Rally Raid news & rumours

[alleskids]

I cannot find a good place for news and rumours concerning rally raids. Africa is the birthplace of rally raids, so it seems the perfect place to me. Besides a south AFRICAN won the Dakar rally and two Nissans bilth in South Africa became 4tth and 5th . Also two American drivers were on the rostrum, so what better place to discuss rally raids ?

Juta Kleinschmidt, the 2001 Dakar winner, is of the opinion that Le Dakar only can take place in Africa. She is on the edge of building up a new team, driving a Ford or a Nissan, probably built in South Africa. Marcus Gronholm on the other side, is very interested in Le Dakar because it is in not in Africa, but in South America. So we can look forward to a test and a rally for the 2 times world rally champion?

FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies 2009
UAE Desert Challenge 23-27 march
Tunisie Rally 23 april – 2 may
Transiberico Rallye (Portugal) 15 – 21 june

FIA World Cup for Cross Country Baja’s 2009
Baja Northern Forrest 26 februari - 1 march
Baja Italia 19-22 march
Baja Espana Aragon 23-26 july
Hungarian Baja 20-23 august
Baja Portalegre 22-25 october

other important rally raids
ASO Dakar series:PAX Rally some were in april
Rally dos Sertoes 23 june – 3 july
Por las Pampas Rally 3-12 september
ASO: Central Europe Rally somewere in september
Silk Way Rally 25 september- 3 october
Rallye des Pharaons 3-11 october
Shamrock Rallye du Maroc 24-30 october

[alleskids]

The board of CEO’s of Volkswagen has reacted positive about the Dakar victory and media coverage. But nothing has been decided about the future plans. If they continue they have to build a new version of the Touareg, based more on the production model. Nasser Al Attiyah is rumoured to race the VW. But he just has signed a new contract with X-Raid. He will start 2009 by doing the Baja Italian and the UAE Desert Challenge. His Russian colleague Leonid Novitsky will do all 3 rounds of the FIA Rally Cross Country Championship. Peter van Merksteijn wil also do a number of rallies.

Mitsubishi RalliArt will continue as a private team, like X-Raid. Providing technical assistants during the rallies and test and developing the Racing lancer, with permission of the factory. Carlos Sousa has become the first client. He wil do the Portuguese cross country championship (starting this weekend) and probarly the Dakar rally with sponsoring of TMN. Repsol is reported to be working on an other team. Joan Roma is the logical (first) driver, but maybe there will be an other driver. The second main sponsor, Valeo is reporting to be establishing a team with Frenchmen Luc Alphand and Stephane Peterhansel.

[alleskids]

This is the car Carlos Sousa wil use this weekend

[Wim_Impreza]

Thanks for the information.

Do you maybe know where we can find results of the 1st round of the Portuguese cross country championship?

[alleskids]

http://www.sigera.org/ervideira2009/
thanks Wim.
I hope we can share news (and rumours) about rally raid too on this forum. I occasionaly suffle true Spanish, Portugese and Russian sites to dig up rally raid news, but hopefully we can share it on an easier way here. Rally raids are more and more becoming an privateer opertunity. So any intersting news is welcom.

[alleskids]

Next thursday starts the Baja Northern Forrest in the snow of Sint Petersburg (Russia), the first round of the FIA Baja World Cup. Only 2 non Russian drivers are on the entrylist. One of them, Mirosklav Zapaltan will probarly do the entire baja world cup in a Mitsubishi L200. Defending Baja world cup winner Nasser Al Attiyah will be present during the second round, the Baja Italia.

http://www.northern-forest.ru/en/par...nts/entry-list

[alleskids]

Russian Boris Gadasin won the first round of the Baja World Cup on the snow of Sint Petersburg (Russia) in the Baja Northern Forrest. He came firs tin his Nissan for Rustan Misikov and Miroslav Zaplatan.
Gadasin will do the rest of the Baja World Cup in an Isuzu T2. The next round will be Baja Italian, were Nassar Al Attiyah wil be present with the X Raid BMW.

[White Sauron]

Russian Boris Gadasin won the first round of the Baja World Cup on the snow of Sint Petersburg (Russia) in the Baja Northern Forrest. He came firs tin his Nissan for Rustan Misikov and Miroslav Zaplatan.
Gadasin will do the rest of the Baja World Cup in an Isuzu T2. The next round will be Baja Italian, were Nassar Al Attiyah wil be present with the X Raid BMW.

Boris Gadasin will do the Cup in the same 7-litre Nissan GF edition, prepared by his team G-Force Motorsport. His main aim for the season is to try to beat Nasser Al Attiyah.

[alleskids]

I read in Portuguese media that Gadasin was buying a Isuzu D-Max from a Portuguese driver, Rui Sousa, to challange the T2 title. He changed his plans to an overal battle? That is even beter competition. Especially when he starts with a 15 points advantage.

[alleskids]

The ASO gave a glimp on the 2010 Dakar route. It will be a reversed route from this year rally, starting north, having more special stages in Chilis enourmous high dunes and returning into Argentina more in the middle, so loosing a big part of the southern special stages, which were to narrow and more WRC shape than rally raid.