This is where it all started! In the centre of Liège... at the Place St-Lambert. Here, the drivers and their cars departed to SPA, the official starting point of the race.

A big crowd gathered and gazed at the rally cars and the future candidate champions and hero’s...

Imagine that you have to drive 96 hours in a row (4 days, 4 nights). That is exactly what these rally heroes did in 1961-1964. It all started in darkness at 10pm in Spa.

When talking to rally veterans, they do admit that some “additives” helped them through this non-stop racing event, next to a pillow being present in the cockpit.

Driving non-stop was not without risk, and many of them started to hallucinate when they were heading north again, direction of Spa.

It did not hurt to freshen up the geographical background when participating in the “Liège-Sofia-Liège”: Sofia (Bulgarian: София) is the capital and largest city of... BULGARIA.

Drivers were prepared and studied the maps. A lot of them drove a recce beforehand! Admire some period pictures below from the centre of Sofia where the rally heroes of 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964 were “allowed” the only 1 hour rest of the 98 hours of marathon driving.

The map below shows a red line for the road being driven in darkness. For sure the night driving over the Yugoslavian passo della Moistrocca (Col) and the tiny and winding roads between Pec and Split were devastating. It resulted in decimating the number of drivers while they were chasing each other over the Yugoslavian roads.

Itinerary: Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium...

GAGARIN: YES! Satellite navigation: NO !

Though Russian (and hence Yugoslavian) hero GAGARIN was already launched into space in 1961, there was no talk yet about satellite navigation!