JACK BENYON
“Rally 2WD was brilliant, but not needed” ”
Rally 2WD embodies the very spirit of what it is to be British. In the face of adversity, some of the world’s best minds in their fields, in this case rallying, unite to make the best of a bad situation and deliver something truly special.
While I didn’t visit Rally North Wales, I’ve heard a lot of good feedback about how the event ran. For the uninitiated, Rally 2WD has the two-wheel-drive machines head out and do loops of stages and finish, then, in a separate event, the four-wheel-drive cars follow the same format.
It was developed to stem the loss of two-wheel-drive machines from rally entry lists, and it delivered. The entry sold out, but perhaps more importantly, brought back a number of crews who haven’t rallied their cars for a long time, at least since the MSA adopted the rule that fastest cars must run at the front of the road.
Before I change tack slightly, the format was a great success, and everyone involved deserves more praise than I could award on these pages. But answer this. Why do we need it? The fastest-first seeding was introduced because it was reported spectators were arriving later in stages to catch the leading and so-called most exciting entries further back on the road.
But contradictory reports have people leaving once they’ve seen fast cars at the front, meaning people can be in the road when the two-wheel-drives come through. It doesn’t matter if a spectator is hit by a four-wheel-drive or two-wheel-drive car in a rally. The outcome will be the same.
While the Rally 2WD format was a success, it meant longer hours for organisers and volunteers, who were the real heroes on Rally North Wales.
When asked most recently, in the MN rally special in February, the line was that there was no plan to alter seeding for 2019. So I went to the new MSA chairman and asked him what he thought.
David Richards said: “We’ve shot ourselves in the foot in many ways, it would appear. Probably for very logical reasons, we’ve come to decisions primarily around safety, and if you look at each decision individually they are fully justifiable. But you also have to consider the unintended consequences of some of these things. The seeding on rallies that has required four-wheel-drive cars at the front of the field and the poor two-wheel-drive cars and historic cars running at the back.
“Naturally running in rough conditions like that puts people off. You don’t want to take your nice car you’ve spent all your weekends on preparing over some rough forests in Mid Wales.
“Those people have voted with their feet. They’ve disappeared. And we’ve seen declining entries on rallies at a time when it’s economically very difficult to make these events work.”
While that’s not exactly confirmation of a change, it’s good to know the new chairman understands the problem.
What we need is for events to be able to choose the seeding, with the blessing of the MSA. That way, both parties have an input on what’s best for that event.
Rally 2WD was ace, and a bastion of what’s great about British problem-solving and spirit. But why not just solve the problem, instead of having an Msa-blessed solution to said problem!