CAMBRIAN CANCELLED
Treacherous conditions force cancellation of BTRDA and Welsh opener
Last weekend’s Cambrian Rally was cancelled due to poor weather in North Wales.
The opening round of the BTRDA Series and MSA Welsh Rally Championship managed to run the opening Alwen stage before cancelling the event for fear of not being able to get safety crews into stages in the event of an accident.
After the event, pictures and videos emerged of cars skating over sections of special stage. On the one stage that was run, less than half of the cars on the entry list started, and of the ones that did, only 25 went faster than the stage maximum; a notional time of the stage distance completed at 30mph.
The event – which was nine months in the planning – was cast into doubt a few weeks before when it was made clear that Clocaenog East was not suitable to run due to heavy felling in the area.
Instead organisers had to run double-usage of stages that were already planned.
The event was also the first major one to be run in conjunction with Rally4wales, which is now responsible for repairing Welsh Government roads after rallies.
The BTRDA also confirmed via its newsletter that the series would now become seven rounds, best five scores counting: “Following the decision yesterday of the organisers of the Cambrian Rally to abandon the event after the first stage for safety reasons, the BTRDA Rally Series Committee would like to say that they fully support that difficult decision.
“We would also like to clarify to all competitors in the BTRDA Rally Series that, as per article 3 of the BTRDA Rally Series General Regulations, the series will now consist of seven rounds with the best five scores to count.”