NEWRY, Maine — The 17th running of the New England Forest Rally will take place July 12-14 in Mexico, Maine and Berlin, N.H. All racing festivities and staging will occur at Sunday River in Newry, Maine. The New England Forest Rally represents round six of the Rally America National Championship series as well as the last qualifying round for the 2007 X Games.

The New England Forest Rally is expected to draw over 50 competitors from acorss North America and internationally. Top US drivers, including X Games gold medalist Travis Pastrana is entered along with international drivers including Andrew Pinker from Australia, and Antoine L’Estage from Canada. Local driver Christopher Duplessis of Mason Township, Maine is also registered to compete.

The X Games Rally Car Racing Super Special will take place in Los Angeles at the Home Depot Center and will be broadcast on national television.

The New England Forest Rally kicks off on the evening of Thursday, July 12 with registration, technical inspectional and autograph signing for race fans. This years autograph signing will be held at the Sunday River Brewery at the corner of the Sunday River Road and Route 2. Many of the competing teams will have their competition cars on display.

The competitive stages will start on Friday, July 13 from Mexico, Maine. On Saturday, the rally will re-start from Berlin, N.H. where teams will then transit out to run a number of grueling stages.

The sport of performance rally racing has the largest live attendance of any other sport in the world. More than one billion people worldwide will attend performance rally races in 2007. Rally racing is a motorsport where teams race against the clock, one at-a-time, on closed roads at the fastest speed possible on stages they have never seen before. Each team is comprised of two people, a driver and a co-driver. The co-driver reads from stage notes and barks out instructions while the driver is negotiating the course at high speed. The team having the lowest cumulative time over the whole event wins. Teams will compete in street legal, but highly prepared cars that are based upon current popular car models such as the Subaru WRX, Mitsubishi EVO, Dodge Neon, Volkswagen Golf, and Mazda 6.

More information on spectating at the 2007 New England Forest Rally along with competitor information is available at the event web site: www.newenglandforestrally.com . Sunday River is offering lodging packages for race fans starting at $115 per night per room including breakfast, which is available at www.sundayriver.com or by calling (800) 543-2754.