Rally GB warned about Wales future

[CrazyChick]

By David Evans Tuesday, July 7th 2009

In a week when Rally GB's immediate future is expected to be decided, the World Rally Championship's promoter has warned against the event remaining in Wales until 2011.

Rally GB chief executive Andrew Coe has consistently stated his desire to remain in the Welsh capital for the full length of the Welsh Assembly Government's agreement with International Motor Sports (IMS), the commercial arm of the rally.

The original contract between IMS and the WAG was until the end of 2011, but the WAG is believed to have terminated that contract early. The two parties are meeting this week to solve the dispute before it heads into court. The WAG is thought to be keen to escape the contract as soon as possible and is seeking a settlement with IMS.

WRC promoter Simon Long has warned that Coe's hard-line stance of no negotiation on a potential early pull-out of Wales after this October's event could have serious consequences for Britain's continued position in the championship for 2010 and beyond.

Long said: "If this event were to remain in Wales we would expect to see a significant changes. The quality would have to be raised across the board. You only have to look at the way the other events are raising their games to become world-class - we have concerns about the ability of Rally GB to do that in Wales.

"Undoubtedly, remaining in Wales would call into question Rally GB's long-term future in the World Rally Championship. How could it not' When we have so many events, really strong, exceptional quality events fighting for a slot on the calendar. The bar has...........

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Autosport

[Monza-Misfit]

About time to ....

Rally GB is a mere shadow of the old RAC Rally, basing it entirly in wales imo was a mistake, traffic is a nightmare even the competitors struggle to get from stage to stage, bring back the old format and the classic RAC stages like Grisedale, Keilder, Dalby etc and get the mileage back up to the kind of distances they used to do rather than what is now more of a rally sprint.

Another gripe is cost, from a spectators point of view, we used to pay no more than a tenner to park in the forest's and with a bit of planning you could get in 3 stages a day, we stopped going the year they decided to charge per person to enter the forests .... its public land ffs !!! 6 guys in the van, 3 stages a day, 4 days ... you do the math, although with it based entirly in Wales the best we could manage was 2 stages a day if we were lucky.