First competition will reach Liepaja already this weekend, when Liepaja will be captured by photo and video cameras by more than 50 competitors of International Press rally.

Participants of Press rally will compete in Liepaja street tracks
On May 30 participants of 18th International Press rally will go trough Liepaja. After special stages and competition opening ceremony in Riga, journalists will perform four special stages in Liepaja – Cukura and Dūņu streets, as well as in Vecā Ostmala at the Loču tower. Competition in Liepaja will take place from 16:00 until 18:00. After that competitors will drive to Rude karting track and then to Lithuania, where the competition will finish on July 1st during Klaipeda Jazz festival.

International Press rally is organized by Lithuanian auto-journalists club, with support in organization of Liepaja stages by association “Liepaja Rally Team”. More information about the event at www.pressauto.lt.

In the middle of July – dragrace and mini-rally
In the middle of the summer – July 12 – 13, participants of Latvian dragracing championship will arrive to Liepaja. They will have a competition on Pulvera street track in 300m dragrace course. First time dragracing in Liepaja took place in 2012, during the Festival of Speed. Organizer of competition Uldis Hmieļevskis explains the change of date: “We decided to organize dragracing competition in July, because at this time of season there are more sunny days, than rainy ones.” U. Hmieļevskis says that “In such distance leading racers speeds up to 200km/h and safety is primary factor for race to take place. In the previous competition in the end of August, prompt running of the competition was interrupted by rain drops, wetting the asphalt. Particularity of the asphalt of Pulvera Street is that it is new and therefore getting slippery with even little moisture – it does not affect everyday traffic, but for powerful dragracing cars it is like driving on the iced road. That is why we decided to organize the competition at the time when possibility of precipitations is smaller.”

Dragracing competition will be great extra for weekend program of Summer Sound festival, taking place at the same dates – July 12 – 13, in Liepaja.

While on Sunday, July 14, in Aizpute, Mini-rally competition will take place. Mini-rally is rally competition which is suitable for standard street cars, as well. Special stages will be located on Durbe and Aizpute region roads, but the maximum speeds on the track will not exceed 90-100km/h, which makes this competition safe for the cars without safety cages, as well.

Rally, as well as bike in the Festival of Speed
Central event of summer motorsports will traditionally take place in the last weekend of August – Liepaja will be roared-up by the Festival of Speed “Rally Kurzeme 2013” in August 30-31. Rally competition this year will welcome stages of Latvian rally and rally sprint championships, as well as stage of Estonian rally championship. That means that we can expect a lots of participants in the rally track – more than 100 crews.

Another special event of the Festival of Speed 2013 will be Northern Europe Streetbike Freestyle championship, where the strongest superbike riders from many European countries will show bike stunts and find-out the best one.

”Festival of Speed “Rally Kurzeme” traditionally will be combination of different motor sports competitions, entertainment and cultural events in one big occasion,” says organizer of the festival Uldis Hmieļevskis. “There will be traditional values, like rally, we are planning karting competition, children rally, competition “Young driver”, as well as something unseen – moto-freestyle competition, that shortly can be described as alternating riding on one or another wheel of the super-bike, performing the tricks that sometimes are in contradiction with the laws of physics, and deciding which is the best performer of those tricks. That for sure will be visually enjoyable event,” such are comments of U. Hmieļevskis about the programme of upcoming Festival of Speed.

Competition are organizes by association “Liepājas rallija komanda”.

Official web page www.rallykurzeme.lv, twitter account @RallyKurzeme.