World Rally championship adds new stages

World Rally championship adds new stages

JAKARTA (JP): Four special stages will be added to the World
Rally championship scheduled for May 10 in Medan, North Sumatra.

The rally drivers will tackle the four stages, located around
the Parapat regency south of the North Sumatra capital, on the
second day of the championship. The stages are part of the second
leg of the three-leg speed race, which has 27 special stages
stretching 1,287 kilometers.

The drivers, many of them world ranked, will spend the first
day racing through estate plantations of rubber, palm oil and tea
until the regency of Parapat, near Lake Toba.

The second day of the rally will cover nine stages in the
Parapat regency on May 11. The third and final day will stretch
from Prapat to Medan.

"We expect a fierce duel among the world carmakers including
Mitsubishi, Ford, Subaru," rally committee Indradjit Sardjono
said yesterday.

Tommi Makinen, the 1995 world rally champion, Kenneth
Eriksson, Colin MacRae and Richard Burn are among the top drivers
who have confirmed their entry for the rally, officially called
Bank Utama Rally Indonesia '96.

It is also the third series of the 1996 Asia Pacific Rally,
following its first series in Thailand now in progress.

FIA, the governing world auto sport body, agreed to let
Indonesia host one of the world-rally series following
Indonesia's success in organizing both the national and regional
events for the last 21 years.

"It is the best result we can reach after decades of trying,"
said Bob R.E. Nasution of Indonesia's auto sport organization.
(rsl)