The 1973 Press-on-Regardless Rally (formally the 25th Press-on-Regardless Rally) was the eleventh round of the inaugural

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...

season. Run at the outset of November in

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, the rally was run entirely on gravel.

Report

Due to a combination of scheduling and location, the event was not attended by most European competitors. Giving teams only two weeks following the preceding

Sanremo Rally Rallye Sanremo is a rally competition held in Sanremo, Italy. Except for the 1995 event, the event was part of the FIA World Rally Championship schedule from the 1973 season to the 2003 season. Currently, it is a round of the Intercontinental Rall ...

to travel across the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, and then giving even less time for a return to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

for the following

RAC Rally Wales Rally GB was the most recent iteration of the United Kingdom's premier international motor rally, which ran under various names since the first event held in 1932. It was consistently a round of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) calen ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, proved unrealistic for most teams, and in the event, only a few teams from

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

made the trip with their domestic

Polski Fiat 125p Polski Fiat 125p is a motor vehicle manufactured between 1967 and 1991 in Poland under a Fiat license by the state-owned manufacturer Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych (FSO). It was a simplified and altered variation of the original, Italian-made Fia ...

vehicles. As it turned out, the event was primarily a local affair, with a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

Walter Boyce Walter Boyce (born 25 October 1946) is a Canadian former Rallying, rally racer. He is the only Canadian to win a World Rally Championship event, which he managed at the 1973 Press-on-Regardless Rally in the United States. He took his second podium ...

, taking the win ahead of a field of American drivers. In 1973, and for several years afterward, only manufacturers were given points for finishes in WRC events. With the teams focused on the prestigious RAC Rally upcoming, and with the year's championship already sewn up by

Alpine Renault The Société des Automobiles Alpine SAS, commonly known as Alpine (), is a French manufacturer of racing and sports cars established in 1955. The Alpine car marque was created in 1954. Jean Rédélé, the founder of Alpine, was originally ...

, the works teams did not make an effort to compete in the American leg of the championship.

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

became the beneficiary as it was a Corolla that carried Boyce to victory, while other makes popular on the North American market filled out the ranks.

Datsun Datsun (, ) was an automobile brand owned by Nissan. Datsun's original production run began in 1931. From 1958 to 1986, only vehicles exported by Nissan were identified as Datsun. Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in March 1986, but relaunche ...

s were particularly prevalent—especially the locally popular

Datsun 510 The Datsun 510 was a series of the Datsun Bluebird sold from 1968 to 1973, and offered outside the U.S. and Canada as the Datsun 1600. The 510's engineering was inspired by contemporary European sedans, particularly the 1966 BMW 1600-2 &mdash ...

—and

Polski Fiat Polski Fiat (literally in English: ''the Polish Fiat'') was a Polish car brand. Under this brand, cars under licence of the Italian manufacturer FIAT were manufactured or assembled in Poland. Before World War II The brand was created in 193 ...

was rewarded for their effort in making the trip by a finish in the points, but overall, the results factored little into the factory efforts for the championship.

Results

Source: Independent WRC archive

Championship standings after the event

References

External links

Official website of the World Rally Championship

1973 Press-on-Regardless Rally
a
Rallye-info
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200627135750/http://www.rallye-info.com/ , date=2020-06-27 Press-on-Regardless Motorsport in Michigan 1973 in American motorsport