The 14.82km Gialia Special Stage was 100% gravel starting out from Gialia and heading up a valley through Paphos Forest towards Finoukli. 

This was another new special stage for me, and I hadn’t had an opportunity to recce it.  At first sight it wasn’t going to be easy – it’s all forest around there with lots of shadows at the best of times.  Chuck a low angle afternoon sun into the equation on a stage heading east and it could have been problematic. 

Sometimes luck happens, and my press sticker on the windscreen was enough to convince the marshals to let me drive the stage ahead of the first cars.

Conscious the first safety car wasn’t that far behind me, I roared up through the forest on a difficult track where even the unstoppable 4x4 Navara was tested on occasion.

Bingo.  I found a clearing in the trees, a nice tight corner, and somewhere to get the truck off the stage.  Perfect.  Now bring on the action.

The combination of slight backlighting, lots of dust from the cars and shafts of light through the trees was about as perfect as it gets.

The only problem was there wasn't a lot of variety I could get into the pictures.  So I went for blurry pan shots - always a favourite of mine.

There was a bunch of other people there enjoying the good natured banter that seems to follow rallying in Cyprus.  We were all getting pretty grubby as cars passed kicking up huge dustclouds.  But hey, who cares.  This is fun.

Into the middle of this arrived a couple.  Maybe he was treating her to a big afternoon out of motorsport.  But he should have pointed out high heels and slinky clothes don’t mix with dusty rallying in forests.  Bet he got a bollocking later...

Check out the pictures at IRC Cyprus Rally 2011 – SS9 Gialia 2 or watch the video below.