EcoRally RACC, a bittersweet experience

A few days ago we took part in the EcoRally RACC in its second edition with a Honda Civic 1.6 i-DTEC, with very good impressions compared to the first one, but with many important aspects still to be improved, such as refuelling and the route. But let’s set the scene before anything else.

It was a regularity and consumption test, and in both cases, in our view, somewhat improvable by the organisation for next year. The Arrabassada road is one of the busiest at weekends with all kinds of vehicles, including buses and cars without a licence, since it is the shortest road linking the Vallès with Barcelona without tolls or motorways, and it also leads to Tibidabo, an amusement park.

That said, it is understandable that 29 June, a Saturday, is the perfect day for the holidays to begin for many Barcelonans, who, adding the roadworks that the councils take advantage of at this time of year, make driving through the centre of Barcelona chaotic in the middle of the morning. Leaving the centre of Barcelona at 12:00 was no good idea. The regularity sections no longer made any sense for us (despite having finished third in our category): traffic, lots of traffic and some wrong turns seriously hindered the good start to the next timed section, thus accumulating seconds that were impossible to recover without penalising consumption.

Our only hope was consumption. And so we set out to do it, obtaining figures of 4.6 litres per 100 km according to the on-board computer over the entire route, a little over 170 kilometres. But the marshals did not apply the same criteria to all participants, going so far as to move the car so the fuel would settle and more could fit in some cars. The conclusions are not hard to draw when one participant, a SEAT Ibiza 1.2 TDI Ecomotive, recorded 2.86 litres according to the organisation.

The day ran along roads that were more or less busy depending on the moment, but close to Barcelona, with a morning stage of 70 kilometres including the link sections and a 100-kilometre afternoon stage. In total 8 timed sections of between 5 and 16 kilometres, time for many anecdotes such as forgetting to start the stopwatch, or the odometer… Moreover, the link sections were very tight for travelling at around 50 km/h, so it was necessary to press the accelerator harder and, as a consequence, penalise consumption.

Of course we were going to enjoy ourselves, with the hope of making a good showing, and personally I think we achieved it, but for the participants of the Catalan EcoSeries it may not have been a welcome sight to see such measures. We hope that next year they will sort out these criteria and that both the pre- and post-event refuelling will be carried out under the same criteria. It is true that the rules are set by them, and it was the responsibility of each participant to bring the tank full to the closed park.

Despite these small setbacks, as we told on the blogHonda Dreams, the experience was rewarding, we had a very fun day and were able to get to know the merits of the 1.6 i-DTEC engine much better. The result was 16th place combining efficiency and regularity, which out of 42 participants is not bad at all.

More information | Official RACC rankings

Technical specifications of this car

HatchbackHonda Civic3 versions · from 36,300 €