Pit Lane’s Ben Constanduros was desperately disappointed when the Dakar Rally was cancelled due terrorist threat in January. While he won’t exactly be getting the World’s top off road competitors as they compete in the replacement event.

The Dakar Rally organisers the ASO, had been planning ‘The Dakar Series’ to debut in 2009 however due to the 2008 Lisboa-Dakar being, it was felt that the inception of the Dakar Series a year early would help to repair some of the damage caused by the shock cessation.

The First event of the 2008 Dakar Series is the Central Europe Rally, a 7 day event taking competitors from Budapest, Hungary into the mountains of Romania and then back to the beautiful Lake Balaton. It has attracted all the Dakar greats including VW, Mitsubishi, BMW and KTM, but is expected to be very different experience to the Mauritanian Sands.

Ben Constanduros will be  lending his voice to a daily live programme that will be sent across 32 different countries showing highlights of each of the day’s action. In addition to TV, Sierra Productions will also produce a digital News Access for the event website, www.centraleuroperally.com.

‘After the bitter disappointment of January it is great to be back with the team in Hungary preparing a new challenge. It is very much into the unknown for everyone, competitors and media alike and that adds another exciting dimension to the journey.’

‘Pitlane Productions are allowing me to experience every corner of motorsport, I was at DTM last weekend and now I am in a totally different atmosphere with bike and trucks!’ commented Ben.