• Plucky: World Rally Champion Co-driver Nicky Grist puts himself behind the wheel
• All our Yesterdays: Kleint and Hiemer in their VW Golf GTI 16V from the DRM 1987
• From now on: order all documents in advance!

The contest for the last places in the Eifel Rallye Festival (July 18-20, 2019) has begun since, long before the official closing date at the end of May, the maximum of 150 starting places are almost completely taken. The fascination shown by the owners and fans of historic rally cars continues unabated in this the ninth year of the Festival. In addition, the demonstration runs of the original machines of rallying in the Vulkaneifel around Daun every year becomes even more international.

"Our motto of 'Rally Around the World' has opened up many new opportunities. We will once again be able to offer fans a very interesting and international range of original and true-to-the-original rally cars, "rejoices Reinhard Klein (Cologne) on the new edition of the Festival. The head of 'Slowly Sideways', the pan-European association of owners of historic rally cars, is already thrilled with the quality of the entries so far.

The high number of registrations demands detailed planning in Daun. If the participants of the Eifel Rallye Festival are not out on the special stages of the Vulkaneifel, the fans can admire the cars and meet the drivers in the Rally Mile in the heart of Daun. Between its two service areas, the Leopoldstraße turns into a veritable museum. "Although we have been able to gain permission in the past few years on how to use every square inch in the Rally Mile and the adjacent service areas, it's another huge puzzle game every year to fit everyone in. Of course, we also try to live up to all the wishes of the participants ", explains Otmar Anschütz (Daun), organizer of the big event and Chairman of the organizing MSC Daun. Thanks to its good contacts with local residents and business people, the cooperation between them and the club has worked very well over the years. "Some restaurateurs even say the festival weekend is their biggest sales period of the whole year."

World Champion co-driver himself at the wheel.
A very special premiere for the Eifel Rallye Festival 2019 is to be able to welcome Nicky Grist. The Briton spent a long time in his career with his Finnish driver, Juha Kankkunen, and was with him in 1993 when KKK secured his fourth world title for Toyota. Their original car that won the Rally Portugal 1994 brings Grist in the Eifel. This is the Group A version of the TTE Toyota Celica ST185. It will certainly be an interesting question as to who will step up to be co-pilot in the "hot seat" next to Grist.

Also original at the Festival are the two vehicles that are being brought by Wolf-Dieter Ihle from Stuttgart. Harald Demuth, who scored the very first World Rally Championship points for Audi in 1979 at the World Championship rally in Portugal with a Group-4 Audi 80 GLE will take the wheel of his original re-built car while Wolf Ihle co-drives. The other car that has been re-built in Ihle's small, but well-equipped workshop is a VW Golf GTI 16V Group A. Ex-European champion Jochi Kleint and his co-driver Manfred ‘Manni’ Hiemer drove this car in the 1987 season of the German Rally Championship winning the Sachs-Winter, the Sachs-Baltic and the Deutschland Rally. Despite these victories, after a retirement on the Hunsrück Rally, they finally took third place in the DRM. Kleint and Hiemer will be present to drive the freshly restored car at the Festival.

While the participation of the German record-breaking champion Matthias Kahle and the British rally legend Jimmy McRae are already fixed for this July, Reinhard Klein still holds back from providing further names: "We have some very interesting and promising discussions going on currently, but we shall only announce them when they are known for certain."

From now on: order all documents in advance
As usual, all the important information about the Eifel Rally Festival 2019 will be contained in the comprehensive programme. This collector's piece contains detailed descriptions of the individual special stages, the designated spectator points, all the location maps and, of course, the participant lists plus all the details of the cars presented in both words and pictures.
 
During the Festival, spectators are welcome to visit the Rally Mile in Daun free of charge. However for attendance at the special stages, there are a range of tickets available to spectators. They go from a single ticket for the shakedown on Thursday to a weekend ticket covering all stages for all three Festival days.

Starting on June 30, 2019, programmes and spectator tickets can be ordered from the rally shop at http://www.eifel-rallye-festival.de/Rallye-Shop.html. Shipping to countries other than Germany but within the EU is also possible. From July 8, 2019, the documents will set out on their journey to customers which will give everyone sufficient time to prepare fully for their visit to the Festival.

Eifel Rallye Festival - Time Table

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