[sudev]

Gumball India Jaipur edition starts on July 26, 2024.

It is the toughest endurance driving competition that involves up to 48 hours of non stop driving.

Simple rules:

• Any four wheeler or higher
• Crew of two
• Find the shortest route through all checkpoints
• Finish before 48 hours are up

More at www.gumball.in

https://youtu.be/TJmgHFRG0DY

[sudev]

Very Simple Rules:

• At start starters are given the list of checkpoints to be visited.
• Competitors can visit these in any order.
• Crews have to return to the finish checkpoint before 48 hours are over. Even one second above the 48 hours leads to disqualification.
• The winner is decided based on "minimum distance" covered to touch all checkpoints.
• Coming earlier than 48 hours has no advantage.
• In car app monitors and logs the travel. All stops are noted and cumulative stoppage time is converted to distance based on the crews average speed and added to actual distance covered.
• The stoppage may be for what ever reason.

There is no "official" route or road book.

Competitors are free to follow what ever route - on road or off road - to reach from point to point or in-between.

The sole objective is to find the shortest route that covers all the check points.

[sudev]

Gumball competition is not about speed at all.

It all about keeping your travel distance to minimum while ensuring that you cover all the checkpoint. No standard route is defined.

In the last competition, Gumball Delhi held in March, while a few teams went in clockwise direction other team went in anti-clockwise circuit. AND surprisingly the team than won used figure of eight sort of route to cover all checkpoint.

Why?

One of the checkpoints was on the south bank of river Yamuna near Agra. The teams that dis clockwise landed up on the north bank to cross over the river using a "pontoon" bridge. So far so good. HOWEVER due to rains over past few days the water level rose cutting off the approach to pontoon as can be seen in the attached video.

Now the these teams had to take a detour back to cross over from a proper bridge. This added twelve kilometres to their distance!! The team which did it anti clock wise reached the checkpoint first and did not have to to track back any shortcut detour.

So luck and navigation plays an important role.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=hwUeWKy3UGE?feature=share

[NomadSK]

I guess I have stopped thinking rationally.

Non-stop endurance running, I can think makes sense, But non-stop endurance driving on public roads with sleep deprived drivers trying to finish the circuit with zero regard to public safety is a big NO, in my opinion.

I don't know who gives them the permission to do such stunts. I know the drivers will sign some form regarding liability, and the sponsors will wash off their hands with a piece of paper, but what if an innocent soul gets involved.

I can't understand what's the motivation and encouragement in doing such thing. Probably age is fast catching up for having such weird thoughts.

[sudev]

NomadSK makes a valid point.

I can only input two things
1. The checkpoints at located in such a way where highway/expressway driving is minimised. Further designed in a way that every hour or two one point is touched. Points are off the road.
2. Speed requirement is very low. It's not that competitors do not rest of stop. They swap and power naps are refreshing enough to see through 48 hours. Like doctors on duty do 36 hour stints. Add refueling and food stops.

Plus there is rotating calling going on every hour during the day and half hour during the late night to alert the driver.

Motorsports guys will follow Dakar rally or London Beijing or even Gumball 3000 with high profile parties every night. Let's no bemoan endurance events here. Added service time between day stages and you really get very little sleep while competing at high speeds.

Indian population density means no cross county rallying is possible. Desert Storm and iconic Raid-de-Himalaya met the same fate.

[furyrider]

I went through the website and am even more confused

From their website:

In short to win you will :
Cover long distances from start to finish
Hard & ass numbing non-stop endurance drive
Go on on road or off
Cover all the checkpoint
Do this within shortest distance

Which is it? Cover the longest distance or cover all checkpoints within the shortest distance?

Point number 2 concerns me. I completely agree with NomadSK here. Even with 2 drivers, driving for 48 hours takes a toll - especially since the event will occur on public roads. Since there is no fixed route, I do not think permission will be obtained by the organizers from the concerned authorities.

Another quote from the website:

A simple non-stop endurance DRIVING challenge of 4000 kilometres across India.

Covering 4000 Km in 2 days with our Indian traffic is a feat in itself. Participants have to cover 83 Km per hour on an average. If we factor in breaks, visiting the said check points, the distance to be covered per hour will be well above 100. I am not sure if I missed something here, but this looks like a perfect recipe for disaster. Event happens on public roads - with the other road users being unaware of the said event happening around them; 2 drivers covering long distances with hardly any breaks with the added pressure of covering some checkpoints in between.

While I do not intend to belittle the race, I simply cannot wrap my head around what this "endurance race" is trying to achieve here. On one hand they say participants covering all checkpoints in the shortest distance wins, on the other they mention that this is a non-stop endurance driving challenge. Will I support something on a closed circuit? Absolutely! Will I support this on public roads? Nope! I cannot support something which endangers the life of other road users.

[McLaren Rulez]

Originally Posted by furyrider

Covering 4000 Km in 2 days with our Indian traffic is a feat in itself. Participants have to cover 83 Km per hour on an average.

The video says 2500 km but I agree that it's still much too high. It's an average speed of over 50kph, which is still extremely high if expressways are minimized.

[sudev]

Originally Posted by furyrider

From their website:

Which is it? Cover the longest distance or cover all checkpoints within the shortest distance?

Cover long distances is only to inform the intended participants that it's not sorry distance. The competition itself is to cover all checkpoints in shortest distance.

Point number 2 concerns me. I completely agree with NomadSK here. Even with 2 drivers, driving for 48 hours takes a toll - especially since the event will occur on public roads.

This is not closed route fast speed driving event. The competitors are to follow all traffic rules including local speed limits.

