Photo Credit: Lindsay Photo Sport The 2017 MSA British Rally Championship is a topic of hot discussion this month, with plenty of driver announcements and a new title sponsor coming in for the new season. with all being revealed next week at the Autosport International Show.
However, today some shocking news broke in that the scheduled first round of the championship, the Mid Wales Stages, has been cancelled in response to the ongoing saga in Wales regarding the prices of forest use. Rally4Wales looked to have secured a good deal in covering the costs of repairing the tracks destroyed by rally cars, but for a misunderstanding in VAT prices resulting in some clubs having to pay 20% of the what Rally4Wales are to repair the roads. Newtown & District Club who organise the Mid Wales Stages are one of these clubs, and so the decision was made with such little time until the start of the rally to cancel it. In its place comes the Border Counties Rally, round 2 of the ARR Craib MSA Scottish Rally Championship and now the opening round of the BRC. This means the two series' will compete on the same event twice in just three months, with the two meeting in May for the RSAC Scottish Rally. It has been a quick turnaround from the BRC organisers and the organisers of the Jedburgh based rally to cement the deal, and although this is bad news for the Welsh rallying community from my own personal bias as somebody from the Scottish Borders it is fantastic. The Borders has long been craving its star-attraction rally since the closed public roads of the Jim Clark Rally disappeared from the national rally calendar. The Border Counties runs every year as part of the SRC, but adding the BRC to the mix is a big boost for the event's status and the local community with both BRC and SRC rally fans flocking the Jedburgh area. And this boost to the economy has been a big loss to the Borders businesses sicne the Jim Clark Rally was cancelled. Although technically today's news isn't good news, it is to me. I for one and more excited for the start of the British Rally Championship season now. With the rally being contested in the classic Tweed Valley and Kielder Forest the BRC couldn't have picked a better backdrop, and I'll be there to see it all happen!
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BRITISH RALLYINGArticles covering rally in Britain, looking at the MSA BRC Archives
September 2017
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