Scotland receives high praise from leading sports broadcaster * Global TV audience for October event
Major TV sports broadcaster Eurosport has finalised the aerial and ground-level camera positions that will beam dramatic images of this October's RACMSA Rally of Scotland to a worldwide audience. A six-strong delegation from Eurosport's Paris headquarters last week joined Rally of Scotland officials for a reconnaissance of the forests of Perthshire and Stirlingshire. It will be here on the Forestry Commission Scotland's immaculately-kept gravel tracks that 2011's event - the crucial, penultimate round of this year's Intercontinental Rally Challenge - will take place (7-9 October).Eurosport will reveal full details of its coverage of 2011's Rally of Scotland soon. However, in 2010 its impressive set-up included a 70-strong team as well as a convoy of satellite, ancillary and outside broadcast vehicles plus a helicopter specially equipped with cameras that transmitted some truly stunning overhead pictures of the high-speed Rally of Scotland action and Scottish countryside to a global TV audience of some 125 million households.Xavier Gavory, IRC General Co-ordinator, commented: "Scotland has an incredible landscape with the most challenging roads for the competitors. This gives us great images for TV and exciting competition."Jean-Pierre Nicolas, IRC Motorsport Development Manager, added: "This is one of the most beautiful rallies in the IRC. Errochty (Perthshire) is the best stage: fast, quite wide, it flows and the surface is just perfect. High Corrie (Stirlingshire) is a slower stage - it is very tricky and technical and because of this there are lots of possibilities to make mistakes."And said Paul Bush OBE, Chief Operating Officer for EventScotland: "The 2010 Eurosport coverage certainly showcased what Scotland has to offer the world of rallying - in terms of beautiful yet challenging scenery and landscapes - and we expect this year's footage to build on that and reach out to a global audience of rallying fans and potential visitors to Scotland."This year's Rally of Scotland (7-9 Oct) will see some of the world's top rally drivers, teams and cars do battle over 200 competitive timed stage kilometres through the forests of Perthshire and Stirlingshire. Teams representing established rallying makes such as Skoda, Peugeot, Ford, Proton, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Honda and Citroen are all expected to enter as are top British seeds such as Scotland's Alister McRae and David Bogie and Darlington's Guy Wilks.
The event starts at Stirling Castle on Friday afternoon before a double run at night through the new Carron Valley forest stage around Carron Reservoir. On the Saturday, classic stages such as Craigvinean, Errochty and Drummond Hill in Perthshire will all be used twice. On Sunday, the rally action moves back into Stirlingshire with Carron Valley plus two blasts each through the Loch Chon and High Corrie stages. At 26km, High Corrie is by the far the longest stage on the event - indeed, one of the longest on the IRC calendar - and will surely play a decisive role in the outcome of the result. The event then reaches its climax on the Sunday evening, back in Perthshire, with two short stages through the picturesque grounds of Scone Palace where the 2011 Rally of Scotland winner will be crowned.Public admission to each stage is £20* per vehicle and in addition to the spectacle sure to be thrown up by the IRC title fight a supporting, a National-seeded event for 'club-level' competitors will also be held on Saturday's and Sunday's stages. This gives them a chance of making a name for themselves on an international event and also adds to the entertainment for spectators.* with the exception of Carron Valley's singe stage on the Sunday morning (9 Oct) which is £10 per vehicle.
