Rally North Wales Cancelled Due to Insufficient Funding

The Rally North Wales, due to take place next month, has been cancelled due to insufficient funding it has been announced today.

Wolverhampton & South Staffordshire Car Club Ltd revealed it was forced to cancel next month’s Welshpool-based Rally North Wales due to insufficient entries and the consequential potential loss of more than £10,000.

When the Entry List officially closed at 21.00 hours on Friday less than 80 paid entries had been received.

“We needed 106 entries just to break-even this year. With less than 80 entries the Club was facing a potential loss of in excess of £10k, which we simply cannot afford. Cancelling last year’s rally cost the Club a similar amount and wiped out any contingency funding for this year.” said Guy Weaver, Chairman of W&SSCC Ltd.

He continued by saying, “I wish to put on record the Club’s thanks to Clerk of the Course, Kevin Witton and his organising team for their hard work over the last year in producing what we believe would have been an excellent event. The Club cannot sustain this level of loss for a second consecutive year. All entry fees received will be returned in full.”

The event would have been the first of seven rounds in the 2014 MSA British Rally Championship and a qualifying round of the MSA Mintex British Historic and the MSA Pirelli Welsh Stage Championships.

BRC Manager Mark Taylor said, “I feel for the organising team who have done all they can under the circumstances, committing many months of tireless work to run what was shaping up to be a first class rally. The forests are apparently in first class condition; arguably the best in Europe and it is a real shame that the rally has a significant gap in the finances to make it viable.

“It would seem that alongside current uncertainties and lack of available sponsorship, motorsport seems to be lagging behind in the economic recovery, taking its toll on stage rallying.”

The first round of the Championship will now be the Pirelli Carlisle RB Foundation Rally on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th May.