1000 Lakes Classics: Vaheri and Himos – Classic meets modern

Vaheri is one of the 1000 Lakes Rally classic stages, driven all the way since the 60’s. In latter decades a nearby skiing center of Himos has also had its namesake stage and occasionally these two stages were merged together. In Rally Finland 2021 the area will return with the new Patajoki stage. This article […]

WRC Calendar History VIII: 1998-2003

The WRC had rebooted itself in 1997 and the format was found successful. The calendar changed mostly only by one event a year, although new events were eager to join in. Rallies started to concentrate their routes on smaller areas, with less service area locations combined with longer stages. Meanwhile, new rules were being experimented […]

WRC Calendar History VII: 1997

The World Rally Championship adopted a new format in 1997. The rotation was abandoned and all rallies were again included in the championship. Now there were fourteen events, and all top drivers would take part in all of them. To compensate this, the rallies were made shorter and some had to adjust their traditional dates. […]

WRC Calendar History VI: 1994-1996

In 1994 the WRC calendar was reshaped drastically. A new rotation rule meant that every WRC event — even the classic ones — would take their turn in having a year off the WRC Calendar within a three-year period. The calendar became shorter, but more competitive. Another big change on service areas would follow a […]

WRC Calendar History V: 1989-1993

During the early 90’s the speed of the cars started growing again, alongside the popularity of the series. Some of the earlier limitations were lifted one by one, and when events couldn’t be made longer by the total distance, endurance aspect was brought in via longer stages. Two new events also made their debut in the series during this era.

WRC Calendar History IV: 1987-1988

After the tragic accidents in Tour de Corse 1986 a lot of changes were imposed quickly. Many of them concerned the routes of the rallies and would change permanently. Some alternate ways were also created to let the big audiences follow the sport safely.

WRC Calendar History I: 1973

This is the beginning of an article series where we go through the history of the WRC from the viewpoint of the routes and seasonal calendars. There won’t be many mentions of cars, drivers or winners, but plenty of geography, kilometer numbers and rule changes. To kickstart the series, we look at the inaugural WRC […]

WRC History: Tour de Corse routes 1996-2019

In the latter part of the Tour de Corse route history we take a look at the modern versions of the Corsican WRC rally, although it wouldn’t be anymore true to its name. This part offers a good selection of onboard videos. Cover photo by Antoine Valentini / Flickr 1996-2008 At the end of April […]

WRC History: Tour de Corse Routes 1973-1995

Tour de Corse is the longest-living all-tarmac rally of the WRC history and one of the original WRC rallies from 1973. It’s called infamously the rally of 10 000 corners and in this blog post series we take a look at the roads which have contained them throughout the WRC years. In the first part […]

WRC History: RAC Rally 1985

RAC Rally 1985 has become legendary for being such a tough event. The route was longer than ever with conditions as treacherous as always, but the cars had taken giant leaps in terms of performance. As usual, no pace notes were allowed.