This year, the anniversary event will take place from August 13 to 15. Over three days, crews will cover 17 special stages, with a total length of 134 kilometers. The entire route will cover 543 kilometers, and athletes will face both gravel and asphalt surfaces.
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In addition to the Lithuanian Automobile Rally Championship and the Lithuanian „Rally4 Trophy“ classifications, the FIA European Rally Trophy stage and the „Tour European Rally“ (TER) championship stage will take place in Rokiškis. This means that not only the strongest Lithuanian crews but also foreign crews will compete for victories and important international points.
According to the event organizer Audrius Gimžauskas, this growth was not accidental. It is the result of a vision consistently implemented over many years, and the ultimate goal remains even more ambitious – to bring a stage of the European Rally Championship to Lithuania.
„Our total experience as organizers of rallies is seventeen years, and for the last ten years, we have been doing it in Rokiškis. I can say that we have developed even thicker skin. We increasingly think, dream, and strive for this rally to be better and of higher quality every year. Moreover, we always want to be different from everyone else around, so we have taken deliberate steps to achieve a higher status for this event. Of course, others also follow in our footsteps, which means we are doing everything right,“ said Audrius Gimžauskas.
According to him, over the decade, the organizing team has gained invaluable experience and learned to work as a cohesive mechanism. However, to reach an even higher level, experience alone is no longer enough – it is necessary to expand the team and meet the increasingly strict requirements set by the International Automobile Federation (FIA).
„I think over the years we have learned order, to understand each other in the team with half a word. Of course, if we fulfill our dream of hosting a European Rally Championship stage, which is our goal, we will need an even bigger team because currently, there are very few of us organizing this rally. We have two years left until the European Rally Championship – we will see what results we achieve this year, and if everything goes well, next year we will already have the status of candidate European Rally Championship event,“ said the organizer.
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A. Gimžauskas emphasizes that the current status of the European Rally Trophy was achieved only after many years of work and continuous improvement of the event. The organizers were evaluated by international experts, and the efforts to do everything as well as possible have borne fruit.
„We have come a long way to the current status and have certainly shown good results that have not gone unnoticed. By the way, our event is the only one in Lithuania with such a high status. No one in Lithuania has ever had the right to organize a stage of the European Rally Trophy before. When we were moving towards this and organizing rallies according to our rules, we were observed and evaluated. However, the higher the status we get, the more requirements and rules we receive from the FIA. We already have tasks that we must fulfill. Of course, some requirements are very high, but we manage them and strive to complete these formalities not only on time but also well,“ said Audrius Gimžauskas.
This year, the organizers will have to take care not only of an impressive sporting event but also of all the organizational requirements set for the FIA European Rally Trophy stage. The competition will be held according to the FIA regional rally sporting regulations, and its organization will be supervised by international FIA delegates and commissioners.
Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the „Rokiškio Grand Rally“ becomes not only an opportunity for the organizers to look back at the path traveled but also an important step towards an even more ambitious goal. If plans go successfully, next year the Rokiškis rally may become a candidate stage of the European Rally Championship, and a year later – approach a historic event for Lithuanian motorsport.
