Team History
Early Days
Our Dad is a mechanical genius. He took the engine off our rototiller in the gardening off-season and put it on a go-kart frame, putting the power through a centrifugal clutch. He made a track in our pasture and we enjoyed that go-kart there and everywhere we could go. That’s Dave taking our sister Sharon for a ride. We liked to go fast.
Eventually we got a Honda 50 minibike. We loved to ride. In 1977 we moved from Oregon to Kenya, East Africa, upgraded our bikes and started doing motocross. We liked competition. We came back to the US for college and raced some more. Dave’s here on his Honda.
In Kenya we were immediately thrilled to learn about rally. During the Safari Rally each year our bedroom became a big command center, with charts on the wall, newspaper clippings all over the floor, and the radio blaring scoring updates. We tracked the scores and went out to see the cars at speed in the dirt wherever we could. Rally became our dream sport for when we could afford more than dirt bikes.
Our family did a little other motorsport while we were in Kenya. Dave and I entered a few motorcycle Trials competitions, and an Economy Run with our Uncle Dave’s diesel Rabbit. Dad, with Sharon co-driving, won an Economy Run overall in his Fiat 850 Sport after testing and optimizing carburator fuel jets with a scribed glass bottle under the rear lid of the rear-engined car. Got a great newspaper article about “the eccentric professor”!
What is Rally?
Simply stated, performance rally is real cars, on real roads, going real fast. A performance rally is a series of sprints on closed roads, mostly dirt and gravel, and ideally consisting of fast, smooth, and twisty tracks – we’ve done ours in the forests and deserts of the United States and Canada. Rallies may include racing through mud, rain, snow, and dust – sometimes all in the same 2-day event. There are no Armco barriers – unforgiving ditches, trees, and drop-offs line the rally course. The driver has an asset to ensure he goes as fast as possible on the road – a co-driver/navigator rides in the passenger seat telling the driver the severity of every curve in the road, and warning him of every jump, every mudhole, and anything else the driver needs to know, just in time, through the helmet intercom. They’ve run all of the 100 or more miles of the course in advance, making notes on which ditches to hook, which to avoid, and how fast to attack every turn and obstacle. The race cars start at 1-minute intervals and the sprints are timed to the hundredth of a second. In between the sprints (called stages) are transits to the next stage and mandatory service stops, where the cars are repaired. At the end, the stage times are added up and the fastest man wins.
In 1986, while we were in college, Dave bought a 1973 Dodge Colt that had been prepared for rally when new by American rally Hall of Fame driver Scott Harvey. We’ve been rallying ever since. The engine blew in the first event and Rick bought it, overhauled it, and rallied it until 1991.
Over these many years we’ve had a lot of different rally cars, along with fantastic co-drivers, crew chiefs, crew members, and car builders. And spectacular events put on by hard-working and talented organizers and volunteers around the USA and Canada. The events we do feature incredible fast, smooth, and twisty roads to challenge us.
As Seen on TV – Hintz Bros in the Media
We’ve been featured on Speed Channel, ESPN2, and the Outdoor Life Network (OLN).
Dave has driven 188 total regional plus national rallies thru the 2024 Olympus Rally, 28 of them with a co-driver other than Rick. Rick has driven a total of 44 rallies, with 8 different co-drivers. Both of us have co-driven for each other but not for any other driver. Dave owning the car and team has been the more successful combination for the Hintz Bros. But 1999 was a really fun year with each of us driving our own cars and racing against each other, in the same class (Open 2 wheel drive), in the same events. Rick won a lot of stages and one rally vs. Dave, but Dave definitely did better overall.
We’ve volunteered at a lot of events when we’re not running, and Dave has now put on an event (2024 Wild West Rally) as the Organizer and Chairman.