[Aerkuld]

When I lived in England I was a member of the local car club and did a few road rallies, which I guess is similar in principle to that which you are referring. These weren't races as such, they were officially refered to as 'navigation rallies'. The idea was to complete the event in a given time which would be worked out on a 30mph average speed.
Basically, at the start of each stage we were given a sheet of paper with all sorts of codes and evil devices for encrypting the route. The idea was that your navigator would set to work on the first few plots while you drove, he would then continue working out the route, navigating you down it, and at the same time keeping an eye on the time and distance to make sure you hit the next control point on time. You were penalised for being early or late, or going off route.
Of course it didn't go that smoothly most of the time, and both he and I would be sitting at the side of the road trying to work on the route, and then I'd have to make the time up that we'd lost.
That said it was very, very rare for anyone to have any incidents and even driving enthusiastically we were probably not going that fast.

I do remember finishing one event in my Mini, and on getting out we noticed we had had grass and other debris wrapped all around the tailpipe. That would have been OK but it was all swept sideways, rather than backwards from a corner that we had taken with the back hanging out off the side of the road. Oops!

If I remember correctly, the local police were informed when an event was on, but they'd generally stay out of the way, and it was all fairly civilized. It was generally done late at night, always on quiet country back roads, and we weren't allowed to drive through villages over the posted speed limit or with our auxillary lights on. Everything was very well controlled, for example there would be marshalls stationed in the villages who'd report rule violatins back to the checkpoints etc. Essentially a lot of fun, for very little expense.

Even at the time though, things were starting to get a little difficult. It was getting harder to find decent roads, diffucult getting volunteer marshals to man the control points and villages, and harder to get police agreement. I just can't imagine trying to get the same thing organized over here, it would be next to impossible without someone suing you.