Luca Grilli (promoter of the European Rally Tour): “For this season we examined several projects, but I recognize that Ferrol was one of the first on the list”.
There are still months to celebrate the golden anniversary of the Ferrol-Suzuki Rally, but the organization of the race works hard in this special edition. In addition to scoring for the Spanish Asphalt Rally Championship, since 2019 it will also form part of the European Rally Tour: a private contest approved by the FIA and which chooses some significant tests of the different national championships in Europe to create a series that deals with enhance both the sports side and the tourist aspect of each appointment.
With Ferrol the TER finally lands in Spain. For his promoter, Luca Grilli, this is a reason for special satisfaction. Grilli points out that “this country has always been an objective for us. The continuous achievements of the Spanish pilots and the high level of their events have helped to fuel a passion that we also want to transmit. In this regard, we are delighted to have met with an organization (Escudería A. Ferrol) that will allow us to land in Spain”.
The TER series “come to stay” and after three seasons have managed to make a dent in the calendar of continental rallies, as an “international trophy to all intents and purposes”, says its head.
Luca Grilli and his team have several years of experience in the promotion of different races such as the Artic Lapland Rally or Madeira; “Tests in which the organizers understood our concept: that the local tourism offices sponsor these events”. In addition, the promoter of the European Rally Series worked on the extinct IRC and the European Rally Championship, “where this type of promotion was not carried out” emphasizes Grilli and he insists that “from that moment I was clear that you had to create series with certain characteristics; looking for known or emblematic places, with careers that have a history and where global events can be created, that go beyond sports. From the beginning our idea was to bring something new, introducing motor racing even to those who knew little about the world of rallying and creating new and fun side events”.
There are a few months until the start of the season in the TER and the promoter company has good prospects for participation. According to Luca Grilli, “in 2017 we had two official teams and some well-known private structures. Last year we kept the figures, which were around 70 registered at the end of the season, representing 17 countries on three continents. In this 2019 we hope to keep some of them, especially taking into account the changes we have made in the calendar to facilitate logistics and encourage participation. In this sense we are delighted to have received among the first inscriptions those of some of our loyal customers in these years of life of the contest”.
The 50 Rallye de Ferrol – Suzuki has thus a new incentive for its more special edition. Half a century of life that the Galician race in the Spanish Rally Championship of Asphalt wants to enrich with the arrival of foreign pilots who encourage even more a national contest that in 2018 proved to be the most animated in the fight for partial victories and the end of season title. With this step, Ferrol joins a continental trophy with a vocation to expand in the coming seasons because, according to the promoter, “there are several organizations that have shown their desire to join our series”.
