Pordenone, 2 June 2025_ The day approaches, the organization is very excited, the Fuoristrada Club 4x4 Pordenone works on the many details of the complex organizational machine. Seems like nothing has changed, but is everything the same? Not at all. This long eve of the 31st Italian Baja (3/5 july) is not like the others. For the third time in its history, the race is again part of the FIA World Cup and feels under examination - a feeling not unknown to those that can’t give anything for granted. The International Automobile Federation doesn’t give its authorization very easily, but only by checking the credentials, then checking if everything is done in compliance with the requirements, and finally preparing a report card of the event that will determine the near future.
It was so in 1993/1994, between the first national edition and the second, the one that immediately landed in the World Cup Rallies Tout Terrain - to remain there until 2003. Beautiful and unrepeatable moment, when the contestants could race on the beds of the rivers Cellina-Meduna. Then another life starting from 2005 with the once-only Italian Baja Sardinia in Carbonia, Sulcis. A long and difficult climb to the top, that saw the bed of river Tagliamento, the sunset on the “Dream Village” in Cordenons and the comeback at the Pordenone Expo to receive again, in 2011, the World Cup seal. In 2020 the stop was forced by Covid19 - and to think that we’ve almost forgotten about it - and the years after at the Interport, a welcoming but still cold location, like a soundstage. But now we’re back at the Expo, just a few minutes from the city centre, on the banks of Noncello, and it feels like a return home.
A 2025 edition again with the World Cup seal, as well as the validity for the European, Italian and Hungarian Championship. The wish is that we’ll be able to see a rematch between Nasser Al-Attiyah and Yazeed Al Rajhi, high level rivals. However that goes, success is granted for Fuoristrada Club 4x4 Pordenone. “Keep climbing, don’t give up!” is the teaching of Mauro Tavella, our now sixty years old guru still in the control room.
Italian Baja Press Office
Photo MCH
