News

Eifel Rallye Festival filled to the brim

Fast 200 Nennungen für 130 Startplätze

With two hundred entries received for the one hundred and thirty places of the main field, the selection process for the Eifel Rallye Festival has been even more laborious than usual. Particularly so for Reinhard Klein, the man behind the Slowly Sideways group from which comes the majority of the preserved or restored rally cars at the Festival.

According to him: “These last few weeks have been really crazy. Even after rejecting those cars that did not comply with the strict Slowly Sideways regulations, we still had far too many entries. Of course, this is a good sign because it shows that more and more car owners respect the true history of rallying. But on the other hand, it caused problems that we never wanted to have and for which there is no 100 percent fair solution.” What the organisers did was to consider the fact that the theme for this year’s festival is ‘40 years of the World Rally Championship’. Thus any car resembling a piece of WRC history was given priority. Of those cars that do not resemble WRC history, only one entry per car model could be accepted for the Eifel Rallye Festival. This accounts for those cars coming from or resembling those competing in the ERC, in national rallying or in the pre-WRC days. If there were more than one of a particular model entered, then originality decided which one was chosen.

With four months still to elapse before this ‘mobile museum’ of rallying gets under way, the event director and president of the organising MSC Daun, Peter Schlömer, is rightly excited by the interest shown in the 2013 Festival: “The tight schedule and the limited space available in the centre of Daun are the reasons why we cannot allow more cars to compete. Furthermore we have fifteen course opening cars that do not have to comply with the strict Slowly Sideways criteria and this group is also fully booked. All this is happening four months before the actual event! That is just amazing and a great acknowledgement for all our work and effort.”

Former World Rally Champions Christian Geistdörfer, marketing director of the Eifel Rallye Festival, and Walter Röhrl, patron of the event, are also looking forward to the rally in the Vulkaneifel hills. They commented that: ‘The Eifel Rallye Festival is a truly unique event in every possible way! For the third year running, we can see that interest in the true history of rallying is enormous. Not only have we experienced an enormous rush from participants, but also from fans and media from all over Europe.’ Geistdörfer went on to say that he is hoping to have a few more famous international drivers coming to participate in
the Festival.

To celebrate the theme “40 years of the World Rally Championship”, the event will furthermore include a parade of WRC champion cars that will appear in chronological order. These will include winning cars from the two European Manufacturer Championships of 1968 and 1969, then the three International Rally Championships for Makes from 1970 to 1972, and then the WRC champions from 1973 onwards. To make it even better for the spectators, each of these cars will bear a side number relating to the year of its success. Thus the championship-winning Ford Escort Twin Cam from 1968 will drive with #68 and
the Alpine A110 from 1973 will be identified by #73.

For further information, contact either of the gentlemen listed below. If photographs of the 2012 event are needed, a wide range of these can be downloaded for free from the McKlein Photography web site. The link you will
need is :-

http://www.mckleinimagedatabase.com

On the same site, there are also images from previous years of Slowly Sidewaysactivity in the Eifel going back to 2006.

Eifel Rallye Festival - schedule

Thursday, 25.07.2013

16:00 – 20:00 New shake down at the ‚Mantaloch‘ in Brück
from 20:00 Open Air Cinema with famous film-maker Helmut Deimel

Friday, 26.07.2013

09:00 – 13:00 Scrutineering, Rally Mile, Daun
10:00 – 12:00 Autograph session with Walter Röhrl and all other star
drivers at the auditorium in Daun
from 14:30 All-gravel Bosch Super Stage with water splash, jump and
sideways action
from 19.00 Tarmac night stage in Sarmersbach

Saturday, 27.07.2013

08:00 – 17:00 Tarmac stages in the Vulkaneifel plus many attractions on
the Rally Mile in Daun
from 19:00 Rally Party in Daun