This year marks the 72nd running of Rally Poland. That makes it the third oldest rally after the Österreichische Alpenfahrt and the Monte-Carlo. It was organised for the first time in 1921, but the country’s original rally was held in 1912.
That year, the Imperial Club of Saint Petersburg staged a rally between Warsaw, Kiev and Moscow. A second version in July 1913 took the form of a 582km loop around Warsaw with 16 starters. The following year, it was divided into four legs totalling 1,215km and was won by Count Karol de Raczynski in a Rochet-Schneider.
Competitive action in Poland was halted by the outbreak of the Great War but returned in 1921 when the national car club (Towarzystwo Automobilistów Królestwa Polskiego, tasked with promoting the automobile and educating drivers) organised the inaugural, predominantly dirt Rajd Polski which featured a 600km run from Warsaw to Białowieża and back.
Only six entries were received and the event was won by Tadeusz Heyne in a Dodge Touring. Heyne was born in 1883 and his technical background led him to jobs with Skoda in the Czech Republic and then in Russia’s aviation industry.
The Rajd Polski grew in length to 4,500km by 1939 when the 68 starters performed a complete tour of the country. Winner was Renato Ghisalba in a Fiat 1100 entered by the local importer, ahead of Stefan Grossman in a Citroën.
After World War 2, the event returned in 1946 with an entry of 71 cars which had survived the war.
Rally Poland was included in the European Rally Championship in 1960 and has counted towards the WRC three times (1973, 2009 and 2014).
Since 2005, it has been based in Mikolajki in the Mazurian Lake District. Last October, the Polish Automobile Club signed a deal with the local authorities for the event to remain in the tourist resort for the next 10 years.
Story and photo: Best-of-Rally-Live