A Solo event is best described as a cross between a Sprint and an Autotest: but it is neither.
Solo is a contest of driving skill on short courses that emphasise car handling and agility rather than speed or power. There is no reversing.
What you need
Your car: Road-legal (e.g. taxed, insured and MOT’d)
Tyres: Road tyres
Driving Licence required?: Not required
Competition Licence required?: RS Clubman
Double Entries allowed?: Yes
Passengers?: Optional
Surface: Sealed (e.g. tarmac)
Minimum age: 16
Ready to get involved?
How it works
The course runs with numbered cones defining the route. Four or five courses are run in the day, and competitors get two runs at each, with the better time to count.
The courses are about 800 to 1000 metres and the competitive times are likely to be about 60 to 70 seconds.
Timing is by handheld stopwatches. There is a ten second penalty for touching a cone.
Classes are divided by engine capacity:- up to 1400, up to 2000, over 2000 and 4wd.
Competitors are randomly divided into three groups. While Group A have their timed runs, Group B will be preparing to run and Group C will be marshalling. So competitors can put something straight back into the discipline! Then Group B have their runs, C get ready and A marshal, etc etc.
The event idea originated in the USA where they are sometimes called Slaloms or Autocross (but they are nothing like our Autocross), and they can have up to a thousand competitors on events that take a week! Nothing like that here, of course, we limit the entry to about forty. Bristol Motor Club ran the first ever Solo in this country in May 2002 and then the second in May 2003.
R&DMSC was the second club in the England to run a Solo in October 2003.