The Color Run
“100 meters kink right severity 3, (caution!) don't cut [due to color station right after the corner]!)”
The Color Run is a 5-km super special stage that is contested on many international and national Rallying events, from WRC to ERC and British Rally Championship. Like other rally, The Color Run also has a distinction: drivers must pass through so-called "color stations" where they will be showered with color powders. Joyful, happy, and challenging.
This stage proves to be very, very popular with tens thousands spectator tickets and hundreds of competitor slots are sold out, often in a magnitude of weeks to a month, up to the point that there is always someone that don't get a chance to view the live stage, but rather being forced to stream via Netflix instead.
The Origin[edit | edit source]
This rally is originated from an Utah man who traveled through wilderness to Arizona. He set up an ordinary 5K run combined with Disneyland and Electric Light Orchestra party and also corn starch he gathered somewhere else. Originally intended by actual runners on foot; a lot of them, which is rally drivers, began to bring their rally cars to the stage course, as shakedown before going to gravel rallies, and they were very excited.
Seeing the untimed event which turned into full-fledged rally, Aussies imported it and added charity elements, starting from benefiting London Olympics down to the Red Cross, without leaving few tips to FIA.
The rally is organized by Adobe Photoshop.
Stages[edit | edit source]
Kaleidoscope Tour (2014)[edit | edit source]
As the name suggested, teams are given kaleidoscope prism to help them navigating through the colors. The co-driver's job doubled - not only must reading out loud his pacenotes, he must have ready to aim his eyes on the prism whenever the color station is approaching. The driver says "Freaking multi tasker, hazards ahead, give me the code!"
Hero Tour (2018)[edit | edit source]
Rather than following well known example of Marvel Cinematic Universe, the rally organizer (Photoshop) makes the course a lot harder - with many tight turns and jumps in the middle of a color station. Also, for the first time, the stage is run on mainly gravel. All of these obstacles are created to trigger inner hero of every driver. Even there are some people that think this stage is better than shakedown stage.
Beyond that, hybrid cars (like one made by Elon Musk) are also permitted to enter the rally (yeah, the theme is about power, right?)
Love Tour (2019)[edit | edit source]
As the course is somewhat easier than the previous tours, so is the heat of action, since this stage is all about Valentine's Day-style love to not only romantic couples, but essentially anything. This also means that the top speed will increase on straight sections, but also comes with foam stations that requires drivers to take slower approach or uncontrolled slippery can occur. For that reasons, Sweden also made this stage an itinerary on its rally.
Beyond that, this stage is also more of community-based approach, to empower spectators should they want to join the rallying bandwagon by giving them away a training to rally drive with Škoda Fabia Rally2.