About Rally Mexico

Rally Guanajuato Mexico is the third round of the FIA World Rally Championship. It takes place in the mountains surrounding the cities of León, Silao, Irapuato and Guanajuato, in the State of Guanajuato, in Mexico, from the 7th to the 10th of March 2013. Since its inclusion in the WRC in 2004 it has been an increasingly popular event with competitors and spectators alike, always placing within the Top 5 rallies of the world in every measurable aspect.

Origins

Rally Guanajuato México -or Rally America, as it was known then- was created in 1979 through a spirit of co-operation by the two largest automobile clubs in México; Club Automovilístico Francés de México (CAF) and the Rally Automovil Club (RAC). It was originally hosted in the State of México and ran continuously until 1985. After an absence of six years, the event then ran again in 1991 and followed the route of El Paso de Cortes, between two of México’s largest volcanoes. CAF then opted for a different concept; a short rally with a high percentage of special stages. This event in 1993 was held in Valle de Bravo under the direction of Gilles Spitalier and was awarded the title ‘Rally of the Year’ by the National Rally Commission.

The event organizing committee then took over the running of the Rally de las 24 Horas, the CAF’s flagship event, and, for this reason, Rally America was not staged again until 1996, when the internationalization of the project began.

The CAF moved the event to the US border in Ensenada, Baja California, for two years where it started to amass international recognition.

In 1998, the organizers decided to rename the event and move it to León, Guanajuato. With a long-term business plan focusing on inclusion in the FIA World Rally Championship in place, the event ran again in 1999 and 2000, stepping up a gear each year. From 2001 to 2003, the organizers went for observation by the FIA, successfully running the event on each occasion.

The 2003 Corona Rally México - the 17th in the history of the rally - proved to be the crucial turning point. New facilities at the Poliforum Expo Center were groundbreaking in the sport and this, combined with one of the most compact routes ever, put the event firmly in the frame for World Championship status. A total of 45 crews representing 11 countries crossed the start ramp during one of the most spectacular opening ceremonies seen in the sport.

Corona Rally México made its debut in the expanded 16-round FIA World Rally Championship in 2004, running successfully as the third round of the series. Since 2005, the event has been set as the first full gravel event of the season. For the first time in their series, the FIA Junior World Rally Championship contenders ventured outside Europe to come to México in 2005.

The overall route in 2007 became the shortest in WRC history, with less than 850 Kilometres in overall length, thanks to the compactness of the Rally footprint in the mountainous region north of Leon. Notwithstanding this record, this short overall route was achieved recording the maximum stage distance allowed in the WRC regulations (360 Km) obtaining a staggering 43% road section to special stage ratio.

Recent Winners       
1993 Giuseppe Spataro MEX Mitsubishi Eclipse
Jean Noel Valdelièvre F
1994 Agustin Zamora MEX Mitsubishi Eclipse
Gabriel Marín MEX
1997 Roger Hull USA Mitsubishi Eclipse
Sean Gallagher USA
1998 Carlos Izquierdo MEX Nissan Tsuru
Angélica Fuentes MEX
1999 Gabriel Marín MEX Mitsubishi Lancer
Javier Marín MEX
2000 Douglas Gore JAM Mitsubishi Lancer
Mark Nelson JAM
2001 Ramón Ferreyros PER Toyota Celica GT4
Raul Velit PER
2002 Harri Rovanpera FIN Peugeot 206 WRC
Risto Pietilainen FIN
2003 Marcos Ligato RA Mitsubishi Lancer
Ruben Garcia RA
2004 Markko Märtin EE Ford Focus RS WRC
Michael Park GB
2005 Petter Solberg N Subaru Impreza WRC
Phil Mills GB
2006 Sébastien Loeb F Citroen Xsara WRC
Daniel Elena MC
2007 Sébastien Loeb F Citroen C4 WRC
Daniel Elena MC
2008 Sébastien Loeb F Citroën C4 WRC
Daniel Elena MC
2009 SPAIN E Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX
2010 Sébastien Loeb F Citroën C4 WRC
Daniel Elena MC
2011 Sébastien Loeb F Citroën DS3 WRC
Daniel Elena MC

What is a Rally?

