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I made a tour in the site but couldn’t see about it. What kind of a rally is it Jolyon Wagg organizing? The engines of the cars at the Marlinspike seems different to me. Citroen of Thompsons, a sports Mercedes and a Chevrolet. And some tiny cars, with different engines, I think.
Mustn’t the cars’ engines be same in a rally? Anyone who knows about it?

Merhaba! It looks as if the rally was some kind of car race, as seen with those lines of bottles (if they are indeed start and finish lines, that's a really short track, even if it's conceivable that the participants are supposed stop their engines and coast if they pass the finish line--longest coaster winner--but that's a big stretch). I think that the car's engines are supposed to be as similar as possible, but given that Wagg has clearly mismanaged the event (cars parked all over the place, cars smashing into things, no clearance on the track, and everything in every direction), the results would surely be very interesting, to say the least...

Ni hav! (I wish I didn't write it wrong)

Probably it is because of Wagg's mismanagement.

celalli
What kind of a rally is it Jolyon Wagg organizing? (...)
Mustn't the cars' engines be same in a rally? Anyone who knows about it?

A rally can also be like this

Such a rally is friendly, it's not a race, and speed is even penalized*, as reported in the Shell info's 6th paragraph...

In other words, Jolyon Wagg's rally is a 'jeu de piste', i.e. a paper chase**, a research by initiated people, a chase that matches with what Tintinologists have been doing for decades, namely scrutinizing the corpus into its many peculiar aspects, among others...

But this sympathetic rally's also shows an impossible speed***, as already mentioned in the 'Siamese cat thread', for Wagg's friends' twenty cars appear too fast, magically within minutes, between p.61 (C4) and p.62 (C1)...

A rally that is slow and extremely fast at one time matches with the many other Tintinverse's duplications*** and spatio-temporal faults***...



* not to say mph, i.e. space & time, are linked to a fault...

** a term that I might have mistranslated into 'tracking game' in two other threads...
Provided paper chase is the correct English expression, could a nice moderator possibly modify these mistakes for me, for imho translating 'jeu de piste' correctly is most relevant, when it comes to Tintin...

*** please see related threads...

I've just found a site for those who are interested in the car makes shown in Wagg's rally; please see here
http://site.voila.fr/tintin_et_les_autos/images/5-picture.jpg?0.36590601582748505

Rallies don't have to be races of any kind. Having been brought up around motorcycles, I've been on several rallies, and some are just groups of friends getting together for a few days to talk bikes, and go out for a few rides.
There's one in Germany called the Iron Butt Rally, which is 1000km in 24 hours, and one in Italy which is a trip up a snow topped mountain on unsuitable vehicles, classed as a race simply because there's a competition to see who can get furthest up the mountain.

Cheers for the link, yamilah!

The rally as part of the Tintin festival is just people with cars travelling around together, more of a parade than a race.

I think the rallies that Herge used to complain about were sort of an orienteering event in a car.

Rik

The rally as part of the Tintin festival is just people with cars travelling around together, more of a parade than a race.

It looks more like a social gathering than many other things (still, there could be a racetrack someplace else, like a country road). The cars are not what you'd call really special cars (I think that all the models were quite common at that time). A rally could be a way to disguise the fact that annoying Wagg is there...

I agree with wench - a rally is just a collection of people doing something, a “large gathering of people intended to arouse enthusiasm”, (think of a political rally, or anything where you “rally round”).

A car rally can be a competition involving rally driving (which is a race on public roads, rather than on a track), but it could just be a concourse, where vehicles come together to be judged on their merit. Traction engine owners have rallies without racing, for example. However, as snafu points out, it could just be a poorly organized race, thanks to J. Wagg…

Thanks to all; It is a new knowledge for me that there can be rallies which don’t have to be races of any kind. It seems more interesting than a race itself.
Thanks for the links, yamilah.