Author Topic: 2008 Liege-Brescia-Liege micro car Rally  (Read 5272 times)

Jean

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2008 Liege-Brescia-Liege micro car Rally
« on: August 08, 2008, 12:35:51 PM »
I understand that the Rally was a great success, Malcolm McKay should be congratulated on enhancing the profile of the Microcar, first at the Goodwood Revival 2006 and now this.  By the way at least two cars that are on the Register took part  Colin Archer in his TG500 (R650) and Norbert Mylius in his Zundapp (R804).  Also Jeff Lane from America drove his Heinkel.  Well done everybody Look out for press coverage of the event. Jean
Jean
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motornoter

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Re: 2008 Liege-Brescia-Liege micro car Rally
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2008, 08:54:59 PM »
Thanks, Jean - sorry, I should have posted before, I thought some of the competitors would have done!
Yes, we had a fabulous event - 54 sub-700cc cars, double the number that took part in the original 1958 event (OK, we'd increased the capacity limit from 500 to 700cc but almost half of our entrants were in the sub-500 pre-1959 Authentic category) and we had a ball...

It was a tough event, no getting away from that - despite my promises that it would be, some had come expecting that if you take an event that was run over 3 nights and 2 days in 1958, and spread it over 10 days in 2008, it would be easy. Not so, what they achieved in 1958 was quite incredible and it's not surprising that more than half the field back then fell by the wayside, not usually because of terminal failures but just because they had a few problems that put them outside the maximum permitted lateness on the incredibly tight schedule (60kph in Slovenia and on the autobahn, 50kph elsewhere, and that includes some horrendously tough mountain passes in Slovenia and Italy that were all loose-surface back then, and in the dark). What is incredible really is that any of the cars stayed within the schedule back in 1958, especially the phenomenal four 250cc Zundapp Janus crews who won the team prize.

For 2008 it was wonderful to have a team of Zundapp Janus again (thanks, Norbert!) as well as teams of Vespa 400, Messerschmitt TG500, Berkeley SE492, Subaru 360, Fiat 500, BMW Isetta and more. Three sub-200cc cars battled through, Jeff Lane and Claude Gueniffey actually winning the 250cc class thanks to brilliant driving and navigation, tenacity and exceptional reliability in Claude's 1956 Heinkel 200.

There are so many great stories to be told -
Telegraph Motoring August 2 – fab report from Andy English, read it on...
www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2008/08/02/mfrally102.xml
Autobild.de – report mid-rally from Nikolaus Eickmann who was with us from Munich to Cortina, with 40 photos...
www.autobild.de/artikel/luettich-brescia-luettich-2008_742846.html
A charming report from Ljubljana, Slovenia, including video... www.zurnal.org/cms/avto/index.html?id=58504
A site set up by our friends at Brescia, including great photos from the square... www.lblrally.com
A lovely slideshow and report from Norbert... www.rrrollipop.at/LBL08.php
Local paper report on our Spirit category winners... www.sloughobserver.co.uk/articles/2/3693
Some Welsh wizardry... www.wheelswithinwales.co.uk/articles/20080730_7
Subaru’s claim to fame... www.easier.com/view/News/Motoring/Subaru/article-191897.html
There are great reports in the current issue of Oldtimer Markt (from Gregor Schulz, who was with us throughout the event), Motor Klassik (from Markus Stier, who joined us from Munich to Brescia), Octane, Classic & Sports Car, Old Stager, Historic Motor Racing News, Classic Auto (Poland) and soon to come in Classic Car Weekly and in Classics Monthly, who have a major feature on Andy Woolley's great adventure in his Messerschmitt KR200.

There's more info on our website - www.classicrallypress.co.uk - and so much enthusiasm was shown by everyone at the end that we've been persuaded to organise another, all new, microcar rally for 2009! The Micro Marathon will be on September 4-12 and I'll put up a post about it shortly. Hope to see lots of you there!

Malcolm

Jim Janecek

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Re: 2008 Liege-Brescia-Liege micro car Rally
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2008, 09:37:14 PM »
There is also coverage in the current issue of MICROCAR NEWS magazine:
http://microcar.org/current-issue.html
and there will be more in the next issue as well.

Jeff Lane's Heinkel was actually owned by his friend Claude from France.

The Telegraph article that Malcolm posted a link to is really good.