Mexico's Rally of Nations got off to a colorful start on Thursday evening, to the sound of mariachis and folk music in addition to many other expressions of Mexican culture. The city of Guanajuato, a World Heritage town, threw quite a bash to welcome the 45 crews who will be fighting for first place this weekend when the race begins.

The ceremonial start took place in front of both the Juárez Theatre and the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, where more than 30,000 people gathered to give rally participants a typically warm Mexican welcome, and to wish them good luck in the race.

The icing on the cake was an appearance by 2003 WRC champion Petter Solberg: the Norwegian rode in on a motorcycle to surprise the crowd.

The first crew stepping onto the start podium to receive the applause of the audience was one made up of world rally legends as Frenchman Didier Auriol moved up with Denis Giraudet, who has been his co-driver during a great part of his career.

They were followed by other international figures such as Finns Harri Rovanpera and Toni Gardemeister; Spaniards Dani Sola and Xavi Pons; Swedes Per-Gunar Andersson and Patrik Sandell; Austrian Manfred Stohl and his female co-driver Ilka Minor, as well as a promising newcomer, Andreas Aigner.

The Mexican teams were well represented by the current champion in the Production Car group, Rodrigo Ordonez, as well as Ricardo Trivino who has competed in several world championships.

With all these stars, the Rally of Nations will start at 8:48 local time on Friday morning with the Comanjilla stage, the first of 18 on the event's programme.