Sebastien Loeb currently leads the World Rally Championship. With over 60 WRC victories to his credit, he is without doubt the World’s best rally driver, ever.
Rally fans will get to see him and over 50 others drive their WRC cars on what are considered by many to be the best rally roads in Australia, all competing for valuable WRC points from 8-11 September 2011 . It’s been 31 years since International Rally drivers rallied in the region and some of the new crop of rally stars don’t know just how much rally history is trapped in the dust of the shire roads of Coffs Harbour.
When the World Rally Championship was announced for Coffs Harbour, wheels were set in motion to run a classic event in support of the WRC rally, a return to the golden age of the Classic Rally’s of Coffs Coasts past. Crews from around the nation will compete over about half the WRC course. Each day the Classic cars will return to the Coffs Harbour service area and fans will be able to see the cars and talk to the crews up close.
The Coffs Coast Classic Rally will be a battle of the Escorts and Datsun’s – the equivalent to the Holden versus Ford battle of Bathurst. .
Led by the Australian Classic Rally Association, (ACRA) Classic Rallying is one of the fastest growing parts of the sport and the club enjoys membership by more past Australian Rally Champions than any other club, members reliving the glory days of the Golden era of rallying by competing in the same specification cars and in some cases the actual cars of the period in competition as part of the Australian Rally Championship. Crowds have flocked to the forests this year to see the old cars again and the drivers and navigators, in many cases the same drivers and navigators who drove them 30 years ago.
There is little doubt that the Coffs Coast Classic rally will be a nostalgia trip for many, especially for some of the WRC teams who have personnel who were there in 1980. Not only will many residents and locals see the cars and crews that made the area famous the world over for Rallying, but they will see new cars and drivers creating history once again.
