European Cup series are coming to the season's end. Their outcome could be quite logical, but for the possibility of an upturn in one of them. Just a few events before there was no doubt that the East European Cup would turn out to be the playing ground of crews from Bulgaria. And it could have been so, if not for the last three events of the Cup.

Ahead of the Yalta Rally there had been no national flags at the top of the East European Cup standings other than Bulgarian. However none of the favourites came to the Ukrainian race. Instead did make his appearance a very strong crew of a Romanian team with Italian Marco Tempestini behind the wheel. He decided to take a strategic victory in the Cup. And it seems like it was the starting point of the Bulgarian crews' hegemony fading. And it wasn't only about the speed of Tempestini, because unfortunately he retired from the rally due to a fire in his car. But there also appeared a lot of Ukrainian flags in the standings pointing at the fact that nothing was settled down with two events of the series still to go. Moreover, both the Serbian and Novorossiysk rallies have the highest difficulty rank - 10, which almost guaranteed a hot finish to the season. The crews from Bulgaria could only hope for some fortunate results in Serbia, and taking into account that the race was also held as a round of the Bulgarian championship, their hopes could have come true. But...  

The Serbian Rally, a long-standing event in the European motorsport, was held this year for the 42^nd time. Few races can be proud of such a long history. And few events have ever had such a radical influence on the series' standings: the European Cup's leader Krum Donchev retired on the fourth special stage without any possibility of returning to competition under SupeRally rules - the engine on his car was too badly damaged. Victory was taken by his closest rival Yasen Popov, but as the runner-up came Marco Tempestini. And his strategy began to pay off. His chances were boosted by the fact that none of the Ukrainian crews took part in the race, and hence they lost their chances to fight for the Cup: according to the FIA Regional Cups regulations, for winning the series one must be qualified at least in three races of the season. And once again the standings turned upside down, with Yasen Popov on top of them with 230 points and Marco Tempestini in second with 120 points. Krum Donchev fell to fourth. So, "Novorossiysk Rally of Russia" will settle everything? Well...

The fight for the East European Cup is heating up. Results of the four previous rounds don't guarantee victory to anyone of the series' favourites, because in theory the maximum amount of points available to be taken from Novorossiysk is 160. This means that any one from the current top-5 can take the crown. However in reality there're too many factors to consider:

- "Novorossiysk" is the only gravel rally of the season, so crews must have an experience of driving on this surface and have cars with completely different set-ups.

- Russian sportsmen are traditionally fast on gravel, and the rally's route, though in parts, is familiar to our drivers, not mentioning the factor of "home soil support".

But the last factor beats all the others...

Like a bolt from the blue came the news: no one of the Bulgarian crews entered the Novorossiysk rally! It means that only Marco Tempestini will fight there for victory in the East European Cup, and moreover - he'll be fighting against a virtual rival who won't even come to the race. Yasen Popov has a 110 points advantage over the Italian. So practically it should be enough for Tempestini to finish each leg (and of course conclude the rally) in second place in order to grab the title. Marco has no lack of gravel experience - he has won in his national gravel competitions and has taken part in different raid events - so his crew has all chances of winning the Cup. Tempestini will drive an S2000 car, which proved to have a word over GroupN cars, which Russian competitors will use. Just two weeks are left until the start of "Novorossiysk Rally of Russia 2009". Only race will show who is the best...