Novorossiysk Here We Come
The venue for the Russian round of the world rally championship to be held 16-18 July 2010 is the "Hero City" of Novorossiysk, a naval port on the Black Sea which already hosts the final round of the Russian national series. The area is well known as Russia's leading wine making region. FIA officials will attend the 2008 event (26-28 September) as advisers, the go to the official candidate rally in 2009 for observation. The area behind the city is mountainous with gravel special stages, which makes it more attractive than the fast and flat roads used in the current Rally Russia based at Vyborg. The whole area is rapidly developing, but currently international access is limited. There is only one daily direct flight to Europe. This is from the airport at Krasnodar, some 150km inland from Novorossiysk, which goes to Vienna.

The existing international Russian rally is set to carry on with IRC, who have a five year agreement with Eurosport, and it is presumed in Russia that these events will continue to be run in north-west Russia. In the next week event Anton Alen will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing start to the season and claim victory on the event that he won last year. Series leader Luca Rossetti won't be making the trip to Russia, but look out for fast-Finn Juho Hanninen in a 207 and local driver Nokinov, plus legend Didier Auriol, starting his 2nd IRC event in a Grande Punto. It is not clear who will use the name Rally Russia. The promoters of the Black Sea rally are calling their event "Novorossiysk Rally Russia, WRC Candidate".

New Finnish Rally Chief
41 year old Kai Tarkiainen has been confirmed as the Clerk of the Course for the 2008 Neste Oil Rally Finland (NORF), taking over from Risto Laine who continues his work as the federation's rally brand manager. Kai has been involved in the organisation of NORF for many years, being trained for this responsibility under the former Clerk of Course Simo Lampinen. Because Finland
counts not only for the WRC but also both the PCWRC and JWRC, road quality is particularly important and iconic Ouninpohja stage will not be used in its traditional form, because of concerns about the high average speeds. The actual route was proposed by Seppo Harjanne and is new in about 40% of its sections.

Sordo in O.K. Auto Ralli
The 2008 WRC is currently enjoying a six-week summer break, but Dani Sordo/Marc Martí are to interrupt their holidays to contest July's O.K. Auto- Rally. The Spanish pair will drive a Citroën C4 WRC and will seek to profit from their visit to the land of saunas and small red houses alongside pretty lakes to enhance their grasp of the country's unique stages. This is their second presence in what was known as the former Mantta Rally and the event will take place between 11 – 12 of July and runned over eight stages. This is the fifth round out of seven of the 2008 Finnish Rally Championship. The leader in group A is Jussi Valimaki (the 2007 champion) and in group N Jari Ketomaa together with Kosti Katajamaki.

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