There’s the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Indy 500, Monaco Grand Prix, and likely a few others, but in general, finding a motorsports event that’s still running after hitting the 75-year mark is rare. To that end, we present the Press On Regardless RoadRally, which is about to celebrate its 77th event.
Beyond that, you’re encourage to participate in the next Press On Regardless® with two National Tour RoadRallies, taking place Sept. 5-6, 2025, in northern Michigan. But how did this event get to where it is?
Press On Regardless (POR) came about in 1949, when SCCA’s then one-year-old Detroit Region chose to host a cross-country event.
“The first Michigan Press On Regardless started out as a two-day, 360-mile TSD endurance rally, explains Detroit Region’s Bruce Fisher. “It included vehicles such as a 1930 MG-M, 1939 BMW 327, SS100 Jaguar, and a 6.9-liter 1936 Duesenberg and was won by a 1949 Studebaker Special two-seater.
“The starting location moved around in the Lower Peninsula,” Fisher continues. “By the mid-1960s, it was a 24 hour thrash with pauses just long enough to get gas. It quickly earned the title of America’s longest, oldest, and meanest road rally. The term ‘press on’ continues to be used by many stage rally competitors.”
(The POR has experienced quite a bit of history. This image conveys some of the adventure from the 1951 running of the event.)
The rally’s quick-paced Time-Speed-Distance elements not only won it SCCA’s Rally of the Year award in 1968, but set the stage, so to speak, of Press On Regardless becoming an FIA International Stage Rally. SCCA Pro Rally then sanctioned the event through 2003.
“In 1994, Press On Regardless returned to its roots as a very brisk TSD with Gene Henderson as the chairman after Detroit Region decided that traveling more than 500 miles to the Houghton-Hancock area was just too far,” Fisher explains.
For the 2024 event, “we decided to run both days in the Upper Peninsula, using as many roads as possible from the 1971, ’72, and ’73 POR to celebrate the 75th Anniversary,” he says. The Friday rally had 27 entries and was awarded the W. David Teter National Tour Rally of the Year.
Read all about the 2024 running of POR here.
“POR 2025 will have a schedule of 3 p.m. to midnight each day,” he explains. “This will provide more driving time after dark, hopefully allowing higher CASTs with less traffic and less used roads”. The routes will again use many roads from the 1960 & 1970 POR’s.
From experienced rallyists to those completely new to the sport, everyone interested in RoadRally is encouraged to participate in the 2025 running of Press On Regardless, where teams should expect to travel north of the Mackinac Bridge on Friday while staying in the Lower Peninsula on Saturday.
While the modern-day Press On Regardless RoadRally is far from a stage rally, teams should expect to see ample unpaved roads during the two-day adventure. Because of that, vehicles with low ground clearance are not recommended.
Registration for the 2025 running of POR is open and costs $100 per car per day. Non-SCCA members must purchase a $20 weekend membership. Also, the RoadRally will utilize the Richta GPS Checkpoint app, which can be found on the Google Play and Apple App stores.
This is how the Richta app works.
More information and the registration link for the 2025 running of Press On Regardless can be found below.
Photo by Chase Collick
