Friday, March 02, 2007

Just one week to WRC Corona Rally Mexico 2007

Next weekend will be the World Rally Championship Corona Rally Mexico 2007 in León, Guanajuato. For those who are not familiar with the Rally, a Rally is an auto sport in which production cars (regular cars that are available to the public) are modified to certain specifications and then race against time. The cars run in different surfaces snow, ice, gravel, and pavement on regular roads (not a closed circuit). Each rally is made up of timed "Stages", usually around 15 of them. The WRC is the premiere series for rallying, organized by the Federation Internationale de L'Automobile (FIA) and is the equivalent of the Formula one in rallying.

The WRC season begins in January and ends in December. It goes around the world in 16 rallies: Monte Carlo, Sweden, Norway, México, Portugal, Argentina, Italy, Greece, Germany, New Zealand, Spain, France, Japan, Ireland, and Great Britain. Each rally gives points to the top drivers and manufacturers/teams and at the end of the season the one with most points takes de Driver's Championship title and/or the Manufacturers's Championship title.

Corona Rally Mexico is in it's fourth year as an WRC official event. It is held in the mountains outside León, Guanajuato in México. It is a gravel rally with fast stages and the highest altitude of all the championship.

I will be attending for the third year in a row simply because it's loads of fun. You have to get up very very early in the morning to get to the stages because the roads are closed as the dawn draws closes and they are far from León (about an hour because of the rough terrain). But once you get there you have amazing views and, as the fans from all over the world gather a great ambient. Then you can head to the service park, where you can see the cars being repaired in less than 20 minutes (or they get penalized) by incredible mechanics just metres away from you! You can also go to the superspecial stage in the Leon Race Track where you can watch them running side by side at night.

You can find more information on the WRC site @ www.wrc.com and at the site for the Corona Rally Mexico www.rallymexico.com.

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