The Vodafone Rally de Portugal’s | Unknown World

from Portugal Rally 2019 Rev

O mundo desconhecido do Vodafone Rally de Portugal

30.05 > 02.06.2019 30.05 > 02.06.2019

The world behind the organising of a WRC event, in particular the Vodafone Rally de Portugal, is not infinite . But it has a huge dimension . While the best WRC drivers and cars compete during four exciting days, the Automóvel Club de Portugal has been in the road much longer to ensure all runs perfectly .

The numbers are impressive . So impressive, that, by comparison, the participants and their cars are but a minority .

To ensure the events safety, the ACP relies on the cooperation of several authorities . The Guarda Nacional Republicana stand at the top of the list with more than 1,100 personnel . Adding to this a “mere” 400 cars . But they are not the only ones, with the Polícia de Segurança Pública ensuring the normality in the city centres with 120 agents and 30 vehicles .

Motorsports imply risks . To guaranty drivers and spectators are safe, INEM and fire fighters are also on call . Besides the technicians, there are more than 20 medical emergency vehicles, almost 50 ambulances, 23 fire fighting cars e 30 extrication vehicles .

On the stages, staff is spread at predefined distances . ACP will have almost 500 people working as marshals and there are about 300 cars at the organiser’s disposal . Towing trucks are almost 30 and the private security personnel is over 100 . The numbers are tiring . And they don’t end here . To mark the stages are used 22 tons of stakes, which is another way of saying more than 20,000 stakes . There are also the 30 km of net used to mark part of the 300 km of stages .

And since the Vodafone Rally de Portugal has also a great environmental concern, the ACP uses 40,000 recycling bags .

To all this, one has also to take into consideration the months of work on the road and the thousands of kilometres rune to ensure all goes perfectly . This because, to choose the best routs, and to know where exactly to place all the safety teams, many technical visits are required . A work that starts almost the day after the end of the previous year’s Rally, but which gets into high gear about six months before each edition .