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First rally Saturnus was organized back in 1978, and
there was nobody, who thought that this event will became the biggest rally
in this territory. For the first three years rally only counts for Yugoslavian
championship, but in the early 80-ies it get coefficient for European
championship. The winner of the first two rallies was  Brane Küzmiè,
Slovenian and Yugoslavian rally legend, who had also won in some European
rallies with coefficient 20, when he drove Renault 5 turbo. Later it was
impossible for home drivers to get higher places, because foreign
competitors has better cars, as Quartesan who won the rally in 1985 with
Porsche 911. When we look into the results of those past
rallies we can find some great names there.
In the
year
1987
Austrian
Franz
Wittmann
won
his
only
rally
for
world
championship
and later
on
Wittman,
also
known
as
“Kaiser”
became
the
most
successful
driver
of
Rally
Saturnus,
because
he won
it for
4
times,
as
Brane
Küzmic
did it
too,
but
Kaiser
won it
for
European
championship.
Only
Jörg
Patterman did it more times,
6, always as co-driver. These were
the times, when rally count for European, Slovenian, Croatian and Austrian
championship, and at this time Austrians were unbeatable for many years.
Even Philippe Bugalski couldn’t beat them in 1993, when he drove Renault
Clio 16s. In 1989  Muhamed Ben Sulayem start on rally Saturnus with toyota celica, but due to some technical
problems, he couldn’t count to win. For the last few years Ben Sulayem in
unbeatable in Middle East Championship. In 1997 Italian GianLuigi Galli (ford
escort cosw) was very close to won, but in the very last special stage he
crashed out. He has the lead of over 1-minute and victory goes to Austrian
Kris Rosenberger. Next two years we saw a battle between another two
Austrian Raphael Sperrer (renault megane maxi) and Achim Mörtl (subaru
impreza). At the they have won it each for one time. In
2000 after a long time victory stay in Slovenia, and it was get by superior
driving of Darko
Peljhan (vw golf IV kit car). Darko comes from the city Idrija,
which has hosted rally Saturnus for so many times. Because of all successes
of Darko, a lot of young boys from Idrija started to prepare their own rally
cars, and today the best Slovenian rally team comes from Idrija. At the end
of 70ies rally was organized near Slovenian capital town Ljubljana, but
later it moved to Slovenian coast and to roads around Idrija. Today's major
of Slovenian biggest coast town Koper is Boris Popoviè, Slovenian rally
champion in 1999, who finished in 6th place in San Remo rally in
group N in 1998. |