It’s spelled like this:
Perfect conditions in Norway + opposite in Sweden + events dropping from the calendar = Swedish Rally in the summer?
Will arranging the Swedish Rally in the summer make the WRC better? At least it's easier to spectate a rally in the summer, allowing for better income to the organiser.
Here’s some background:
A few days ago I talked to a friend regarding the Swedish Rally. He had a great idea – to make the event a summer rally. Of course it’s not a new idea at all – I’ve heard it dozens of times, but for the first time it really makes sense. The idea is based on the fact that weather conditions are a problem to the rally – and that a few events next year (for example Indonesia) wants to get out of the championship. So, with summer events wanting to get out of the calendar, when Rally Norway that shines in meters of snow, and when Mikko Hirvonen sees no reason why Norway shouldn’t have a slot every year – why not include the excellent Rally Norway even next year (article in Norweigan here), and make the Swedish Rally with it’s excellent organisation arrange a summer round in the championship?
Here’s why it makes sense:
- First off, it’s impossible to fight the weather. Either the Swedish event would have to be changed to a snow/gravel mix, it would have to be moved, or it would have to be removed from the calendar. I don’t believe in snow/gravel, I think a move would mean losing big parts of the competence, and I don’t think that it’s a good option for the WRC to lose one of their best organisers – so… Remains to switch to a summer competition.
- Making the rally a summer event would preserve a fantastic organisation and allow for an already experienced organisation to take new steps and do a new event from scratch, allowing for much creativity to go into the event that could develop the WRC in a positive way.
- Summer rallies are in many ways easier and more cost-effective to arrange, where spectators and VIPs can easier get into the stages, facilities can be hosted in simple tents and snow ploughs doesn’t need to be used for every single parking spot. This would allow for the Swedish organisation to get back on feet economically.
- A summer rally would also mean having a rally later in the year than a winter round, which would give the organisation a little more time to improve their economy and also to prepare the switch.
- It would solve a part of the problems with the organisers wanting to cancel their WRC rounds, and make the calendar for next year closer to complete than it is currently.
Of course, it may be a problem having already having so much gravel events that Finland has a summer event on gravel, but for short, I just think it’s better to arrange a really, really good summer round than a half-bad and shaky winter round that ruins the economy of the organisation. Isn’t it?
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Tags: calendar, indonesia, organisation, rally norway, snow, summer, svenska rallyt, swedish rally, uddeholm swedish rally, weather, winter, WRC
I agree, a summer rally would be great. But even better would be a move further north, away from Karlstad and Värmland. Just look at where Hamar is compared to Hagfors and Karlstad in latitude. Sure, they may be at a higher altitude, but if you cross the border to Sweden from Hamar you end up at about Sälen/Lima, where they have just as much snow and ice as in Rally Norway.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that a move further north is probably the only way to save the Swedish rally when Norway looks like it did this year.
But as always, the Karlstad-people just refer to “organisation” when asked about a move further north. Come on, if they could teach and tutor the Rally Norway organisation they can do the same with another Swedish organisation.
I agree with you that a move is an alternative, and I’ve previously considered a move up to Branäs the best choice. From there you would still be close to the current organisation but also be able to reach Lima, Sälen and other more snow-safe places.
Regarding the possibility to tutor a new organisation I agree with you that it can be done – but it’s not an easy job (despite help from Sweden, Norway failed on quite a few aspects the first year) and it would still be a terrible waste of competence to leave the current behind. You should also keep in mind that a considerable part of the Norweigan organisation consists of people from the Swedish Rally organisation – and besides that the Swedish organisation have also had a very big role as advisors. If they wouldn’t have helped, I personally don’t think Norway would have their rally today.
For me Östersund would be perfect. Stages around the city and Åre (Kall) should suit perfectly to what is expected of a WRC-event.
Looking at the former events Snow Rally 2005 and 2006 they very likely could as well organize a WRC round instead of Karlstad. I agree with anynomous that the Karlstad-people just blaiming on reasons that are not relevant.
I think they (Östersund) have people, organization and hotels enough for a WRC-round.
A swedish rally in the summer would need a much more spread out route, because the roads in Värmland are not suited enough for rallying in the summer. We need to use more of public gravel roads.