This coming weekend, on August 7-9, the fourth event of the Lithuanian car rally championship “Rokiškio Grand Rally” will take place in Rokiškis and its surroundings. The Lithuanian Rally Sprint, “Extreme” and “Lithuanian Rally4 Trophy” championships will also take place here, so the list of participants has already exceeded a hundred applications.
A few days before the competition, the starting order was also announced, according to which the participants’ cars will be marked with the corresponding starting numbers. The first number has been given to this season’s leaders – Vaidotas Žala and Ugnis Vainevičius. The second number will appear on the door of the car of last year’s champions – Vladas Jurkevičius and Aisvydas Paliukėnas. The third number will be the duo of Giedrius Notkus and Dalius Strižanas. The fourth number has been given to the tandem of Deividas Gezevičius and Evaldas Kvederis.
Fifth on the provisional starting list is the crew of Giedrius Firantas and Matas Valiulis. The sixth number will be assigned to the duo of Rokas Steponavičius and Dovydas Ketvirtis. The seventh number is assigned to Justas Tamašauskas and Algirdas Pranckūnas. The eighth will appear on the Citroen of Paulius Beniušis and Kristupas Adinavičius. The ninth number will be assigned to the crew of Ramūnas Čapkauskas and Kastytis Torrau, and the top ten will be closed by Eugenijus Sladkevičius and Marius Kairys.
You can get acquainted with the full starting order by clicking here.
Although all participants are lined up in the starting order according to their real speed and have already been assigned starting numbers, the organisers of the “Rokiškio Grand Rally” decided to add more intrigue and organised a Qualifying Stage, which will undoubtedly change the currently formed provisional starting order.
“Before the start, we will have a Qualifying Stage, where 20 crews will compete according to the provisional currently announced starting order. The rest will have a regular Shakedown while the top twenty will have another, 4.53 km long distance where the qualification will take place.
The essence of the Qualifying Stage is simple – based on the results, twenty crews will choose their starting positions for the first part of the competition until the regrouping. This means that the crew that wins the Qualifying Stage will be able to choose any starting position they want from first to twentieth place. Of course, no one wants to start the first, hence the road has to be cleaned, so the leaders will probably choose lower starting positions and thus try to start the race on an already cleaned road surface. At that time, the participants who performed the worst in the Qualifying Stage will probably have the mission of becoming the first to open the tracks. It is really very interesting what decisions the crews will make after the results of the qualification and how the starting order will change from the current one,” said the organiser of this competition, Audrius Gimžauskas.
This year, the participants of the “Rokiškio Grand Rally” competition will face almost 150 sporting kilometers, divided into 15 Special Stages. The competition will start on Friday afternoon and end on Saturday evening.
The event will be crowned with a ceremonial award ceremony at the Tyzenhauzai Manor and a Jovani concert. In addition, one spectator will be awarded during the evening. One of the rally pass holders will winn an electric “Husqvarna” bicycle.
The “Rokiškio Grand Rally” will take place on August 7-9. More information about the upcoming competition can be found on the organizers’ Facebook account and the rally website.
