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Peek beyond the blood, sweat and churned turf of the rugby Autumn Internationals and Wales is playing host to another truly high-octane global sporting extravaganza. This week sees the final round of the where some of the world's finest drivers will powerslide through the unforgiving Welsh countryside, bringing the curtain down on another thrilling season of world rallying.

Like rugby, rallying is stitched into the sporting tapestry of Wales. From Anglesey to Pembrokeshire the hills, forests and remote roads often echo to the sound of popping exhausts and roaring engines in countless rallies.

A recent dig into Â鶹Éç Wales' archive vault revealed this great video of the .

Starting from a car park in Aberystwyth, this event featured some of the cast iron heroes of rallying, all seen in the clip. Out of the mist, names such as 1979 world champion Björn Waldegård, Jimmy McrRae, Pentii Airikkala in his gorgeous Vauxhall Chevette and 1981 world champion and quadruple Paris Dakar winner Ari Vatanen in his Ford Escort RS 1800 are seen negotiating the treacherous stages more than 30 years ago.

Welshman Ryland James knows his rallying in Wales. He first competed in 1968 aged 15, and can boast six decades of success including winning the prestigious award of best amateur crew in the 1991 RAC Rally, the forerunner to Wales Rally GB.

"The Castrol rally was one of the classic national rallies which pulled out all the top clubman and semi-professional drivers in the UK," says James. "Plus you'd usually get a smattering of overseas drivers. I remember going to the Castrol 77 rally in the Brechfa Forest, it was a major even on the calendar."

As with this year's Wales Rally GB, the 1978 Castrol event featured such stages as the legendary near Llanidloes. The cars can be seen slithering around the gravel-topped roads of Ystwyth and Dyfi and remarkably, the cars that raced in the '70s are still competing in 2010.

"Many of those cars still compete in historic rallying," said James. "Most of my competing is done in historic rallying which is becoming very, very popular. The car we are competing in is the very car that used in the 1977 RAC Rally. It's had a hard life - we've been upside down twice in five years!"

Also featured powering and sliding in the clip is current boss of the team and father of highest placed British driver Malcolm Wilson . The 1994 British champion and stalwart of the rallying world will be hoping his son can round off a strong season in the Ford Focus RS and consolidate his seventh place in the championship.

Fast forward to this year's Wales Rally GB and Frenchman Sebastien Loeb has proved the master of rallying in recent history with seven consecutive world championships; he starts from Cardiff Bay this year as the 2010 champion. The pretender to Loeb's crown is compatriot and Citroën teammate Sebastian Ogier, who will be looking to upstage his team leader, while the flying Fin Jari-Matti Latvala comes to Wales third in the standings.