Wolf-Dieter Ihle lives Festival lives and makes many things possible in the background. For him, "the focus is on the vehicles, not the drivers." On the starting list, his name is only on the driver's side for six editions. Nevertheless, he was at the start of all 10 festival editions - and how! He uses his seemingly inexhaustible pool of original bolides again and again - also as a co-pilot. In 2013, Harri Toivonen piloted his 1983 Group B Opel Manta 400 in Safari spec. John Buffum got back into his original 1983 Pikes Peak winning car, an Audi Quattro A2, in 2016. In 2017, it was Harri Toivonen again, this time piloting a 1985 Group B Opel Manta 200. In 2019, he made his - of course - original Audi 80 GLE according to Group 4 regulations (with which Harald Demuth secured the first world championship points for Audi at the 1979 round in Portugal) available to this same Harald Demuth - and sat on the co-driver's side. He, too, has a Slowly Sideways story that begins well before the festival: "The first car in my collection was a rally Porsche 953 - and I was keen to use that. That was my start in this squad." For him, the weekend, "is a meeting of like-minded people, actually the music in the evening only disturbs the great conversations." One of the many highlights for him was, "driving alongside Walter Röhrl in my Audi S1." But the Stuttgart businessman is also active behind the scenes for the festival. For example, he traditionally provides a ride in the shakedown, but not only that, he doubled the highest bid to increase the donations thus obtained for a charitable cause. For him, the Eifel Rally Festival, "is not only the nucleus for a new type of event, but also the benchmark."