Trelles is Back
Four times FIA Group N champion Gustavo Trelles, now 53 years old, left his peaceful life in native Uruguay and went last week to Cordoba in Argentina to help Federico Villagra test the VRS team’s Mitsubishi Lancer EvoX on the sierra roads. Villagra and Luciano Bernardo were testing for five hours in torrid heat, preparing for the next round of the Argentine series in Bariloche. It had been seven years since the popular burly driver was last seen in a rally car and for the test he was accompanied by codriver Diego Curletto. Trelles said he was really happy: "It is unbelievable what this Lancer EvoX is capable of. It’s very driveable and you have the feeling your control of the car is so much easier than what I was used to with, for example, the world championship Lancia Deltas or the first evolutions of the Mitsubishis. After this contact with a modern rally car, I’d like in the future to enter, just for fun, a round of the Uruguayan Championship or maybe a regional event in the local Cordoba series on the stages used in the WRC Rally Argentina. I’d do it only for the taste of it and to have the pleasure of competing in Villagra’s team sometime".

Other news
JAS, the Honda competition agency in Europe, has announced that the FIA are permitting longer bodied cars into the 2010 Junior world championship, which will therefore admit the Civic R3 into JWRC.

45 crews have entered the ten day Kenya Airways East African Safari Classic Rally to be run in Kenya and Tanzania. Spectacular mountainous sections in Tanzania are on the route. The event is based at Nairobi but overnight rest halts will be at Arusha, Amboseli and Naivasha.

Confirmed by the FIA is another title for Kris Meeke! In addition to winning the IRC, he is also the FIA’s South West European Rally Cup winner, on account of results in Madeira and Sanremo. This is one of three supplemental zone series which were formed when the old style European championship series was broken up, so that a focal superseries could be formed. There are two other such zones series in Europe: Czech driver Vaclav Pech is the winner of the Central series and Italian Marco Tempestini has claimed victory in the Eastern series.

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