Mortal Engines
A glimpse into the human-machine connection necessary to survive the Delfi Rally Estonia
Estonia has a fascinating history. Initially, under Russian occupation, it was independent between the World Wars before it was then enveloped by the Soviet Union. It was only in 1991 that this country of 1.4 million people regained their independence.
As a small and new country, you would be forgiven for thinking Estonian sport was a bit meagre. But that’s simply not true. Tartu’s Sport and Olympic Museum featured exhibitions on the events hosted there during the 1980 Olympic Games, including gold medals won in athletics and cycling, as well as global successes in volleyball, wrestling, skiing, and many more. But, there is one sport in which Estonia can claim as their own. Rally.
The Delfi Rally Estonia is one of thirteen events that make up the World Rally Championship, the highest level of rally racing worldwide. The gravel roads in Estonia make for excellent high-speed stages, and the Estonia event is one of the most highly anticipated on the calendar. In the top division of the World Rally Championship, only Ford, Hyundai, and Toyota manufacture cars, and at Rally Estonia, we saw eleven crews compete at this highest level. Twenty stages took place across the long weekend around the Tartu province; we managed to get to four. The sport is insane.
Stage 1 was held in a park on the outskirts of Tartu. I had travelled to Estonia’s second city with my dad following an efficient evening of tourism around Tallinn, the nation's capital, and was joined in Tartu by Herbie, one of my closest school friends. My dad has a near encyclopedic knowledge of cars thanks to a fascination that stretches back to his formative years, whilst Herbie is also somewhat of a petrolhead. My car knowledge was limited to identifying brand badges thanks to my ‘i-spy book’ collection as a child, but I was happy to nod along with their technical jargon, as they occasionally turned to me to explain a concept. The three of us walked through the gates of Raadi Park to a wall of spectators hugging the fenceline, craning their necks and cameras towards the circuit. Red Bull paraphernalia was scattered across the hilltops, completed by a slackline walker, who seemed unperturbed by the events unfolding around him and was quite content bouncing on his bottom for the duration of the race.
We heard the roar of the first engine from the start line. One long wave of dust was thrown up by the tyres beneath the treeline, and all of a sudden, a blur of metal careered round the bend in front of us. The car rounded the top of the hill and flew past us on the straight, screaming into the corners and continuing to leave the dust like a breaking wave. The sound was extraordinary. The screaming engine was matched by the cheers of the crowd and their airhorns, but if you listened closer, you could hear the ripping tyres on the gravel bends. Every few seconds, the antilag system would crackle deafeningly as the car protested against the extraordinary expectations of the driver operating it. As the sun crept lower into the evening, the dust seemed to get higher and higher. A black helicopter hovered over the scene, presumably for aerial photography, but it gave a slightly menacing impression.
We walked around to try and find some drinks and toilets, but our wild goose chase only took us past scores of Latvian and Estonian flags. Thousands of people were standing on the hills trying to find the best angle or corner to watch their heroes. Eventually, we crossed into the central spectator area. Only one car was allowed onto the course at a time, and each team’s cumulative time taken across all twenty stages determined their position in the final standings. A crew consists of the driver and co-driver, who is responsible for delivering specific instructions for how to drive the track, delivering them in real time in a sort of code.
All of a sudden, a huge cheer went up from the crowd and the airhorns sounded all at once, creating a strange multi-pitched drone; a chord with 100 notes all fractionally separate. The car rounded our bend and shot towards the finish line. The driver was Ott Tanak. As 2019 World Rally Champion, he and his co-driver had plenty of pedigree, but there was one thing that set them apart. They were Estonian. Tanak is clearly revered in his home country. At Rally Estonia, he was coming off the back of taking victory at the Acropolis Rally in Greece. His name was on huge swathes of shirts and, at the opening ceremony in Tartu Town Square, even the country's Prime Minister singled him out as his expected winner at his home race. No pressure then.
It was at the opening ceremony when casual spectators were first introduced to the cars and drivers in a sort of prolonged catwalk across the stage and round through the Old Town's winding streets. Before that, though, we had to listen to sets from two Estonian pop groups, watch a parade of Baltic police cars, and spend two hours trying to calm my dad down as he angrily gestured for the photographers to move out of the view of most of the crowd.
Our accommodation was two rooms in a local home, the Poet's House, that belonged to its resident poet, Heidi. She had a slightly excitable demeanour and keen organisational habits, but had near-perfect English despite her Finnish accent. Her boyfriend, Peter, shared her linguistic ability. I should imagine two Englishmen travelling to their small country for a car driving event must have been somewhat unusual.
