London to Brighton

Another Sunday, another motoring rally.

On the third Sunday in May, (or the first Sunday in October, or the first Sunday in November), conspicuously high numbers of a particular vehicle will make their collective way in fragmented convoy from our preeminent city to its coastal satellite.

Assuming the chosen mode of transport hasn't succumbed to fatigue along the way, participants speed the length of the M23, merging neatly into the A23 and slowing to a disarmingly sedate pace along London Road. Suddenly forced into a sharp left at the southern tip of Preston Park, they're flung unsuspecting into a succession of hard and fast chicanes (at which point, if the Model T Ford's wingnuts haven't spun off in protest, they can at least be reassured that the old chugbox is a robust example of its kind). Passing under Rastrick's frankly oppressive brick viaduct and jostling for position along various dual-carriageways, the route straightens and calms along a succession of Places and Parades - and at least one Steine - until, finally, a slight left inclination across Grand Junction will lead them to their destination: Madeira Drive, where crowds of onlookers wait to cheer them over the Finish line.

And, naturally, to gawp at whatever bizarro contraption they've elected to make the journey on.

Part frathouse road-trip, part instinctive flocking action, a motor rally is more obviously cathartic reassurance that one's obsessive interest in a particular configuration of mechanical parts (and sometimes even a particular configuration of mechanical parts assembled within a specific timespan) isn't entirely unhealthy: a unique, mobile form of group therapy.

The run from capital to coast has been a social fixture since 1896, when the Emancipation Run celebrated the end of the notorious 'Red Flag Act'. Motor vehicles had been required to travel no faster than 4mph, with a man walking in front and holding a red flag (sensing the derisive hoots of a high-octane modern readership, I can only add that I was once run over by a milk float, and I can assure you that 4mph is perfectly fast enough to ruin your day). The flag men were out, the speed limit was upped to a blistering 14mph and accelerators were floored up and down the country in jubilatory clouds of lead.

Rallies haven't always conducted in quite such a genteel manner, of course. The mods and rockers infamously arranged similar, separate excursions in May 1964, with spirited consequences. Battle was enthusiastically joined on Brighton seafront, travelling down the coast to Hastings and back in some kind of cartoon brawl cloud, through which leather jackets and RAF target parkas could no doubt be glimpsed. These days, of course, the Daily Mail would have you believe that you can conveniently indulge, if disposed, in that same degree of violence on any given Saturday night within a hundred yards of a Yates's Wine Bar, negating the need to travel 60-odd miles beforehand.

Nevertheless, the weekend high street's loss is the rally enthusiast's gain, and these days Brighton plays host to hundreds of Minis, Land Rovers, VW vans, choppers and hogs, bicycles and even an 'ultra-marathon' arranged by the Road Runners Club.

Mee-meep!