AutoGuard at the 6th Lotos Baltic Cup Rally
12 May 2010

On the 14-16 of May the 6th edition of the Lotos Baltic Cup will take place. It is the second elimination of the Polish Rally Championships and the third elimination of the Polish Rally Cup. The gravel special stages will certainly bring unforgettable impressions. The rally fans will be able to follow it in Internet through the "Virtual Fan" application. It will be possible thanks to the GPS units of AutoGuard and "Virtual Fan" internet service created together with Go-Rally.

The ceremony of the honourable start of this year's Lotos Baltic Cup Rally will take place on the 14th of May in Gdańsk. In the rally will participate among others: Tomasz Kuchar, Kajetan Kajetanowicz, Michał Bębenek, Leszek Kuzaj i Michał Sołowow. The participants express positive opinions of the rally. The special stages are difficult, they consist of complicated sections of turns and the whole rally route is full of suprises. The 6th Lotos Baltic Cup Rally will be the the first round of the Szuter Cup.

 

The Lotos Rally took place for the first time in 1961 when it replaced the Baltic Cup Rally. In 2009 the rally entered the Polish Motor Rally Championships category and changed its name into the Lotos Baltic Cup. In 2009 the 5th Lotos Baltic Cup Rally was the third elimination of the Polish Rally Championships. Leszek Kuzaj who was driving Peugeot 207 S2000 won the competition. Bryan Bouffier in Mitsubishki Lancer Evo IX got the second place, third came Zbigniew Staniszewski also in Lancer. The organiser of this year's Rally is Sopot Sports Association - Automobilklub Orsk. The overall number of 44 teams were introduced into the Rally Entry List.

 

The Virtual Fan for the following time accompanies the rally contestants, this time during the Lotos Baltic Cup Rally. The rally fans will be able to follow on-line the course of the competition through the web site. The Virtual Fan project was created as a result of the cooperation between AutoGuard, Go-Rally and the Autoklub.pl portal. AutoGuard equipped the teams with the GPS units, and Go-Rally took care of the data presentation system. The GPS system localises a vehicle and trasmits the position coordinates to the AutoGuard Monitoring Centre. The processed data are then available on the dedicated website www.wirtualnykibic.pl. The application is so advanced that after reaching the rally finish the special stage results of a team are shown on the screen next to a car's icon.

 

The system is appreciated by the rally participants and the organisers because it improves the level of safety of the competitors. In case of an accident the GPS system indicates the place where the emergency services should be dispatched. The Virtual Fan also helps the judges with the fair estimation of the contestants thanks to the possibillity of close observation of all maneuvers carried out during the rally.