[faksta]

1911 Coupe du Tsar (Sevastopol run)

The 1911 Coupe du Tsar has been organized with a new idea. The competition too place on worse roads than a year before to assess the possibility of using automobiles in such conditions. Every competitor was permitted to repair his car in a race, including engine replacement, but using only his own parts – nothing else could be applied. Having that in mind, every car must have arrived to a checkpoint in time and in a good condition. The imposing of off-road stages have had one more aim – disallow the participation of racing cars.
Moreover, this time it was a team competition – the winner was the one whose team received the least amount of point (divided by the team members number). Speed stages have been rejected, and the aim was a regularity. The route started in St.-Petersberg and went through Vyshnyi Volochek, Moscow, Tula, Kursk, Kharkov, Ekaterinoslav, Melitopol, Simferopol and ended up in Sevastopol – more than 2000 versts, including 750 versts of dirt roads. Entrants have been divided into five categories – above 9L (I cat.), 6-9L (II cat.), 4-6L (III cat.), 2.4-4L (IV cat.) and under 2.4L (V cat.).
57 cars took start in St.-Petersberg on September, 7 including 24 foreign equipages. 7 automotive clubs and 6 manufacturers were represented by them. Russo-Baltique drivers were E.Zigmunt on K12/20 and I.Purzhelis on C24/30. Both could not take part in a fight for a victory – Zigmunt retired in a middle of the distance, while Purzhelis bent a leaf spring of his car. However, three more Russo-Baltique cars were entered by non-factory drivers A.Nagel, V.Svistounoff and V.Shishkin, all three on C24/30 cars. Nagel managed to finish the race without penalty points, while Shishkin retired and Svistounoff scored some point for being late.
41 cars have successfully finishel in Sevastopol on September, 16. The winner was a team of First Russian Automobile Club from Moscow – I.Filippoff (Mercedes), N.Mironoff (Berliet), O.Follmann* (Minerva) and P.Iljin (La Buire). All the four team members scored no penalty points.
Among the others such companies as Horch, Komnick, Brennabor, Opel, Ford, Laurin & Klement, Lorraine-Dietrich, Loreley, Benz, Adler were represented, driven by some famous European drivers.
After the finish a little scandal took place – Rein automobile club director has made an appeal stating that Filippoff must get a penalty – he had a problem with a steering, which has been fixed during the race. But as a repair on a distance has been permitted, that appeal has been rejected. This story has had a negative influence on a future of Coupe du Tsar.

*I hope this is a right spelling.

Pictures:
1. One of the participants suffering from Russian dirt roads.

A number of other competitions were held in 1911, including Caucasus run, Moscow-Orel, Moscow-Riga and various verst races, but to get further with this thread I'd skip them.