Forestburgh, New York — Rally New York organization has announced a change of the date for its 2009 International Rally New York scheduled to take place in the Fall of 2009.

The 2009 International Rally New York will take place on October 23 – 24, 2009, which is one week earlier than previously announced.

We are making this change to avoid Halloween that impairs our ability to recruit and retain event marshals and to use certain stage roads. We regret any inconvenience this change may have caused to those competitors who, as we have been advised, already made arrangements to attend the rally.

The 2009 International Rally New York is the final round of the 2009 United States Rally Championship. The event includes two one-day rounds of the New York Rally Championship. The 2009 International Rally New York is a gravel rally.

The United States Rally Championship is taking bold steps to make national competition more affordable and accessible to a larger number of rally teams. The Championship structure minimizes or, for many teams, eliminates the need for repeated cross-country travel during the Championship season by providing competition on each side of the country. The final round of the Championship at the end of the year counts both in the Atlantic Division and the Pacific Division and together with the results from all previous rounds decides the top spots in the Championship. Pacific Division teams will be again competing for $12,000 in travel subsidies to attend the final round in New York.

Rally New York, Ltd. also presents the Rally New York USA on April 17 - 18, 2009. This tarmac event is the first round of the 2009 United States Rally Championship. All Rally New York events are conducted according to the international rules with three-pass reconnaissance on Thursday and two days of racing on Friday and Saturday. Most events in the United States Rally Championship allow for reconnaissance of the rally course.

More information on the United States Rally Championship can be found at www.usrallychampionship.com. Information on Rally New York events and on New York Rally Championship is at www.RallyNewYork.com.