Blast from the past - Junior World Rally Championship 2006: Wales Rally GB

Hi, friends!

I follow the Junior World Rally Championship for twenty years now, from it's beginning because I was the one who always had a desire to drive one season of it but it never managed to happen.

In the start it was called Super 1600 championship because of its cars which were normally aspirated engines up to 1600ccm, front wheel drive and sequential gearbox. That was some screaming machines and it was really nice to listen them from the distance. The whole forest was full of that noise.

In 2003 it really became a Junior World Rally Championship for the drivers up to the 28 years of age. These days it is for the drivers up to 30 and the cars aren't front wheel drive machinery anymore but four wheel Rally3 cars now.

OK, in 2006 there was a tough title fight and in the end there was a "dark horse" winning the championship - Swede Patrik Sandell was the one who took a trophy for that season 2006.

There was a big battle at the front between Per-Gunnar Andersson, Urmo Aava (now organizer of WRC Rally Estonia), Kris Meeke and Guy Wilks. All this guys were battling so hard that in the end everyone retired because of some reason - mechanical failures, mistakes or too many punctures.

In the end Patrik Sandell took the title in the privately entered Renault Clio Super 1600, really beautiful car.

Pleas watch and enjoy in this piece of rallying history...

Credit for photos and videos to WRC and Youtube

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