Among the Historics, we rush to the start

La Ford Escort RS 2 000 de Frédéric Agrelo assurera le spectacle.

51e Rallye national du Gard.

If the Gard organizers can pride themselves on holding the upper hand in the landscape of modern rallies in Occitanie Méditerranée, they can also pride themselves on having set up historic rallies which are growing strongly. This is the case with the Rallye du Gard, contested this Saturday around Alès.

At the start of the Pôle Mécanique, the hub of the event, there will be twenty -two competitors aiming for victory in VHC, including a high proportion of Gardois. Piloted by Pascal Serre, a well-known French co-pilot, the "Véache" will see cutting-edge drivers sometimes coming from far away alongside local drivers led by Thierry Marcobal (BMW M3), the fiery Fred Agrélo (Ford Escort), the local Alain Fleury (205 GTI) or even the swift Bastien Roquier (R 11 Turbo group A).

Belgium, Switzerland, the rally is internationalizing

We will notably follow the Porsche 911 SC of Damien Urbain (vice-champion of France VHC) , the Ascona of Niçois Christian Salmon, the Porsches of Pascal Perroud, Thierry Bousquet and Alain Triniane, the Fords of Belgian tuner Angelo Deseayer (MK 1 RS 1.6) or Swiss Célimène Lachenal. The director of the Mechanical Division, Jérémy Marin Cudraz, will support his father Stéphane at the wheel of an R5 GT.

In VHRS (historic sports regularity vehicles), the field is particularly varied and we will follow a Peugeot 206 WRC, that of Michel Verbiguiè, a 306 T3 Glace, a Dauphine Proto or an NSU 1,000 TTS among twenty-four competitors who will have to respect imposed averages.

Two other rallies are on the program: VMRS (modern sports regularity vehicles), a competitive event, and the Legend rally (demonstration of historic vehicles) which does not give rise to a classification and which is responsible for to open the road.

237.83 km, including 7 special stages with a total length of 100.347 km. Saturday, departure at 7:30 a.m. for 2 SS to be covered three times: La Beaume-Le Pendis, 20 km, at 8:23 a.m., 12:04 p.m., 3:45 p.m. and Sainte-Cécile-d'Andorge-La Tavernole, 9, 4 km, at 9:21 a.m., 1:02 p.m., 4:43 p.m.; last special on the Pôle mechanics rally track at 5:36 p.m.