Central European Rally 2023
The WRC Central European Rally 2023 was held from 26 to 29 October 2023. It was introduced to the WRC World Rally Championship this year and it was the first edition of the rally beyond borders as round of the WRC calendar.
It was held in 3 different countries, Czech Republic, Austria and Germany. Ceremonial Start at Hradčany Square in Prague and SS1 taking place on Thursday and Finish Podium on Sunday afternoon in Passau Germany. It was 310km of racing on 18 stages and 1380km of road section (yes rally cars drive on public roads with all the other traffic)
The WRC Central European Rally 2023 started in a crowded and beautiful Hradčany Square in Prague. Cars lined up around the square with a beautiful view of Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral behind them.
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Opening Ceremony was starting at 1 PM so we got up early for the opportunity to check out the city. And to keep it short, Prague is a beautiful city, with a lot of history. My comment after few hours of wondering around was i need to get back to Prague for few more days in the future.
Enough of the travel blog, back to the WRC :) Opening Ceremony is a great opportunity for everyone to get close and personal to these powerful machines.
After the opening ceremony cars were moving to SS1 SSS Velká Chuchle. It is a horse racing track in Prague. This was also a horse race, just a lot more horses at the track.
Our plan was to follow Hive Rally Car on as many Central European Rally Stages as we could. And around this time we learned how much we don't know about WRC racing :) As the cars finish the stage they go straight to the next one. And you as the spectator need to go to your car (where ever you managed to park) drive to the next stage, park, walk to the track. 99% of the times, cars are already gone.
So we got to the SS1 SSS Velká Chuchle, almost. There was a lot of traffic and you could not get to the stage by car. So we had to walk for 1.5km. There were 2 paths to pick from, and we picked the wrong one :) After almost a kilometer of walking we got to some kind of a construction sight. On the left was a highway (not smart to walk there) and in front a construction sight with a pissed off worker. After trying to convince the guy to let us through and using all of my Slovakian language knowledge the Czech guy was not impressed and told us to f-off :)
https://x.com/bil_prag/status/1717684568214401075?s=20
After almost a kilometer walking back to the second path we got to the stage at the end of it and caught Slaven at the end of his stage.
The plan was to go to the service park in Passau Germany and catch them there. But it was a 3 and a half hours drive from Prague, and it was 5 PM and we the last time we eat was in the morning. So some food was in place and a long drive to Passau.
We realized how much we don't know about WRC, especially about this new concept of Central European Rally held in 3 different countries. And our plans need a bit of reworking :) I saw that a lot of the drivers complained about a lot of driving between the stages.
A short we made from the Central European Rally opening ceremony.
After a quick dinner we were on the road to Passau Germany to check in into the apartment we will be staying till the end of the Central European Rally.
My initial thought was that i will finish this trip in one blog, but looks like it will be a Part 2 in a few days.
Here are some more photos taken the first day.
Panning shots with low speed moving cars are a bit tricky :)
Were you at WRC Central European Rally? Got some photos or videos of Hive Rally Car?
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