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)