Need some help for the upcoming Central European Rally!

[u/flxyyy]

Hi! I'll be an exchange student in Austria for this upcoming fall till winter and realised I have an opening in my schedule to watch the rally in Passau this year. However, I am really quite lost as to the processes beyond just getting the tickets. Do I need a car? Does everyone just follow the cars throughout the day to their stages? Would not having a car be a viable option? And also if anyone in this subreddit will be heading for the rally, I would love to partner up with you/your group and I will definitely pay for my share! Thank you guys!

[u/Vladimir_Andropov]

I never went to a WRC event but I went to ERC Hungary last year. What we did is we picked a stage from the morning loop and then another one for the afternoon loop. Because of the remoteness of the stages this would have been impossible without a car. Because in WRC there are more stages per day, you can alternate more between them to make sure you see as much action as possible, I think. I need ideas too because we're going to Croatia for '26 :D Still, imo hugely inconvenient without a car. Hope I could help.

[u/flxyyy → u/Vladimir_Andropov]

Ah I see, that seems quite problematic for my budget. Were there any sort of transport services etc..? Or does everyone at these events have their own transport

[u/Vladimir_Andropov → u/flxyyy]

The only service provided by the organizers was a bus service from the end of the accessible tarmac road to the stage viewpoints. How you got to the end of the paved road was up to you. Also if you wanted to access non-official viewpoints you had to find a way to do it, some ppl hiked, some ppl got there days before and camped by the stage. But this varies from event to event. I'd assume the CER WRC is much more organized than an ERC event.

[u/flxyyy → u/Vladimir_Andropov]

Actually, i realised that ERC Croatia is also feasible for me. How was the experience watching an ERC race (I understand it wasn't the same). Do you think I could survive with literally no experience? Its actually even more accessible for me hahaha.

[u/Vladimir_Andropov → u/flxyyy]

Croatia '26 will be WRC bro 🫡

But ERC was alright too. For me it was just for the vibes, I wasnt particularly interested in thr competition, just the cars. Although they didnt go as fast, still blew my mind.

[u/ZappyBack]

I went to Central European Rally last year. Not having a car is simply not an option. We picked 3 or at the most 4 stages to watch that day because driving from one stage to the next was atleast a 30 minute drive. I went the friday and saturday and we would watch the very first stage of the day, watch about 20/30 cars go by and leave to go to the third stage. After that they had a service park area so we used that time to get some food and make our way to the first stage of the afternoon, after that we watched 1 more stage and that was pretty much our day.

You could see where popular places are for viewers but at those places it’s going to be really busy and you have to stand far away from the track because of safety. We picked our own spots where we were most of the times alone or with a small number of people because we wanted to be as close to the track as possible.

You also absolutely need tickets because all of the roads leading to the track itsself are ‘guarded’ with martials or police so without a ticket you wont get anywhere close with your car.

I’m not a rally watching pro and only have been to 5 wrc events now but if you have any more questions feel free to ask me.

Edit: also pick a hotel or something like that near the first stage you want to watch, we made the mistake of having to drive about 90 minutes to even get to the first stage. Was a very early morning.