Dimitris' failed attempt at a Rally Finland concept!

Greece recently re-entered the international stage with its own tarmac rally. Would a rally like this one be enticing for the ERC promoter? 

(collaboration with Manos Mousterakis)

After the end of this year's Rally Croatia, rumors started to emerge that the event organisers are exploring the idea of moving the event to someplace else in the future. The rumored locations include Dubrovnik, a location that has never hosted a rally and is known as a tourist spot, and Rijeka, the host city of Rally Croatia from 2011 to 2012.

The WRC will be returning to Spain after a two year's absence, in a new location, with the Canary Islands being set to host a WRC event for the first time. The Gran Canaria island has been host of the Rally Islas Canarias (formerly known as Rally El Corte Inglés), an event that's been a staple of the ERC calendar, having featured in the championship since the early 80s. But how would a WRC event in the Canaries look like, and what does the WRC gain by visiting the island chain in the Atlantic? 

With the Central European Rally coming up this week, Estonia being axed from the 2024 calendar and Rally Latvia being on the calendar confirmed, got me thinking. What if both Estonia and Latvia could get spots in the calendar by combining forces for one rally in the Baltics? Like the Central European Rally, another cross-border event would be quite unique to the WRC. I think both Rally Estonia and Rally Latvia could benefit from this, with both sides getting more of the other’s fans. 

So that got me thinking, I made a post about paved Rally Acropolis stages the other day, why don’t I combine the 2 subjects? By making an ERC type of rally, that combines stages that were scheduled to be in the ELPA rally, and stages that used to be gravel stages for Acropolis, but are now paved! And that’s exactly what I have done.

The WRC is back next week with Rally Italia Sardegna. Rally Sardegna has been the host of Rally Italy since 2004, hosting 18 WRC events. But before the rally was held in the Mediterranean island, it was held in the North-West of Italy, in the mountains above the costal city of San Remo. 

 It’s a pretty common opinion that UK Gravel is currently missing from International rally calendars. And While a return of WRC to Wales is looking unlikely it’s fun to hypothesise alternative events that may fit into a ERC calendar.