The Eifel Rallye Festival, to be held from July 18th  to 20th 2019, once again promises to provide a great spectacle for rally fans. Now in its ninth year, the event wishes to highlight its ever-increasing international appeal and thus will be run under the theme "Rally Around The World".

In 2018, the 182 participating crews came from eighteen different countries while more than 100 accredited journalists represented nineteen different nations. "Our festival is becoming more and more international and we want to underline this with this year's theme", says Otmar Anschütz (Daun), chief organiser of the demonstration event and president of the organising club, MSC Daun. "The city of Daun and the Vulkaneifel are looking forward to welcoming its international guests. We are expecting that some vehicles will take weeks until they arrive here by ship and overland in their containers."

The Festival is one of the highlights for the region and is set to welcome close to 40,000 fans to attend the ninth edition this July. Over the years, this demonstration event for classic rally cars has developed into a class reunion of the international rally scene. Former rally drivers, team bosses, mechanics and long-term rally fans have put the festival in their diaries year after year.

"A journalist has described our festival as a unique mixture of sport, show and rally romance in the volcanic Eifel. There is not much to add to this," says co-organiser Reinhard Klein (Cologne). As the head of 'Slowly Sideways', the Europe-wide group of owners of classic rally cars, he is responsible for the unique entry list. "For us it is very nice to see how the participants approach our intention of originality and create replicas that are more and more perfect every year. The Eifel Rallye Festival makes a very important contribution to preserving the history of rallying."

Proud winners from 2018: Best Replication of the Festival
One crew that has followed this approach exceptionally well are Wolfgang Schröder and Detlef May from the German capital Berlin. Their BMW 2002, resembling the works car of Achim Warmbold / Hans-Joachim Dörfler from the 1972 Olympia Rally, was awarded the 'Best Replication' in the 2018 Festival. The attention to detail of their BMW replica goes so far that, when May put a sticker on the bonnet, he did not fix it straight but crooked - just like it was on the works BMW when it started Germany biggest-ever rally from Kiel in 1972. "The photos prove that it was placed exactly like that," says May.

They did have one problem: "In 2010, we started to rebuild the 02 as the original car get lost in 1973. As there were almost only black and white photos, one of the biggest problems was to determine the original colours on the stickers that it carried", May continues. "Except for the petrol and lubricants, all parts of this car are over forty years old." Besides the award at the festival, two other plaudits were very important for May and his team: "We got hold of Warmbold's former co-driver Hans-Joachim Dörfler and he visited us in Berlin. When he sat in 'his' car, he said it was exactly as he had left it. But the greatest praise came from Reinhard Klein. He told us, 'You understood the philosophy of 'Slowly Sideways'".

Festival entries open on March 01, 2019

The 2019 Eifel Rallye Festival promises famous rally cars in action on closed stages together with a deep insight into rally history. As usual, the event will kick off on Thursday with the shakedown followed by the Welcome Evening with films from Helmut Deimel shown on the big screen in the Rally Mile right in the centre of Daun, the heart of the Festival. On Friday, the town centre will also host the scrutineering as well as an autograph session with the top stars. The demonstration rally itself will begin on Friday afternoon with the all-gravel Super Stage that offers a jump, a spectacular water splash and fantastic sideways action. Afterwards the action will shift to the night stage "proWIN Hilgerath" where the route crosses the rally-mad Sarmersbach village. Saturday will be a full day of rallying over the challenging and beautiful tarmac stages in the Vulkaneifel before the weekend ends with a big rally party in the centre of Daun. But the Rally Mile is also worth a visit in between. Here the cars can be inspected at close range, the drivers are happy to have a chat to other petrolheads and the VIP drivers pleased to sign autographs. Anyone wishing to take part in the event with his classic rally car, can submit his entry after March 01, 2019.