Covering 4000 Km in 2 days with our Indian traffic is a feat in itself. Participants have to cover 83 Km per hour on an average. If we factor in breaks, visiting the said ....

This pertains to first two events when running time was 90+ hours with one stop.

Subsequently the distance expected was reduced and now expected coverage is between between 2000 to 2400km with running average of 40~45kmph

Last event winner had average of 39kmph and they did all points in approximately 1870km

[sudev]

Gumball is also about navigation and strategy.

As in my earlier post I mentioned few competitors went clockwise and were talking each other somosto till the morning of last day.

One car came in to finish at 1000hr while the other came is just in time before 48 hours were over at 1600hrs. Difference of 6 hours.

Almost identical distances were covered by them within range of 4~5 kilometres of each other. But in one case the average speed was 48kmph and the other was 40kmph.

The slower guy had actually covered more distance BUT came second overall.

Why?

Because the stoppage time of both was converted to penalty distance leading to additional distance penalty of 18 kilometres as stoppage time for both was slightly more than 2.5 hours.

So it's not about just going faster but also reducing your average speed to least do that stoppage penalty is also smaller.

Yes reducing stoppage time itself to minimal helps a lot.

[furyrider]

Originally Posted by sudev

Subsequently the distance expected was reduced and now expected coverage is between between 2000 to 2400km with running average of 40~45kmph

Last event winner had average of 39kmph and they did all points in approximately 1870km

Ah, I see! Thanks for clarifying. I found the 4000km part on the homepage just below Jaipur map, that too in red! The organizers really need to update the website. The website is a complete mess!

[sudev]

Thanks for pointing out the error. Yes the web site is a bit of mess right now as the old site crashed and we are rebuilding. Also the team is being built to take the event format forward across the country.

https://youtu.be/quwleYWezqk

[sudev]

Love driving long distances? Want to participate in driving competition? This may be for you.

*Gumball Jaipur* starts July 26, 2024

Toughest endurance driving competition in India. Participation in 4WD SUV highly recommended to take advantage of shortcuts through trails and tracks.

The screen grab from the tracking during the last event shows one of the competitors skirting around Sambar dry lake bed. The line marking shows the shortcut taken by 4WD competitors.


Another screen grab shows one of the participants taking a direct line to cross over a small tributary of Yamuna east of Agra. There are village roads in both sides but there is no bridge across. Instead the local people just walk across when water level is low. This competitor took a big risk in his Thar to cross at this point in way to next checkpoint but it saved them 7~8 kilometres of extra travel.


This screen grab shows location of many checkpoints across and the tracking is available publically. Will detail out how this helps in next post.


More at www.gumball.in

instagram.com/p/C9AJTEVyOSz/…

[sudev]

Gumball competition is intense also because open public tracking of all competitors.

How?

This unique competition is not just fought by the two person crew in the vehicle but also back end team mates sitting across the globe pouring over the map apps. Google map with satellite image or Google Earth are examples.

The backend suppoters - one or many and one or multiple locations - are in constant communication with the team computing calculating the best routing. This is the fun and even more when the terrain around is flat lands like in Rajasthan the next event's home ground.

OTOH the competition can also see you in tracking and try and adapt their navigation to your. Hence no one wants to be in lead yet cannot afford to waste time at the beginning. Hobson choice rally.

However everything on Google maps is not correct. Google aunty tries to shove you into smallest of lanes and often over older road (even supposed road). Dead ends at common.



Maps image above shows a road running along the canal bank and direction of travel needed. However the upgraded doubling of rishwat track has resulted in a new underbridge few kilometres each way to the right. And the road is blocked at the marked line.

Even people living in Fatehpur Sikri (~15km away) or Agra (~20km away) who may travel on the Agra Jaipur highway, showing a little bit on top of picture, don't know about this. So local knowledge is really not too much of advantage.

Everytime you are thus stymied you add distance in go around. So strict balance needs to be exercised by crews between adventure and need to not loose relatively

[sudev]

Continuing stories of Gumball trials and tribulations



The screen grab shows area around Chikaldara which is a hill station in middle of the country. There are two ways up. One from Amrawati and second from Ghatang. You can skirt going up to Chikaldara by going around the base from Amrawati to Semadoh. Downhill from Chikaldara to Gatang and then to Semadoh passes through Malegaon first reserve.

Competitors were coming from the south and going northward to Indore.

Those who were in a hurry reached Chikaldara checkpoint at varying time starting as early as 4 am. These then turned around to go downhill through the forest reserve

Here they hit a roadblock!!!

The forest checkpost would only open to traffic at sunrise. This was end December so sunrise was atleast three hours away.

They could wait. But incur stoppage penalty.
They could go downhill towards Amrawati and loop around to Semadoh but log in higher distance.

Hobson choice.

Red line is the direct route down while yellow is the long way around.

[sudev]

Driving - especially off-road - needs understanding and experience.

Even after watching 4x4 videos on the internet many many times you will not be able to replicate the exploit because of one very important factor. The ground underneath.

Yes a simple thing but often not considered by most.

India has quite a different soil across it's length and width see the picture below. This is not to say that it is only sandy in Rajasthan or only rocky in Kashmir but predominantly the soil in particular region will be like this.


Even sand will vary from river bed to river bed to coast to dune to hilly run off's. Even dry or wet sand on coast or river sides will behave differently.

To take shortcuts successfully you need to understand what ground you are driving across and often it is better not to go in and get stuck.

Gumball is a total driving experience that tests your driving, navigation, endurance, skill and team work. Are you up to it?