World Rally Championships

Mint Sauce

hi guys, some amature pics from the service park this afternoon

genie

Gillie wrote: »

I work right beside the Airport and it's a hive of activity today!
There have been at least 4 landings and take off's this morning - two of them are the normal scheduled ones.

Its mad! Shudder to think what the traffic will be like today and tomorrow!

I drove the Geevagh-Arigna stage today (had to get coal!) and the normally deserted road is full of cars/lorrys/vans/camper vans etc., making s**t of the grass verges and the road itself. People are camping all over the place, there are three camper vans and a tent parked up a bog road right on top of the mountain, how they got up the road (and how they'll get out) I have no idea! Others have just parked in gateways and are presumably going to sleep in the car, so be careful if you have to drive hereabouts as some aren't parked very well.

Also lots of people walking along the roads in the dark wearing black. :rolleyes: Let's have a bit of common sense people.

Quite a few portaloos on the Geevagh side of the mountain (none the other side) - maybe we could 'borrow' a few for Sligo town?

Bendihorse

Ahh heading up to arigna tonight to go sleeping out, its going to be a very interesing night with lots of frozen bits and bobs!

nanook

Bendihorse wrote: »

Ahh heading up to arigna tonight to go sleeping out, its going to be a very interesing night with lots of frozen bits and bobs!

Thats dedication, now define sleeping out, are you sleeping in flynn's carpark after closing time or........

BFassassin

I cant wait for this to start. What are the chances of getting in to the service park on Saturday though. Id love to get close to the cars but it will probably be like a cattle crush?
Are there going to be any stalls selling WRC merchandise? I want to get a new Citroen jacket.

Paddy20

What a great boost for tourism in the North-West, even though I am not a rally fan. This has to be great for the North-West in all respects .

P. :cool:

nanook

I have heard mention that this event is woth 36 million to the north west.

Gillie

I heard 50.

And the great thing is. If we don't f*ck this up they'll be back next year!

nanook

I think the schedule is set for 2008, but definetly ready for 2009

Mint Sauce

BFassassin wrote: »

I cant wait for this to start. What are the chances of getting in to the service park on Saturday though. Id love to get close to the cars but it will probably be like a cattle crush?
Are there going to be any stalls selling WRC merchandise? I want to get a new Citroen jacket.

e15 entry, can get pretty close to the action as well, see some of my pics of the paddocks earlier in the thread, stalls as well for most of the manufactures, plus general stalls selling sovonuiers and other rally related products

tuppence

Saw them in action earlier in Dromahair, Sebastian Lobe as well i think. Dead exciting, the speeds they managed to swing round our corner.Bit hairy, with some of the photographers standing in ditches to get the best shots. :eek:

Mint Sauce

tuppence wrote: »

Saw them in action earlier in Dromahair, Sebastian Lobe as well i think. Dead exciting, the speeds they managed to swing round our corner.Bit hairy, with some of the photographers were standing in ditches to get the best shots. :eek:

was on some of the lough gill stage my self, on one of the back roads before the route joins the main lough gill road, loads of pics, and a few short video clips

tuppence

The lake road is dodgy at the best of times. Glad to know that even the best can get unstuck there. We were talking to a guy whose car was mangled (not Finish) said it was very slippy.

tuppence

Just saw that Gronholm had to be brought to Sligo General after the crash and had lost consciousness a couple of times. That scary, worse then first reported. Poor guy.

Gillie

He's been discharged since apparently.

Hopefully he can still compete.

ArraMusha

Headin up to Tempo tomorrow, plannin on parking on the B80 based on advice and walking to the stage. First pass of cars is 9.50am so wondering whats the best time to get to a ditch ??:rolleyes:

tuppence

Hope you found somewhere safe with a good view. We were at a designated viewimg spot.Think some of the farmers opening up their fields for elevated viewing spts.
Big chunk outa wall at site of crash..... All the toliets gone already, wonder how long to fix wall!

genie

I was surprised at the lack of bins. Surely if they can supply loos they could have supplied bins too, especially as quite a few of the campers/overnight parkers didn't take their rubbish home with them. :mad:

tuppence

genie wrote: »

I was surprised at the lack of bins. Surely if they can supply loos they could have supplied bins too, especially as quite a few of the campers/overnight parkers didn't take their rubbish home with them. :mad:

Yep was thinking the same myself. Wondering whther they (authorities)were worried that they might be fire risks for hooligan element or something.
What did get me about some of the crowds too were that they were parking in the hospital car park, and eating their sandwiches freely with their W R C jerseys (not a bother on them), whilst clogging up vistors spaces....

