COLWYN BAY WATCH
As the World Rally Championship visits Wales, we find out what the drivers can expect from Saturday’s seafront special stage
“The promenade stage won’t be the most challenging for the drivers, but speeds will be high”
TENNIS aficionados have Wimbledon, The Crucible in Sheffield is the go-to location for snooker lovers, and Formula One fans flock to Silverstone. But when the World Rally Championship arrives in the UK for the first week of October, ardent enthusiasts can catch up with the best rally drivers in the world – on the promenade of Colwyn Bay.
The Welsh coastal resort is playing host to Wales Rally GB from 3-6 October, and while the heart of the action on the 75th running of the event will remain in the depths of the country’s forests – where yes, a bobble hat may still be required to ward off an October chill – the likes of six-times champion Sébastien Ogier and British hopefuls Elfyn Evans and Kris Meeke will also be playing to more casual observers along the seafront on Saturday evening.
Street circuits are nothing new in fourwheeled motorsport. But one of rallying’s strengths is that its cars are capable on all surfaces, while the stages – the bit where the fast action takes place – can be set up, point-to-point, pretty much anywhere, and then torn down again with relative ease. Barely 10 hours after the WRC’s 380bhp, four-wheel-drive supercars scream through the Colwyn Bay test on Saturday, the roads involved will be open again to normal traffic.
That’s not to say there’s no preparation involved, though. Alun Pritchard, Rally GB’s Events Partnership Manager, says the work started almost a year ago. “We ran a street stage in Llandudno last year, and around 25,000 people turned up,” he says. “But without a major sponsor, it wouldn’t have been commercially viable, so we looked elsewhere for 2019. There’s a bit of history of motorsport on Colwyn Bay seafront – a national rally used it years ago – and the local council has been very supportive.”
It’s fair to say that the promenade stage won’t be the most challenging that the crews will face over the weekend – much in the same way that the entire opening day of the old Lombard RAC Rally used to be filled with fiddly runs around the grounds of stately homes. But Pritchard says that while each run from the top crews will only take a couple of minutes, the speeds involved will be high.
“We’ve had to put in a few chicanes because the speeds will be up around 180kph (112mph) in places,” he says. “But we’ve organised the stage – which will run in darkness – so there will be an area in a car park where the cars do a donut. It should be a great spectacle for the sort of casual fan who tends to come to this sort of stage.”
The hardest bit, Pritchard says, could well be dismantling the stage once all the action has finished. “We’ve barriers bolted into the ground, so they’ll have to come out,” he says. “We’ll have about 120 volunteer marshals running the stage, and then probably another 50 contractors on site to make sure it all comes apart again.”
The goal, in fact, is for Colwyn Bay’s residents to be able to take their usual Sunday-morning stroll along the promenade with the minimum of disruption – possibly unaware that the world’s best rally drivers have done their stuff the previous evening.
How to watch
YOU can visit the Wales Rally GB service park in Llandudno for free to see the cars being worked on. Access to the 22 competitive stages costs from £15 when tickets are purchased in advance, and children under 15 go free; visit walesrallygb.com for info.
“Barely 10 hours after the WRC’s 380bhp supercars scream through, the roads involved will be open again to normal traffic”