Rally of Great Britain 20th-23rd November 1999

Traffic Chaos in Mid-Wales!

by Ian Mills

I've just arrived back from the Network Q - I was doing a press gathering role at the start of Myherin (SS13 & SS15). The event was turned into a farce due to the number of spectators saturating the Mid-Wales roads.

The fact that there were just five stages used all day (Sweet Lamb and Myherin were used twice), combined with Sweet Lamb not starting until after lunch, meant that thousands upon thousands of cars poured into Mid-Wales. So many cars in fact that the car parks at the stages filled. However cars just kept on arriving but had absolutley nowhere to go. These cars were using the same roads as the competitors; the result was that the competitors had to be escorted by the police down the right hand side of the road. By the time they reached the start of SS13 (Myherin 1) they were about an hour late.

The first few runners were OK but once past the top ten many were running in semi-darkness without auxiliary lights - many wanted the stage scrubbed. Eventually the stage had to be run through non-competitvely after Car 38 crashed injuring the co-driver. Looking at the main road I thought there was no way that the second run through the two stages could be even considered. It was in a gridlock situation. Matters were made worse when two lorries, one avoiding a badly parked spectator car, collided blocking the main road between the end of Sweet Lamb and the start of Myherin.

Despite this mayhem news came through that all cars up to Car 66 - the one's who had completed SS13 competively - would do SS14 and SS15. The first nine cars eventually arrived and departed. There was a short gap and then the two Peugeots arrived and left. We then waited 20 minutes, when apparently all cars had cleared Sweet Lamb. The cars had been held up on the link road. Most arrived in one lump, way over OTL. Bruno Thiry, who was the first car, wasn't happy (understatement) and refused to start the stage as he felt it dangerous with 20 minutes having elapsed since the last car - spectators could be wandering back down the track. All other crews agreed with him.

Eventually it was decided that the remaining 28 cars would drive through the stage non-competitively!! I could have seen up to 360 cars competitively but in the end I saw just over fifty. The competitors were not impressed, many saying the spectator situation was far worse than anywhere else and that includes Greece, Portugal and Spain. I'm sure that there are good reasons for not having used the Dyfi complex rather than using Sweet Lamb and Myherin twice.

Using Dyfi would have spread the spectators out a bit. I hope the reason for the choosen layout wasn't simply that the layout used allowed for central servicing at Builth. The competitors were far from happy and the police were even less impressed. Some major PR work will need to be done before next year, if the event is to get into Mid Wales.

Cheers, Ian