The Visually Impaired Try New Direction : Cars: Road rally sponsored by Braille Institute makes navigators out of blind and partially sighted teen-agers. The event tests their reading skills and guides them toward independence.

One by one, sports cars, classic cars, family cars pull up to the starting line and wait for the green flag. With a squeal of tires, they’re off. But this is no ordinary road race.

All of the navigators are blind or visually impaired teen-agers, participating in the Braille Institute’s annual road rally. For more than four hours Saturday, the teens put their sighted drivers through the paces on an 80-mile trek around the Los Angeles area. Directions in either Braille or large print were the key to unlocking the racecourse.

For blind or visually impaired young people growing up in car-conscious Southern California, the rally is as close to driving as they can get. As the race approached, they could not conceal their eagerness to hit the road.

“I love cars, especially sports cars,” said Colin Smith, 15, of Los Angeles, as the 1972 Triumph Stag in which he was riding edged toward the starting line.

Smith was ready to direct driver Gordy Hite of La Palma on a winding route across the San Fernando Valley up to the Angeles Crest Highway and around the basin before returning to the starting point at the institute’s Youth Center near Universal Studios. Hite said he volunteered to drive the course simply because “It’s just a great thing to do.”

Ricky Salazar, 16, of San Gabriel broke into a big grin as he waited for the chance to test his skill at unraveling the highways. “It’s almost like I’m driving,” he said.

From behind the wheel of her Mazda RX-7, driver Elizabeth Wong of Torrance looked forward to the challenge. “Basically it’s like a big puzzle,” she said.

“It’s fun,” said Hermilo Jimenez, 19, of Los Angeles, from the passenger seat of a 1952 MG convertible--bright red with a white top and gleaming chrome. “I like to participate in events.”

Beyond the sheer fun of it, rally organizers have a purpose--to boost the self-esteem and self-confidence of blind and visually impaired youngsters and to encourage them to be “as independent as they possibly can be,” said Anita Wright, the institute’s Youth Center coordinator.

“We hope that our kids will learn from this experience,” Wright said. The car rally is one way the institute seeks to enhance the willingness of young people to learn Braille, a skill not easily acquired.

With the loss of vision, Wright said, “It’s much more difficult to sit down and read something. It’s more of a task than an enjoyment.”

Participants in the rally must be at least 12 years old and read at a basic level in Braille or at least at the fourth-grade level if they have limited vision.

Using their instructions, the teen-agers tell the drivers what route to take and how fast to drive.

The car rally is just one event sponsored by the nonprofit institute, which provides educational programs for more than 32,500 blind and visually impaired people across Southern California.

The drivers are all volunteers, including some celebrities. Actor Tristan Rogers of “General Hospital” was behind the wheel in the lead car, a 1990 Jaguar. At his side was navigator Dami Nichols-Dawood, 15, of Rancho Mirage, who thought the rally was a good substitute for driving.

“If she’s ready, I’m ready,” Rogers said. After a five-second countdown, they roared off down Cahuenga Boulevard--the first in a parade of vehicles from the ordinary to the exotic.

One car left every minute. In all, 52 vehicles hit the road, including a supercharged 1936 Auburn, a 1965 Sunbeam Tiger, and a San Fernando police car.

Trophies were awarded to the driver and navigator who posted the fastest times in categories for the blind and for the visually impaired.

Don Hume, an aerospace worker, has organized and managed the rally since 1984. He said the race gives students at the Braille Institute a chance to work in the sighted world. “They can be in a car as something other than a passenger,” Hume said.

To compete in the race, three things are necessary. “You have to learn to read,” he said. “You have to be able to navigate with a sighted driver, and you have to have a sense of humor.”