Right from the start, I could see there’d be no issue maintaining or surpassing the speeds I could achieve in my Quattros. And doing it all in silence adds yet another dimension which has an unexpected benefit, without the roaring drivetrain your ears pick up on all kinds of subtle little clues as to what’s happening between the road and the tires and these valuable little audio inputs can often alert you to a change in surface or grip before the physical inputs from the chassis and steering do.

The real challenge of course came on the Big Night, as an organizer I can choose my own role for the event and I almost never fail to go with Course Opening Car duties. This job involves leaving the start about 15 minutes ahead of the first competitor and running the entire route to ensure that all the roads are open and safe as well as see that all the checkpoint cars are in their correct locations with the correct synchronized clocks, etc. This also means that one generally has to go FASTER than the competitors, lest they catch up or overtake me! The Model 3 Performance proved vastly up to the task, staying well ahead of schedule the whole night.

The only real hitch was the temperature. After having run the route several times during the layout and checking phases in 0℃/32℉ to -10℃/+14℉ weather I was able to determine that the max range at those temps while running at rally speeds and conditions would be around 150 miles or 250 kilometers. So I simply engineered the route to stay within that distance.

I also was fortunate to find a restaurant in our start and finish location of Hawkesbury Ontario, Déjà Vu, that had two 40 amp Tesla Destination Chargers so I could also be assured of leaving on a full battery and not having to worry about where to refill if I came back really low.