Many of us were looking forward to the opening of the Baltic Rally season in Alūksne in January. The nervous, far too frequent look at the weather forecasts in the north of Latvia was interrupted by the announcement that the rally was unfortunately postponed to the end of February. A large part of us took this as a sign that this joint Latvian and Estonian Rally Championship event will probably never take place. The end of February, albeit tentatively, is often a harbinger of the coming spring. However, the organizers of the Alūksnė Rally have hit the target more accurately than their colleagues of the “7Bet Winter Rally Aukštaitija”, and this weekend Latvians will experience a real winter rally event. A camera installed in the city of Alūksne, which sends a real image, continuously transmits the falling snow. There will be a lot of it. A lot.
This probably last winter rally in our region will gather 97 crews participating in four different championships – the main championships of Latvia and Estonia, the Latvian Rally Sprint and the Latvian Historic Cars. Among the eight crews from Lithuania, two will represent the N5 class. Rokas Steponavičius and Karolis Gedgaudas have put a sticker with the starting number 15 on their Ford Fiesta N5. This team is trying to make the most of the winter in the Baltics. At the beginning of February, Rokas presented his new car at the “Otepää talveralli” in Estonia, and a few weeks ago they tried to stay on the slushy roads of the Zarasai region at the “7Bet Winter Rally Aukštaitija”, just like everyone else. Vilmantas Padegimas and his Renault Clio N5 had an even longer way of preparation for the summer season. In addition to the same events in Estonia and Lithuania, Vilmantas successfully completed one of the most difficult winter rallies in the world – the “Arctic Lapland Rally” in northern Finland. For the second time this year, Vilmantas will be joined by co-driver Edvardas Gurevičius, who has returned to the rally scene after a very long break. Vilmantas and Edvinas will start in the Latvian Rally Sprint classification, which will have fewer special stages than the competitors in the Latvian main championship.
The events of the rally began already on Thursday, with some of the crews completing administrative and technical formalities and starting Reece. The main part of the rally will begin on Friday evening with two long, 12.54 km night stages. The participants of the rally sprint, including Vilmantas Padegimas and Edvardas Gurevičius, will not compete in these two stages. On Saturday, four 6-12 kilometer special stages north of Alūksne await the competitors. They will all be run twice, with the final section of the rally taking place after dark.
„Rally Alūksne“ itinerary (2022-02-24/25)
| February 24th, Friday | |||
| SS1 | METĀLU PASAULE 1 (Tūja) | 12,54 km | 18:40 |
| SS2 | METĀLU PASAULE 2 (Tūja) | 12,54 km | 20:23 |
| February 25th, Saturday | |||
| SS3 | CEWOOD 1 (Korneti) | 6,00 km | 08:31 |
| SS4 | 4PLUS 1 (Lūkumietis) | 10,30 km | 09:08 |
| Servise zone (Alūksnė) | 0h 32 min | 09:55 | |
| SS5 | CEWOOD 2 (Korneti) | 6,00 km | 10:58 |
| SS6 | 4PLUS 2 (Lūkumietis) | 10,30 km | 11:35 |
| Servise zone (Alūksnė) | 1h 32 min | 12:22 | |
| SS7 | APF 1 (Dēliņkalns) | 11,98 km | 14:32 |
| SS8 | ALŪKSNE 1 (Šļukums) | 6,10 km | 15:00 |
| Servise zone (Alūksnė) | 0h 42 min | 15:35 | |
| SS9 | APF 2 (Dēliņkalns) | 11,98 km | 16:55 |
| SS10 | ALŪKSNE 2 (Šļukums) | 6,10 km | 17:23 |