Quote Originally Posted by Hasselhoax View Post
Some small tips to first visitors:
The designated spots are sometimes ok but sometimes very, very bad and my personal view is that organizers should instead mark out places which are a absolute no-go (plus outside of corners of course) and then let people spread out. I've been in very safe spots and been chased away because it was "not behind the ribbon"...
Some very good points there. About official spectating points, it's good to realize organizers must place official areas in line with Finnish safety legistation/standards/whatnot - meaning for example that there must be a driveable escape road to the official area. This absolutely narrows down a lot of options and means a lot of offical areas are in junctions.

Good thing is that in Rally Finland spectating is no way limited to official areas only. Marshalls are keen to hush you away from the road after one hour before the first car, but then again marshalls are not everywhere and if you behave well, most of them are easy to co-operate with. Of course there are absurd examples when spectators have not been allowed in some safe spots, and then again every year spectarors themselves must marshall first timers away from dangerous places, like I did last year on the second run of Surkee stage where one spectators wanted to spectate on the spot where Jon Armstrong destroyed his car on the first run.

One yearly debate is always also about mosquitos and horseflies. :-) We do monitor the situation closely and do our best to eliminate excess before the event :-) This year summer is three weeks late compared to last year and 1-2 weeks late compared to average, so probably more mosquitos this time around.