Neste Oil Rally Finland 2010

As some of you may know, in 2010 Neste Oil Rally Finland will be 60 years old. Known before as the 1000 Lakes Rally, we have come a long way. 1000 Lakes Rally used to be a challenge of endurance. The start was at Helsinki, and the stages went by Tampere and Hämeenlinna and the teams went through nights. Today WRC rallies have seldomly more than 300 kilometers of stages and the last stage for the day is finished well before darkness.

But with 2010 Neste Oil Rally Finland, AKK has decided to go back into that time a bit. They are including a special stage in Jyväskylä that will determine the starting order for the rally itself, and hopefully this stage will go by Harju as it used to back in the days. Of course, this means that nor Killeri or Vetomies challenge will either be part of NORF 2010. Killeri isnt that much of a loss, since its costs to rent have gone up and not as many people show up there than it used. The drop of Vetomies however is a bit disconcerting, but hopefully they will hold it with some other rally this year.

Also a new thing, the competition days will be from thursday to saturday, dropping sunday off completely. With the same amount of stages, this means longer times on the stages during a single day, so the endurance element is getting back to rallying. And hopefully we'll be seeing people actually rallying with lights on aswell for a change!

After the rally, AKK will hold a great party to remember to the colourful history of NORF at Paviljonki. Paviljonki has programme during the rally aswell, of course about the history and future of the rally. From what I hear, many rally cars from the 50s to the Group B monsters and current generation WRCars will make an appearance.

However, these changes dont come with all great news, besides the aforementioned dropping of Killeri and Vetomies challenge, there is also the problem of possible traffic congestion. Since the stages are more packed to a day, more people will be out spectating, but hopefully this wont prove a huge challenge for AKK.

I will be dying to see how these changes will affect the NORF, and hopefully in a good way.