Rallying is a form of motor competition that takes place on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars. This motorsport is distinguished by running not on a circuit, but instead in a point-to-point format in which participants and their co-drivers drive between set control points (stages), leaving at regular intervals from one or more start points. There are two kinds of rallies. Ones that are won by pure speed within the stages and others by driving to a predetermined ideal journey time within the stages.  droite

There are two main forms: stage rallies and road rallies. Since the 1960s, stage rallies have been the professional branch of the sport. They are based on straightforward speed over stretches of road closed to other traffic. These may vary from asphalt mountain passes to rough forest tracks, from ice and snow to desert sand, each chosen to provide an enjoyable challenge for the crew and a test of the car's performance and reliability.

The entertaining and unpredictable nature of the stages, and the fact that the vehicles are in some cases closely related to road cars, means that the bigger events draw massive spectator interest, especially in Europe, Asia and Oceania.

Road rallies are the original form, held on highways open to normal traffic, where the emphasis is not on outright speed but on accurate timekeeping and navigation and on vehicle reliability, often on difficult roads and over long distances. They are now primarily amateur events. There are several types of road rallies testing accuracy, navigation or problem solving. Some common types are: Regularity rally or a Time-Speed-Distance rally (also TSD rally, testing ability to stay on track and on time),[6] another is the Pan-Am or Monte-Carlo-style rally (testing navigation), and the Gimmick rally (testing logic).

Many early rallies were called trials, and a few still are, although this term is now mainly applied to the specialist form of motor sport of climbing as far as you can up steep and slippery hills. And many meets or assemblies of car enthusiasts and their vehicles are still called rallies, even if they involve merely the task of getting there (often on a trailer).

Rallying is a very popular sport at the "grass roots" of motorsport—that is, motor clubs. Individuals interested in becoming involved in rallying are encouraged to join their local automotive clubs. Club rallies (e.g. road rallies or regularity rallies) are usually run on public roads with an emphasis on navigation and teamwork. These skills are important fundamentals required for anyone who wishes to progress to higher-level events. (See Categories of rallies.)

Rally is also unique in its choice of where and when to race. Rallies take place on all surfaces and in all conditions: asphalt (tarmac), gravel, or snow and ice, sometimes more than one in a single rally, depending on the course and event. Rallies are also run every month of the year, in every climate, bitter cold to monsoon rain. This contributes to the notion of top rally drivers as some of the best car control experts in the world.
As a result of the drivers not knowing exactly what lies ahead, the lower traction available on dirt roads, and the driving characteristics of small cars, the drivers are much less visibly smooth than circuit racers, regularly sending the car literally flying over bumps, and sliding the cars out of corners.

A typical rally course consists of a sequence of relatively short (up to about 50km/30mi), timed "special stages" where the actual competition takes place, and untimed "transit stages" where the rally cars must be driven under their own power to the next competitive stage within a generous time limit. Rally cars are thus unlike virtually any other top-line racing cars in that they retain the ability to run at normal driving speeds, and indeed are registered for street travel. Some events contain "super special stages" where two competing cars set off on two parallel tracks (often small enough to fit in a football stadium), giving the illusion they are circuit racing head to head. These stages, ridiculed by many purists, seem increasingly popular with event organizers. Run over a day, a weekend, or more, the winner of the event has the lowest combined special and super special stage times. Given the short distances of super special stages compared to the regular special stages and consequent near-identical times for the frontrunning cars, it is very rare for these spectator-oriented stages to decide rally results, though it is a well-known axiom that a team can't win the rally at the super special, but they can certainly lose it.

http://www.rallymexico.com/espectadores/que-es-rally-mexico/