Barum Czech Rally Zlín 

Star Rally Historic offers proven format

24. 6. 2024 - Roman Ordelt

STAR RALLY HISTORIC became an integral part of the Barum Czech Rally Zlín. This year, it will take place on 16-18 August 2024 for the sixteenth time. During the previous years it has become an independent event and turned into a solid pillar of the Czech historics championship. The competition itself will again take place over three days from Friday to Sunday. The Zlín rally of Historians has remained true to its tradition and will once again offer a Rally of Legends demonstration run, which is not timed.

These days, special regulations have been approved and issued by the national authority represented by the Autoclub of the Czech Republic. The event counts towards the Autoclub Czech Historic Car Rally Championship 2024, and will also be run as a free international historic car rally event, besides the aforementioned Rally of Legends demonstration run. The organisers from the Auto Club Barum Zlín within Autoclub of the Czech Republic have prepared a challenging competition of historics and the crews will appear on most of the stages along with the contemporary cars.

"The timetable structure is always a big compromise as it has to adapt to the promoter's requirements for passing through the large Barum rally field. We can only run in the free time slots between the passes of the contemporary cars. While this results in long passes between stages, it also allows us to carry out remote service within the Neubuz and Fryšták passes after almost every stage. We believe that this fact will be welcomed by the historics crews. They can also look forward to the new sections on the Bunč and Kateřinice stages in the opposite direction, the classic Pindula or the circuit super special in Zlín on Friday," said Zdeněk Bělák, the director of Star Rally Historic.

The presentation of the competitors will start on Wednesday morning, when the recommended administrative acceptance, itineraries and GPS will be handled in the premises of the Regional Office (building 21) in Zlín. The familiarisation runs are scheduled over two days, starting on Wednesday afternoon 14 August. "We managed to negotiate an exception and added an extra day so that Friday would not be so hectic. The two stages from Sunday's leg are already being practised on Wednesday, which only applies to the timed historic rally," Bělák explained.

The service car park, including the closed "parc fermé", will be located in the regional town of Zlín in the former Svit premises on the street Dvacátá (parking, Cream company). Here the technical acceptance will take place on Friday 16 August in the morning. The ceremonial start will take place at 2 p.m. in front of the Zlín Town Hall and at 7:15 p.m. the engines will roar on the popular evening special stage in the streets of Zlín. On Saturday, 17 August, four sections of special stages called Březová, Kateřinice, Rajnochovice and Bunč are on the programme, with the first two of them being completed twice. During the first leg, the starting field will be facing a portion of 81 sharp kilometres.

The competition will then peak on Sunday, 18 August, with five stages on three sections called Halenkovice, Semetín and Pindula, ending with a second pass through a demanding section in the Vsetín region at the very end. The first car will appear on the finish ramp at 16:16. The Star Rally Historic in 2024 is 673 km long and contains 12 stages with a total length of 154 km.

The demonstration run of the Rally of Legends will reach the finish on Saturday evening, covering a total distance of 379 km and including six untimed stages with a total length of 81 km.

In conclusion, competitors enter under the Autoclub of the Czech Republic licensing system, with the deadline for entries set on Monday 29 July at the stroke of midnight. "We are expecting around sixty crews at the start, including Rally of Legends. We will be satisfied if the number of entries exceeds this number," concluded Zdeněk Bělák, director of Star Rally Historic.

More information available at www.czechrally.com and don't forget to follow the Barum rally on the official Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts and the other press information.

Zlín, 24th June 2024

Roman ORDELT
Press Relations Officer
Barum Czech Rally Zlín