25 Jul 12

My first rally.
By Petter
Solberg

Ever wondered how stars from the FIA World Rally Championship got started? WRC.com has been finding out and spoke to Ford World Rally Team's former champion Petter Solberg about his first rally.

“My first rally was in Norway in 1996. My brother Henning’s wife [Maud Solberg] was my co-driver and, to be honest, neither of us had a clue!

“We had bought the car, a Volvo original class car, the Wednesday before and I needed to drive it 900 kilometres to get it back in time for the rally. We had five punctures on the way home and the powersteering wasn’t working. I got the car back at 6am, fixed new tyres and the powersteering just in time for scrutineering at 9am.

“Just before the start of the rally, I admitted that I didn’t know anything about the pacenotes to Maud. I said to her: “What are these called” but Maud didn’t have a clue either. Only 100 metres into the first stage, I asked her to throw the pacenotes into the back, they were only slowing me down.

“We actually finished second on that rally. There was a Norwegian champion from the year before competing and we even beat him! It’s quite a good story really.”