Salento Rally 2003
I'm following the event with some reports during these days and I will add also a bunch of exclusive photos from Videorace and Photocris.
Event summary: leg 1
At 9:53 am the Rally del Salento faces the Litoranea Stage (km. 16,960). The best time is recorded by Gigi Galli (Mitsubishi) followed by Andreucci (Fiat) with a delay of 15", Travaglia (Peugeot) at 18"4, Longhi (Subaru) at 19"4, Basso (Fiat) at 25"3. Cunico (Mitsubishi), Rossetti (Citroen), Scorcioni and Dallavilla (Fiat) arrive after them. Galli leads the general classification, at the second rank Andreucci with a delay of 37"4, Longhi at 39"5, Travaglia at 40"2 and Cunico at 1'00"1.
At about 10:20 am a tragic accident upsets the Rally. Aghini-Roggia's Peugeot 206 goes off the road during the final passage of the third special stage. At about 300 mt from the end of the stage while facing a left turn, the crew lost the control of the car smashing against an old stone building, off the edge of the roadway near Santa Maria di Leuca, in the area of Castrignano del Capo.
The crash occurred near the finish line of the stage. An emergency car equipped with a mobile intensive care unit intervened immediately. After few minutes another emergency car and an emergency helicopter reached the accident site. From the first medical investigations the conditions of Loris Roggia appeared to be very serious. Because of the violent rebound followed to the strong deceleration and to the impact he lost consciousness. Andrea Aghini showed the signs of a cervical and thoracic trauma. Loris Roggia was immediately carried to the hospital of Gagliano del Capo, but after few minutes he died. Loris was born on 4th September 1953 at Pianezze near Bassano del Grappa (Vicenza). He was married with the former co-driver Cristina Larcher and lived at Gargazzone a village between Bolzano and Merano. They had three children, Matteo (10 years old), Cristian (7 years old) and Alessandro (4 years old). Roggia begun his career in 1976. He has been professional co-driver for many years and an esteemed adviser of some important races (San Marino, San Martino di Castrozza, Adriatico, etc). He has been co-driver of Vittorio Caneva, Massimo Ercolani, Gianni Del Zoppo, Gustavo Trelles, Michele Rayneri, Gilberto Pianezzola. He won his first Italian Championship in 1993 with his partner Gilberto Pianezzola (on a Lancia Delta Integrale). From 1997 he was Andrea Aghini's co-driver and with him he won the Italian Champioship in 1998 and in 1999 on the Toyota Corolla owned by the Grifone Team. In 2003 Roggia took part with Fabio Frisiero in the international championships in Sweden and New Zealand. In this circle everybody loved him thanks to his great humility and to his availability with inexperienced drivers. With his friend Claudio Carusi he founded the Internet site and the most consulted search engine in Italy (www.rallylink.it).
As a sign of sorrow for the loss of the co-driver, many crews abandoned the race reaching the service park of Ugento. Nine crews are still competing and they will end their race in Piazza Mazzini at 8 pm.
Pictures
I thank Photocris for some exclusive shots for Puntopower.com and jwrc.com.
Another collection of pictures about the last park assistance after the rally was de facto suspended.
 Scorcioni |
 Bettega |
 Scorcioni |
 Bizzarri |
 Basso |
 Bettega |
 Gamba |
 Bettega |
 Basso |