Raleigh, North Carolina -- NASA Rally Sport is proud to announce that 2008 will be the inaugural season of the Atlantic RallyMoto™ Cup. This first-of-its-kind championship pits man and bike against a wide variety of surfaces and conditions in a traditional stage rally format. The 2007 season saw the creation of this sport and response was incredible from both the competitors and the manufacturers. "I was pretty amazed", said Anders Green, organizer of the very first rally offering competitors the chance to compete in the RallyMoto™ program. "Basically the sport went from 'didn't exist' to 'I'm sorry, we're full, I can put you on a waiting list' in about six weeks. And when BMW decided to make Sandblast Rally the North American debut for their X-Challenge bike, I realized that this idea really had some legs." RallyMoto™ is NASA Rally Sport's trademarked program that allows motorcycles to battle each other in a stage rally format. Racing sections, called 'special stages' are linked by untimed 'transits'. Each racer starts the stage one at a time; there are no mass starts. Because the bikes have to transit between the special stages on public roads, all of the bikes have to be street legal, registered, and insured, just like the rally cars. This translates to dual sport bikes being the ideal candidate. The events which offer the RallyMoto™ program do so in conjunction with rally cars. While there are other events that offer point-to-point competition for motorcycles, the Atlantic RallyMoto™ Cup is the world's only series that does so in a rally format. The closest comparisons would be rally-raid events, of which the most famous is the Dakar, which do not take place on closed roads and generally requires traveling to Africa or the Middle East to compete in. On the North American continent there is the Baja 1000, which also does not use closed roads. The Atlantic RallyMoto™ Cup offers competitors and manufacturers a unique opportunity to race and promote within the United States. Recapping last year, we saw the first ever RallyMoto™ event, then the first event to offer racing on tarmac, and then the first event to offer night rallying to motorcycles. There was no series in the first year of the RallyMoto™ program, indeed, there wasn't even a consistent class structure from one event to the next. Wilson von Kessler said, "We really had no idea what kind of machinery was going to show up, so it was hard to write those rules. It turns out our competitors have a great rally spirit and we adapted to these things and just kept plugging along. Everyone knew that the first year we had to concentrate on keeping everyone safe and educating our riders about just how rally works. Even though car rally has a 100 year history, the terms and concepts had a completely separate evolution on the bike side." Competitors will visit four states ranging up and down the East coast of the United States. Conditions will include sand, gravel, and tarmac to truly test the teams' abilities on all surfaces. One event, Rally West Virginia, will be offer the RallyMoto™ program for the first time in 2008, while the remaining events saw motorcycles in 2007. The events and their dates are:
Sandblast Rally - Cheraw, SC - February 9 Note to Editors:
• RallyMoto™ is a trademarked program of NASA Rally Sport For media support, please contact Anders Green.
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