Stara Fortecia (car rally)

1999-2006: The Early Years

The rally "Stara Fortetsya" was first held in the summer of 1999 at the initiative of the then organizer of the Ukrainian Rally Championship Vasyl Rostotsky . The race owes its name to the Kamenetz-Podilsky fortress , which is one of the main architectural and historical sights of the region and the whole of Ukraine.

From the very first years of its existence, the race acquired a number of characteristic features that later became its trademark: the grand opening and prologue competition section, passing along the streets of the historical part of Kamenets-Podolsky, as well as special sections, passing along a career near the villages of Verbka and Privorotye. The most popular place among the fans was the springboard near the village of Verbka, after the jump on which the participants' cars overcome in free flight more than 30 meters.

The race did not immediately find “its” place in the competition calendar. The first two years of the Stara Fortetsya rally took place in the fall, and only in 2001 the competition began to be traditionally held in early May. This was partly due to the nature of local roads that did not suffer from spring thaw; partly due to the fact that in the first days of May Kamenetz-Podolsky traditionally became a place of pilgrimage for tourists from all over Ukraine and from abroad. In the further history of the race there were only two exceptions to this rule: in 2005, Stara Fortetsya took place in August, in 2016 in September ^[2] .

Ukrainian athletes quickly fell in love with the new race. So, if only 18 crews took part in the first rally of “Stara Fortetsya”, then by 2004 the number of starts had doubled ^[3] .

2007-2008: scandals and accidents

However, despite the universal love of athletes and fans, this rally quite often became the scene of controversial and even scandalous events. So, the 2007 race was remembered by the so-called “falling out” result of Vladimir Petrenko , who, according to official timing, overcame one of the special stages one minute faster than any of the rivals (and one minute faster than he did it on the previous drive) ^{[4 ]} . Due to this circumstance, Petrenko became the absolute winner of the competition in terms of the sum of the results. Most experts agreed that the reason for this result was a judicial error in fixing the travel time, however, no official evidence was found, and the controversial result remained fixed in the minutes of the competition ^[5] .

The Stara Fortetsya rally of 2008 caused a great resonance, in which a record number of crews took part - 43 ^[6] . Attention was drawn to the fact that among them for the first time there were foreigners - the champion of Latvia Andis Neykshans and the champion of Russia Alexander Zheludov . It was the latter who took part in the most ridiculous accident in the history of this race.

At the finish of one of the special stages, Zheludov’s car could not brake in a timely manner and collided with a car in which the competition officials were located ^[7] . As a result of the investigation of the causes of this accident, it became clear that the cause of the collision was an incorrectly installed finish sign, after which, contrary to the requirements of the regulations, there was not enough space for braking.

2016–2019: Return

The events of 2007-2008, and the subsequent critical reaction of the media ^[8] , led to the fact that the organizers abandoned the idea of ​​holding a rally in Kamenetz-Podolsky. The next race took place only eight years later, in 2016. Along with positive feedback from fans, the competition received a new portion of criticism, primarily because of the low level of safety of participants and spectators ^[9] . And, despite the fact that the event was held without any accidents and incidents, the race was again stopped.

The next revival of the rally in Kamyanets-Podilsky is scheduled for May 2019. This time, the organizers decided to rebrand their event, removing the word “old” from the name - it appears in the competition calendar as a rally “Fortec”.

• Calendar of automobile competitions in Ukraine on the FAA website
• Rally.in.ua