Mint Sauce

so how was it for every one, was at SS4 and 7 at lough gill, the service park and fireworks on saturday, and SS20 at muloughmore today, sorting through my pics and videos, about 100 in total all together, if i could get my video shots taken on my phone to play on my lappy in media or real player, i would be happy, file type is 3gp if any one knows work around (not encouraging any one to go off topic)

irish1967

Have to admit I have seen some mega traffic jams in the northwest,,, like taking 45 mins to get through the Twin Towns or years ago taking 45 mins to get from lifford to strabane over 'the hump' but yesterdays jams were out on their own :eek: Was in Mullaghmore and from there to Bundoran (southbound)was just one very very very slow moving jam.Thats about 10miles! I read this morning that conservative estimates put the crowd in Mullaghmore at 50,000 people! Has anyone seen or had the honour of being in a longer jam than that ?

Mint Sauce

irish1967 wrote: »

Have to admit I have seen some mega traffic jams in the northwest,,, like taking 45 mins to get through the Twin Towns or years ago taking 45 mins to get from lifford to strabane over 'the hump' but yesterdays jams were out on their own :eek: Was in Mullaghmore and from there to Bundoran (southbound)was just one very very very slow moving jam.Thats about 10miles! I read this morning that conservative estimates put the crowd in Mullaghmore at 50,000 people! Has anyone seen or had the honour of being in a longer jam than that ?

this leads to the only rant i have my self, the bus to and from yesterdays event, bus eirian had advertised a service to and from event, waited over 2 hours for the bus to pick us from mullaghmore last night, was expecting it to be half hourly service (it was another two hours sitting on bus back to sligo), ok so traffic was mad, 10 of thousands of people, and the road down to the event is narrow in places, but surly BE should have expected this, as they had sent down a few buses in the morning to leave people off

would have thought with this in mind, they would have had atleast a couple of buses on stand by there, waithing for people trying to get them home, in stead of trying to get buses down there when it was all finished

could speak to no one at BE, no one answering phone, or no staff at event advising people, seen some one from rally ireland there, who i think had heard somthing from BE, and could not get down due to traffic (couple of other private buses made it in), had gone over to speak to him my self, only someone else beat me to it, so listens to a bit of what he said, basiclly, they had nothing to do with the service as bus was not organised by them, think they had managed to contact some one from BE but would still be putting in a complant, due to all the peoplw waiting, couple of hundred at one point.

not going to dwell on it, apart from that, it was a fantastic weekend, have over a 100 pics to sort through from lough gill, the service park and mullaghmore (earlier ones posted are only a taster), absolutly shattered today from the late nights (:D) and early mornings, hopefully comes back to the NW in 2009, so the detox is planed to start due to all the take away and drink consumed in last few days, all well worth it, would definalty do it all again

:cool:

genie

No pictures of the Geevagh - Arigna stage at all in the Sligo Champion. :rolleyes: No wonder the only decent use for that paper is to light the fire with it.

Mint Sauce

woo hoo, its coming back, january 2009 to be exact

taken from the rallyireland website

The FIA World Motorsport Council in Monaco has voted to award Ireland a round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) once again in 2009. Not only will Rally Ireland feature in this major event, it will launch the prestigious twelve round global series. The provisional date set for Rally Ireland is Thursday 29th January until Sunday 1st February.

Rally Ireland’s hugely successful debut in the WRC took place less than one month ago with a spectacular opening event in Stormont, Belfast and finished up in Sligo after three days of high octane action. The event, which was broadcast in 180 countries worldwide proved to be Ireland’s largest sporting event of the year withup to200,000 spectators and 3,000 volunteers. Rally Ireland was sponsored by Fáilte Ireland and Sport Northern Ireland and resulted in an economic benefit in excess of €50 million.

Following the FIA’s decision today Rally Ireland founders Sean O’Connor and Ronan Morgan said, “We are honoured that Ireland has been awarded the most prestigious position of opening the 2009 WRC series and this is a direct result of the hard work by the thousands of volunteers who worked on our event, our fantastic fans and the outstanding levels of political support we have received since we started the project. The residents of each stage must also be commended for their co-operation and support in making Rally Ireland the huge success it was.”

Rally Ireland ran across eight counties, north and south, opening with a Super Special Stage in Stormont and concluding with an exciting Special Stage on Sligo’s Atlantic coast at Mullaghmore. It received widespread political support north and south. The 2009 event will also be a cross-border initiative taking place in the same region.

http://www.rallyireland.org/news.aspx?article=198

nanook

did I hear that it is only the south and not a cross border event.

Mint Sauce

nanook wrote: »

did I hear that it is only the south and not a cross border event.

dont think so, acording to rally ireland will be in the same region

irish-stew wrote: »

The 2009 event will also be a cross-border initiative taking place in the same region.

http://www.rallyireland.org/news.aspx?article=198

byte

Either way, tis good to hear it'll be making a return, even better that we'll be opening the season!

Mint Sauce

byte wrote: »

Either way, tis good to hear it'll be making a return, even better that we'll be opening the season!

not sure with it being better as a season opener, may not be as exciting compared to a penultament event or championship decider, but will still be looking forward to it

nanook

did not get a chance to see it but tried to watch it in on RTE. Well i say try but watching Michael Lester breaking things down in a shirt and tie was not exactly thrilling.

regarding it being exciting, kicking off the season or closing off the season, it does not matter, it will still be good