The following day, we visited the Estonian National Museum, curated in an old airfield. The sheer number of exhibitions was frightening, many of them genuinely captivating. An interactive map of Estonian and global accents was a particular favourite. My dad and I also meandered through one of the city parks, which held the university grounds and cathedral, which was half ruin, half museum. Tartu's intellectual history is the greatest in the Baltics, since Tartu University has generated many of the continent's great minds since its opening in 1632, including the founder of the Armenian language, Khachatur Abovian. The university currently produces 100% of the country's lawyers and 99% of its doctors and dentists.
The three of us caught a bus to Elva, a nearby town, to watch another stage. We stepped off the bus to a barrage of cannon fire. Straining to see over the crowds five people deep, we could see two drifters circling round the local roundabout as a prelude to the rally. All the houses were made of wood, and a pretty pink town hall framed the chicane we ended up next to. The whole town was a sparse forest; trees were everywhere but on the roads. And yet, in this beautiful, serene town, these monstrous machines were screeching round corners and thousands of people were screaming with them. For the most part, all the cars passed through the course unscathed, though some rode the curb through the chicane. The Latvian duo however, hit the hay bale exiting the chicane and lost a section of their front bumper as it skidded to the side of the road, instantly turning from a precisely designed component to a souvenir for a quick-thinking spectator.
Of the four stages we attended, only one was in the forest, which some see as quintessential rally racing. Tanya, our Latvian taxi driver, had lived in Colindale in London for seventeen years and was telling us about her career as a dentist, her children's school, and the Swiss rally fans she had dropped off earlier who had got up at 5am for the best viewing position. As it turned out, that may have been a smart decision. Arriving at the entry road, it was immediately clear Tanya would not be driving down there. A line of cars kilometres long was being ushered out by marshals, whilst groups of pedestrians squeezed passed them in the opposite direction towards the event. This little Estonian dust path had never seen such activity. So, we marched towards the spectator area in forty minutes in the blazing heat. I think we were all thankful for the trees' shade, but the horseflies and mosquitoes were not so accommodating. We began to hear passing rally cars echoing off the trees.
Eventually, we arrived at the site. A vista stretched out before us. Three sweeping curves built to a crest alongside our vantage point, and then a downhill left turn ushered the cars into the distance again. Cars regularly exceed 120kph on these roads, but with trees and spectators pushed right up to the roadside, it felt even quicker. Sweden's Oliver Solberg was leading the way, with Tanak a few seconds back. The Estonian got his customary rousing cheer as he zoomed past. The Latvian fans were once again in fine form, waving their flags for Martin Sesks and Renars Francis once again. One group had even coordinated bringing various metal poles, constructing a small scaffold atop the spectator hill. Many had camped in the forest overnight for a front row view at 8am. Rally fans will do anything for their sport. Much of the discourse around the Latvians was their treatment of Rally Estonia as a home race, since their neighbours usurped their position in the rally calendar from last year. We retraced our path back to the motorway to find Tanya, who had kindly offered to pick us up again. The line of cars had only got longer and the dust and fumes felt like they were in my lungs, hair, mouth, ears, and nose. Not to mention my mosquito bites were throbbing in the heat. We finally scrambled into Tanya's car, and as we set off, she opened the glovebox. Inside, there were three ice cold Coca-Colas, each with a name on. Herbie's said 'champion.' I turned mine round. 'Bae.'
The final of the four stages we attended was back at Raadi Park, where the first had taken place. Dwindling spectator numbers meant the atmosphere wasn't quite so invasive to the senses, but the dust and antilag remained the same. By this point, the podium places were coming close to being settled: Oliver Solberg, Ott Tanak, and Thierry Neuville made up the top three. It would turn out to be the final order, putting the home hero top of the season-long standings by a single point over Welshman Elfyn Evans. My dad and I also walked round to the final corner, a hairpin demarcated by a large boulder on the apex. Each car would brake heavily and pivot the rear around the front bumper for minimal time loss. It was one of the rare spots where one could easily quantify the difference in driving performance, as we could see the amount of daylight between the car and the rock. One WRC2 car even gave it a nudge on the way by.
We finished the evening by visiting the paddock. Drivers were eating their dinner on our left, and hugely overpriced merchandise was being sold in front, behind, and all around. Every car that had raced had a designated period of scrutineering, whereby team engineers could attend to the car, checking and fixing all its various parts, though most cars didn’t seem to have suffered too much. I nodded along as my dad picked up various model cars, explaining the significance of their real-life counterparts, setting each in context with rally history. I was genuinely interested, but I was also delighted to be able to share this new experience with my dad in something he cared about and knew so much about. There was also a motion rally simulator; one of those ones on hydraulic stilts that tips you this way and that to mimic the motion of whatever video is played in its interior. I left it very queasy.
Herbie and I were travelling on to Riga, so my dad and I exchanged goodbyes with Heidi and Peter, then headed to the bus station. I waved him off northward back to Tallinn, then Herbie and I boarded our bus heading south.
Hope the bites are improving ❤️