An event I'd been planning on visiting for a few years was Rally Legend, in October I finally made it. Based in the Republic of San Marino, the event has become one of the biggest events in the classic rallying calendar. As luck would have it, we have a customer in Northern Italy, so I was able to fit things in with a customer visit. First stop - Verona. It was great to meet up with my Swedish friend Stefan, he had brought along some of his customers from Sweden. Daylight, and a chance for an early morning walk round Verona. The Arena di Verona, built in 30 AD, every reason to believe this amazing structure will still be around in another 2000 years Nowadays the arena hosts Opera events, just a few weeks before our visit, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras played their to a capacity crowd to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Luciano Pavarotti. We caught Valentino Rossi doing his day job! We are still trying to work out how Stefan managed to get the Swedish flag flying outside Verona Town Hall After visiting our customer on Thursday, we were kindly invited to do some wine tasting, definitely one of the nicer sides to my working life, much better than being in rural China! Thursday night, out for some Italian food, not forgetting the Grappa! Back at the hotel, Stefan continued to promote the merits of Italian wine! Stefan was still recovering from a recent hip replacement, so decided to explain the advantages of the stick shift to Goran Friday morning, before we headed for Rally Legend, we took in one of Verona's biggest tourist attractions - Romeo & Juliet's Balcony
We arrived in Rimini on Friday evening, this unusual beer was on offer, we didn't care to sample it though! (Note: I have borrowed some of the photos in my report from Rally Legend's website etc.) Just as Domingo and Carreras had done in Verona, this year's Rally Legend was to mark the 10th anniversary of the death one of rallying's biggest names, many great names had agreed to attend and pay respect to Colin McRae Who better than Colin's protégé Kris Meeke to be running at number 1 The McRae Clan were there in force: Hollie McRae (Colin's daughter) and Margaret McRae (Colin's mother) Jimmy McRae Alister McRae with the man who co drove Colin to his world title in 1995, Derek Ringer Hollie was also out in the co drivers seat Another of Colin's former co drivers, Nicky Grist was out with 9 time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb Familiar looking car, but not the driver you are expecting... Instead of Russell Brookes, it was former Ladies World Champion Louise Aitken-Walker at the wheel, with her daughter in the hot seat Ari, the great man has not lost any of his fans Incredibly, Ari was the last driver to win a world rally championship driving a Ford, just a few weeks after this photo was taken, Sébastien Ogier would finally end that long wait Bald guys are the fastest! 1988 & '89 WRC Champion Miki Biasion with 1983 Champion Stig Blomqvist
The event is based at the Olympic Stadium in San Marino, a good place to get a close up look at the cars
We went up to the nearby industrial estate to watch the cars in action Local hero was out to entertain in this Fiat 131 Stig was out in the S1, reminding us of that awesome noise that used to fill the air when Audi was top dog in rallying In a realistic tribute, Meeke put the car off in Colin style, it was repaired and ran again
A superb event, there is talk of Stefan's friend Goran running his Chevette HSR on next year's event, so who knows, there might be another trip for 2018. Here is a film clip that will give you a flavour of this year's event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ksg8CGqlUY .
Hi Autohabit, Thank you for this article and photos very enjoyable Rally and plenty of good memories seeing the classic Rally cars.
