What will the Solberg Brothers do in 09 ?

[Tomi]

(Tomi and you other finns, I know you will be protesting this...!).

Off course im not protesting, everything is possible, but now rally in Norway is a 1 man show, the whole rally Norway organisation seem to crawl in front of Petter, from outside it looks amusing.
The main thing is what comes after Petter finishes his carreer, not so many good driving years left for him, the interest for rally might collapse if there is nobody to continiue. Also i dont get carried away too easy when it comes to new talents, from a new talent who can drive to top 6 there it's still a million things that can go wrong before he becomes a works driver.

[MJW]

Over 500 pages about what Petter will be driving in 2009 - If Malcolm Wilson or Olivier Quensel are reading this they will at least know that the driver they have if their car will have charisma and an generator of interest, "Hollywood" will brighten up the WRC with his celebrations when the wins come,

[pettersolberg29]

Over 500 pages would be impressive

[MJW]

Over 500 pages would be impressive

sorry posts

[pettersolberg29]

But your point is a good one. Just think what it would do for soemone like Citroen if they ran Petter in Norway. The Norwegian market for Citroens would quadruple in 3 days!

[Gard]

But your point is a good one. Just think what it would do for soemone like Citroen if they ran Petter in Norway. The Norwegian market for Citroens would quadruple in 3 days!

Yeah, and that would be about the number of cars sold in any car dealer in UK or other big nations in europe

[BDunnell]

But your point is a good one. Just think what it would do for soemone like Citroen if they ran Petter in Norway. The Norwegian market for Citroens would quadruple in 3 days!

At the moment, I doubt it would have any effect.

[JFL]

Before Petter signed a conract with SWRT, Subaru was next to nothing in Norway! Citroen is'nt that big at the moment, and I'm sure they would profit from it! Not only in Norway! Seems like he is a bigger star in other countries!

[A.F.F.]

I just wanted to say hi to Petter himself in case he is reading this thread

[Sulland]

Norway was actually nowhere in rallying when the Solberg brothers came into the sport in 96-97. Finland has always been oceans ahead of us, and our neigbours Sweden was looked upon as big brother. Certainly we have passed the swedes now, and possibly we can gain on Finland (Tomi and you other finns, I know you will be protesting this...!). Anyway we have had what we call the Solberg effect. New talents dare to think that they could have a chance if they try. Of course Mikkelsen and Østberg has been blessed with rich fathers, but believe you me - they are not only spoiled kids, but very talented too. Other young guns steadily pops up these days; Brynildsen, Bieltvedt, Kjær and more will come. We have a "youth class", allowing drivers to start with rallying from the age of 16, before they can take their licence for road-driving. In the midst of the financial crisis we started up a new Subaru Cup last saturday, with no less than 19 spanking new Impreza Sti N14s on the start line. It doesn`t look too bad, actually...

Yes, and the armada of young talent can in my opinion be traced directly back to Petter and Henning - what we are calling the "Solberg Effect"
Same as we see in other sport: Top athletes makes more people want to start, and then talent will come, and will have a path to walk in from their predecessors ! Let hope it continues !!!