Marathon rally planned

The concept of a marathon car rally taking place in New Zealand has become a reality, with the NZ Silver Fern Rally to be organised by the newly-formed Marathon Rally Car Club.
The NZ Silver Fern Rally will take place in the South Island in early November 2006, and will bring back the "days of old", in NZ motorsport, when rallying was an adventure, with the emphasis on endurance and reliability, but with a fun social side attached.
The week-long event will utilise approximately 1500km of special stages, and will be the first time a major international status rally of this type has been held in the South Island since the days of the Heatway and Motogard rallies, back in the 1970s and 80s.
Already the event is drawing considerable interest locally and rally chairman Gary Smith, of Hamilton, has said "we are also receiving a good number of early inquiries from Australia, Europe and the USA".
New Zealand's reputation for top quality, car-friendly roads is spreading, with overseas drivers lining up to come and see what NZ rally events like this have to offer.
The NZ Silver Fern Rally will cater mainly for older classic type rally cars, the likes of Ford Escorts, Datsuns and Mazdas. However there will also be classes available for pre-1992 four-wheel-drive rally cars, as well as for modern 2 wheel drive rally cars, which allows for the use of current NZ and World Rally Championship class cars.
Planning of the route will begin almost immediately, in the capable hands of past NZ rally championship class winner, Timaru's Carl Rabbidge. Carl's agenda, along with the rest of the organising committee, "is to involve as much as possible the local communities and towns".
They can expect up to 1000 rally team personnel, and officials, not counting spectators, to be involved in the running of the 2006 NZ Silver Fern Rally.
l A separate posting gives a little more detail on the event.
"We have been most impressed with the positive interest shown, and the feedback already received, with the numbers of prospective entrants, from both locally and overseas, already standing at 46 written registrations of interest, and at least 30 verbal expressions.
"We are now here to make this event happen, but we still need your support and the support of others who may not have heard of the event, so please pass on the good word to everyone else."
The rally will be predominantly held during daylight hours, "that is not to say you might not be starting early one day, or finishing late another". The stages will predominantly be on gravel, "which is not to say sections of tarmac will need to be included in some stages", and the objective will be to finish each day at a conservative time, "with allowances made for socialising and lie telling after the day's competitive stages and servicing are done with".
The event will run with safety notes, with no reconnaissance being allowed.
"We envisage the entry fee (to be finalised after our budget is completed) may be able to be paid in instalments or in full for a discount, to help your cash flow planning. The entry fee will be in the vicinity of $5000. Apparently if you work out the figures Rally NZ etc is around $7 a km, and ours will be around $3 a km.
Seeding will generally be in order of entry acceptance, with the top 20 places reserved for international and name drivers. Two prologue stages, near Blenheim, will be held to seed the event proper, which will then start on the Monday morning.
Re-seeding will be done at each overnight stop, and re-joining will be allowed at every possible opportunity, so long as the stage is still open.
Servicing will be pretty free, and it is envisaged easily done with one vehicle.
Regulations for the event are expected to be available in October 2005.