Rally Norway became an outstanding success

World Record in successful WRC preparations

With a very successful first WRC event on Norwegian soil, Rally Norway is going all out to ensure that Rally Norway is a regular organiser on the future WRC calendar.

Rally Norway 2007 was the largest spectator event in Norway this year. All preliminary evaluation has given Rally Norway top marks as a first time organizer, which is an excellent reference when Norway is being considered as a candidate for future WRC events.

“We have high hopes of being included in the WRC calendar from 2009, but with this year’s success behind us and an extremely short planning Rally Norway is already ready for a new WRC event,” Even Wiger, Managing Director of Rally Norway, said. He is confident that as a first time organiser Rally Norway became a tremendous success.

“We are more than willing to learn and with some better training Rally Norway has the potential to become an outstanding part of WRC,” Wiger said.

No time for resting on our laurels

”We won’t be resting on our laurels. At the same time as we are continuing to evaluate and sum up, we are in full swing devising new plans of action. The success of this year’s event will give us a strong candidature. l believe it will be very difficult not to include Rally Norway in the future WRC calendar. In addition to the intense work of gaining admission to the proper fora, extensive work will be done in the coming weeks and months to try and influence the decision-making processes in these fora. We will ensure that Rally Norway is not forgotten,” Even Wiger confirmed.

Declarations of support

Feedback and assessments of Rally Norway and the work done by the WRC event organizers have been overwhelmingly positive. The rally teams and the drivers were all very pleased with the competition, the roads and the arrangements in Norway. International Sportsworld Communicators (ISC), who have the commercial rights to the World Rally Championship and who supply TV stations worldwide with WRC material, were full of praise for Norway.

Wiger said that: “In some parts, Rally Norway has already set a new standard, especially with regard to the quality of details and also accessibility to the spectators, several special arenas that had easy access, focus on the environment and social responsibility.”

Extensive media coverage

NRK with its live coverage was a popular channel. The live coverage of the opening ceremony on Thursday 15 February had the second highest number of viewers after the main Norwegian news programme “Dagsrevyen”, regardless of channel.

In general, Rally Norway was more popular than the World Downhill Skiing Championships in Åre, Sweden and at times had a market share of 78% (i.e., of all the people watching TV, 78% watched Rally Norway). Other local and nationwide media had an impressive coverage of the event and several newspapers had special supplements on the event.

In addition to this, TV, radio and other media from 21 countries reported from Rally Norway. There were 538 journalists, photographers and TV crews in action. Around half of these came from overseas and represented 55 foreign newspapers and magazines, 11 TV and five radio stations.

“We have received a lot of positive feedback from the foreign journalists that were here. From the clips and TV broadcasts we have managed to see, the event attracted extensive media coverage and fantastic publicity for Norway, the like of which has not been seen since the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer,” Wiger said.

Fantastic team of volunteers

Rally Norway was the large spectator event in Norway in 2007 and would not have been possible without the help of thousands of volunteers.

”We are very grateful to the almost 5,000 volunteers who offered their services as marshalls, parking attendants, kiosk and ticket sales personnel, tidying up and as general dogsbodies. These people did a fantastic job and we hope that the 2-3 MNOK that was paid for their efforts goes to good use in the various teams and clubs,” Wiger said.

A lot of traffic

Despite long queues of cars and a lot of traffic to and from the various stages and arenas, the police have not received one single complaint from road users.

“We, the police and the road authorities were well prepared for a lot of traffic and that’s what we got. Congestion was no worse than expected and we have to thank the police and the local residents for their patience,” Even Wiger said.

Positive police report

With numerous spectators moving around the WRC event area, and many other events and celebrations going on at the same time, it was positive to note that the police log from the weekend showed that it did not did stand out from any other weekend during the year. There were no more disturbances or incidents than on a normal weekend in Hedmark and Oppland counties.

Satisfied core staff in Rally Norway after their last evaluation meeting for the time being where the main conclusion was high hopes of a new place in the WRC calendar.