FIRES THREATEN TO HALT RALLY AUSTRALIA
Reworked route for world championship event – although green light is unclear
This week’s Rally Australia was hanging in the balance as Motorsport News went to press – with series insiders calling for the Coffs Harbour event to be cancelled amid the fires raging through
New South Wales.
As the emergency services battled more than 120 fires, which covered close to 2.5 million acres across NSW and Queensland, event officials met in the early hours of Tuesday morning (London time) to decide the rally’s fate. At the time of writing, three people had been killed by the fires.
Once it became clear running the proposed route wasn’t going to happen – with the required forests declared no-go areas by the fire department – clerk of the course Wayne Kenny put together a revised route that included one of the gravel stages, Argents Hill Reverse, and both superspecials in Coffs Harbour and at the Raleigh International Raceway, south of the city.
That revised itinerary proposed action on all three days, but slashed the competitive mileage from 201 to 59.
Were such a plan to go ahead, Hyundai would be confirmed as manufacturers’ champion, with only one-third of the points available for a route offering between 25% and 50% of the original itinerary.
Hyundai Motorsport director Andrea Adamo told MN he would make no comment on anything until he understood more about the situation in Coffs Harbour. Adamo was travelling to Australia on Monday.
Tuesday was the day the officials feared the most, with hot, dry conditions and strong wind making the potential for the fires spreading even worse. By Monday evening, Coffs Harbour itself was considered to be at threat from the nearest fire, which burned north-west of the city close to Coramba.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said: “Everybody has to be on alert, no matter where you are and everybody has to assume the worst. We cannot allow complacency to creep in.”
One senior source in the service park told MN: “There’s really no support for running this rally. How can there be? People are dying out there, animals are dying, people are losing their homes, everything and we’re even considering taking the emergency services away to sit them at the side of the road so we can run a rally? That’s nuts.”
Subaru Australia withdrew former Australian Rally champion Molly Taylor’s WRX STI from the event on Monday morning. The entry fee was donated to the Coffs Coast Rural Fire Service.
The teams, WRC Promoter, FIA and local organisers attended a meeting to decide whether the revised route would be committed to a roadbook at 1600hrs Tuesday, local time.