Catalunia entries
80 entries have been received for the Catalunya world championship rally. This will be the first rally for Petter Solberg in a Citroen C4 WRC, the car originally entered by Andreas Mikklesen whose entry has accordingly been withdrawn. Among the entries is 63 year old race and rally driver Dany Snobeck, the 2008 French champion, whose first WRC entry was 30 years ago. Also please note competitor number 71 for the Romanian crew Edwin Keleti / Victor Ponta – Renault Clio R3.

Ford Close to Wins Record
Ford’s 73rd world championship rally win achieved at Repco Rally Australia brings the company tantalisingly near the official record of 74 official wins established by Lancia, a successful series which finally ended seventeen years ago at the Sanremo Rally in 1992. Lancia’s total includes their team’s controversial victory on the Sanremo Rally in 1986, when the cars of the team’s rivals Peugeot were wrongly excluded in mid-event and prevented from finishing the rally. FIA officials declared that no points should be awarded as a result of this event, but that championship status in all other respects was valid. The Sanremo crisis had a profound effect on the sport at the time, causing the provisionally declared world champion Markku Alen to lose his title after just eleven days after the final round, the Olympus Rally. This was the final crisis which affected the troubled Group B era. Lancia’s total of ten manufacturers’ world rally championship titles however is an achievement which is sure to remain for a long while to come. A Ford spokesman has said that the company will not advertise their potential achievement until hopefully they achieve two more victories, to allay once and for all the memories of the unpleasant arguments of that time. Rally Australia was Ford’s fifth win in a row and their driver Mikko Hirvonen’s fourth successive WRC win, only his rival Sebastien Loeb has had longer winner streaks. It came three years after Hirvonen’s first world win, in Australia in 2006. It was also on the occasion of his codriver Jarmo Lehtinen’s 100th world rally start.

Threatened Species Survived Rally Australia
Good news has come to protesters worried that traffic associated with Repco Rally Australia would harm protected lifestock species. A report issued by specialist authorities stated "the most pleasing aspect was the results were far better than anyone would have expected. We only found a small number of killed animals which, quite frankly, is arguably less than you would normally expect to find on these roads. We put this down to the gradual build-up of rally activity over the morning of each day of the event. Importantly, there was no evidence of any animal having been killed in the small areas of National Park traversed by the rally". The specialists checked out all the 344 kms of rally activity and recorded a casualty total of two lizards, four snakes, nine birds and a single mammal, which was much less than expected for this number of competing vehicles. "Most importantly, no threatened fauna, including koalas, were killed or injured. Despite claims made to the contrary in the weeks leading up to the rally, the results validate the conclusions reached in our July reports that the rally would have no significant impact on threatened species.

3mmm
photo: Citroen C4 WRC - Petter Solberg