On May 12 and 13, the Saar-Lor-Lux-Classique started its 23rd edition in Saarbrücken. The participants took on a varied 450-kilometre route through the Saarland, Lorraine and Luxembourg. In order to offer something for every type of rider, organizer Wolfgang Heinz offered three levels of difficulty: "Expert", "Sport" and "Touring".
The most demanding was the "Expert" classification with a Chinese logbook with and without kilometers, orientation tasks, pure target time tests, tests, drive-through controls, time controls and unmanned controls. It was much easier in the "Touring" classification based on the logbook, easy map-reading tasks and target time tests with drive-through checks and time checks. Logically, "Sport" offered a bit of both without slipping into extremes.
After the start in Saarbrücken, the rally entourage made its way to Saargemünd in Lorraine, where the first major stop was in the pedestrian zone. In typical French fashion, a policewoman quickly stopped the traffic for each car so that it could drive straight into the pedestrian zone. The route then continued in a large loop through Alsace (with a stop at the World Heritage Site of the Citadel of Bitche), the Palatinate Forest (including the former Wasgau mountain racetrack), back into Alsace, back to Lorraine and along the Saar until finally reaching Saarbrücken.
The second day of the rally started for the "experts" and "athletes" with a double stage at the small sports airfield in Düren, Saarland. First, two laps in the form of a figure of eight with several target times had to be completed on the runway and the narrow taxiway, followed by a very short slalom. After a larger loop through the northern Saarland, the field crossed the Moselle shortly before midday over the Europabrücke bridge between Perl in Saarland and Schengen in Luxembourg. For most of them, this was followed by the obligatory refueling and then a short lunch break in a wine cellar in neighboring Remerschen. Back over the Europabrücke bridge, a longer loop on quiet side roads and through small villages in Lorraine was on the agenda for the afternoon.
In the end, there were three winning teams: Jörg Pöhlemann (overall winner of last year's revival of the Olympic Rally) and his co-driver Fabian Mohr in a Porsche 924 won the experts' classification. Georg Taffet and Kay Thomaschk in an Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV came out on top in the Sportsman class. Victory in the Touring class was secured by the sisters Viktoria and Franziska Mayr in a BMW 1600. At the award ceremony in the Bel Étage of the Saarbrücken casino, this time there were lavish food baskets with regional specialties instead of the usual trophies, which was very well received by the participants and will hopefully be copied at other events.
