Vintage rally drivers heading to Wanganui | Manawatu-Wanganui News | Local News in Manawatu-Wanganui

Final preparations for the VCC Rally 2012 are well on their way to completion, with some entrants set to begin touring the country en route to Wanganui from tomorrow.

The car spotters' guide, which will enable the public to source details about vehicles involved in the rally, is being printed, and will be on sale by the end of this week.

The entrants' rally handbook and route instruction manual were printed last week, and together with a range of other rally-related wares, they will make up the nearly 700 race packs currently being put together ahead of the arrival of entrants from Monday, January 16.

The rally's publicity officer, Ed Boyd, said the event's committee were doing all they could to spend as many dollars in Wanganui as possible. "It's working out to be around 80 per cent of the spending - the other 20 per cent is for what simply can't be supplied locally," Mr Boyd said.Z

The route instruction booklet has been personalised for each entrant, depending on which of the six groups they have been included in, and therefore, the chronology of tours. That's been a 60-hour job, which began just prior to Christmas. Designing the six rally routes, meanwhile, began two-and-a-half years ago.

Entrants from Taipa and Kaitaia in Northland, and Invercargill, will be the first to depart, with some beginning their journeys to Wanganui tomorrow.

Mr Boyd said this rally will be the culmination of five years' worth of planning. The successful bid by Wanganui's branch of the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand (VCC) was made six years ago, around the time of the last international rally held by the VCC in 2006. Then-mayor Michael Laws pledged $100,000-worth of funding from Wanganui District Council in support of the event, and this money has since been handed over. "This is a real feature for Wanganui," Mr Boyd said. "There'll be plenty who haven't seen another event like it."

The car spotters' guide will be available from H&A; Print (Wilson St) and the Wanganui Chronicle (Taupo Quay) by the end of this week, and at the January 22 public open day at Wanganui Racecourse. At $5, the guide provides details about vehicles involved in the rally.