2025 British & Irish Championships

[HKSjbg]

Chris Ingram gave a reply to criticism of the length of the rallies...

"I personally couldn’t afford to do the championship if the rallies were any longer. It’s decent value as it is and fairly achievable through sponsorship."

Osian Pryce seconded that.

Given what we had a year or two ago I think his year has seen a sensible increase in event KMs. It would be wishful thinking to expect much more when the BRC seemed to be dying on its arse not so long ago.

Kielder Forest Rally taking a break for 2025

https://kielderforestrally.co.uk/kie...rest-for-2025/

Shame to see it, but hopefully can come back stronger in the future.

edit:

Looks like it has been replaced with the Grizedale Stages Rally in Dec 2025. Definitely a worthy replacement!

“An innovative plan run a double header alongside the Border Counties Rally in May 2025 was unfortunately not supported by the Border Counties team.”

It would have been interesting to see how that would have worked, perhaps SRC for the BCR and BTRDA for Kielder and BRC or BHRC running the combined event maybe?

[archie106]

Personally, I think it would be sensible to run the Border Counties and Kielder Forest Rally on alternate years.

Neither event gets a huge entry, and as they are both within a month of each other, shouldn't be too difficult to do. This way you could have both SRC and BTRDA (depending on calendars) on the same event, which would likely make each event much more financially stable.

The alternate years strategy seems to be working quite well over in Ireland, both for the national championship and the gravel championship.

Won't happen though unfortunately.

[Steve Boyd]

This way you could have both SRC and BTRDA (depending on calendars) on the same event

Go back 40 years and the Border Counties was in both BTRDA & Scottish Championships. I seem to recall there was a barrel of beer at stake between the Scots & the Anglos depending on who finished higher.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Kielder Forest Rally taking a break for 2025

https://kielderforestrally.co.uk/kie...rest-for-2025/

It made the BBC News !

On rallying's wider issues, Joe Hutchinson, who is part of the organising committee, said the motorsport was in "an interesting transition period".

"The Jim Clark and other closed road rallies are doing well but forest stage rallies, which have been the mainstay since the 1970s are struggling," he said.

"We all love images of Colin McRae driving sideways through the trees, but if we want that to continue then we need more support from the governing bodies."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxrygz2vrqo

[archie106]

It's an interesting one.

With the relative lack of snow we have seen in recent years further south and in Wales, I wonder if the rally calendar will end up shifting to September-May rather than March-Dec as in the past.