts from that generation and their lifestyle. It was quite an experience and must visit for someone interested in history.

















The Award Night for the TWD was a mega event organised at Holiday Inn Resort, Cavelossim Road. 500+ cars, 1500+ ladies all decked up for the occasion, Beautiful stage setup by the organisers, The event was no less than any Bollywood Award function. There was fashion show organised by Bangalore Central, speeches by some powerful women who have made their mark in various rallies organised by FMSCI, musical jugalbandi and of course the award distribution. All this with Ranbir Kapoor being the guest for the evening. Below are some snaps I clicked from the event.









Enjoyed the drive and event. Yours truly.

[SDP]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[soumobakshi]

Let me be the first to congratulate you on covering this. It crossed my mind to do the write up, but with the choirs I was not able to focus.
That's an awesome write up and great pics to complement !

[sudev]

Great write up....can you also get your better half to pen in her side of experience?

[puneetakhouri]

I was also in Goa that long weekend and saw a lot of decorated cars with ladies driving all around. Initially I thought it to be some local woman's weekend rally but now I am surprised to know it was a long one with people coming all the way from Mumbai, Bangalore!

Although I am nobody to comment on someone's driving style but some ladies got lost and were not even looking behind before making a u-turn which was quite dangerous. For the first time in my life, I saw a flower decorated Tata Safari jump a speed breaker with all its wheels leaving the ground.

[livetodrive]

Originally Posted by soumobakshi

That's an awesome write up and great pics to complement !

Thanks Soumo, you have taken up a challenging task for the drive and I am eagerly waiting to see the results.

Originally Posted by sudev

Great write up....can you also get your better half to pen in her side of experience?

Thank you !! I will try my best to add her experience too.

Originally Posted by puneetakhouri

Although I am nobody to comment on someone's driving style but some ladies got lost and were not even looking behind before making a u-turn which was quite dangerous. For the first time in my life, I saw a flower decorated Tata Safari jump a speed breaker with all its wheels leaving the ground.

Not supporting bad driving, but again as I explained its a tough task where the driver is actually controlled by the navigator and for sure not all of the participants are experienced rally drivers. Both days I drove along with couple of participants and found them to be patient and disciplined. But again for an instance I found a confused driver on the highway which might be due to lack of experience.

[V.Narayan]

Thank you for sharing. Delighted to see these events happening in our country. As promised please request your good lady to pen down her perspective.

[abirnale]

I have been following this trip out of curiosity and saw a lot of updates you guys posted on facebook and on HVK groups. Awesome and one great experience. Goa itself makes it a destination to go for many more reasons and when you have TWD, even better!

Great pictures and crisp summary. Thanks for writing down the experience!

[livetodrive]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Thank you for sharing. Delighted to see these events happening in our country. As promised please request your good lady to pen down her perspective.

Thank you. My wife has equal inputs on this write-up. She explained the situation inside the car, the team coordination, the calculations, routing, the recalculations etc. However she would be more than glad to give a short writeup on first hand experience by this weekend.

Originally Posted by abirnale

Great pictures and crisp summary. Thanks for writing down the experience!

Glad you liked the write up, heard a lot about you from better half. Hope to meet you soon.

[SJM1214]

Amazing write-up. Thanks for Sharing.

One of my friends was participating and I was keeping a close eye on this event. Here are some photographs(Shared by her to Publish at Team-BHP) of her car.