Generally a great weekend following the Rally, and a fantastic result - but...

Like many, I invested in a Forest Pass for Friday giving access to all stages if you so wished. I got to Rhondda with no problems, but then the problems started. I headed to Crychan , and arrived 30 mins before stage start - all car parks closed and no admission allowed. Off to Halfway (nearly an hour before that was due to start), again same problem. Then Rally FM announces to forget Brechfa as those car parks are full.

Result, I paid £25 for a ticket out of which only £15 was used!

I was not alone and many people in the same boat as myself said they intended complaining. Here are some useful email addresses:
sales@octagonmotorsports.com
rally@msauk.org

If they intend charging for tickets they should at least ensure they do not over sell! I'm sure trading standards might be interested as well.

Please add your voices if you too had problems otherwise nothing will change.

Nick

 

I am glad I stayed at home and watched it there!!!!

 

I sense that formula one style arrogance and public-alienation is beginning to creep into World Rallying. It is a sad day indeed if that is the case. anything Mosley gets his hands on ends up dluted and spoilt for the average punter, sacrificed at the altar of profit and TV priorities.

They will be moving away from letting spectators on the forest stages using Sainz's accident as another excuse, and packing more punters into the pathetic super-specials whic are just like speedway for cars in my opinion: not what its all about at all.

 

I agree totally, pi$$ poor organisation. Had exactly the same problems. We did manage to get 2 stages though 2 & 8. When we got to 6 we were waved straight past the entrance to the next car park. Surprisingly it was full, I stopped to ask what was going on. One of the goons had the cheek to tell me to go onto the next car park. Very funny I don’t think since there wasn’t one. To$$er.

I will certainly be complaining about the poor organisation and the cost of the tickets and the poxy programme that came with them.

 

Hi to all
I went into every stage that was on my plan BUT after watching and talking to people inside on the stage i built up a bad tasting picture in my mind.The amount of people paying £15.00 cash at the gate to get in and the amount of people being turned away with passes because it was full.So next year please can we have all tickets or all cash. Lots of people were well and truly p off after this happening and spending lots of money as it wasn't cheap.I drove past Rheola stage entrance on Saturday at 14:00 hrs to see a queue going in and the stage didn't start until Sunday 08:00 hrs so if half these were paying cash ticket holders were kept out by car park close at 06:00 hrs Sunday due to it being FULL. Dave Blue RA.

 

Michelle - glad u managed to watch it on TV - If you blinked you missed most of the pathetically short coverage.

Why wasnt there some real coverage during the day ? 2 Brits fighting for a major world championship and they put it on at 12:35 am !!!!!!!!

 

Yeh, don't get me started on the TV coverage......

 

i must be an exception as we found it the most organised rally ever got into a total of 8 stages over the 3 days with no probs at all

 

http://secret.lab6.com/uploaded_files/1006783640.jpg
i think he looks rather happy

 

There's a similar discussion on the Evo mag forum.

How the **** did you people turned away from Rheolla on Sunday? We slept there Saturday night along with (I would guess) another 1000 or so cars. There was tons of space on all morning on Cark Park H (the one above Glen Neath) and when we left to head for Cardiff you could have quite easily fitted another 3000 cars on the stage again.

Also, the car parks on Rheolla were not meant to be open until 20:00 on Saturday. Thursday night there were two or three stages open for the overnighter brigade, hence the "load" got split. On Friday and Saturday night only Resolven and Rheolla respectively were open so were always going to be busier.

We did get turned away from our initial car park choice for Resolven on Friday so went to our backup plan and had our best night in the forest of the whole weekend.

We did struggle to get off SS2 on Friday morning. Big Q's but some nice map work took us down an unsigned turn and we were soon flying to our next stage.

One problem is that a Forest Pass covers more than one stage and hence gives you loads of flexability. This presents a problem of it's own though...

Generally, you can't do two two stages back to back due to the time involved getting from stage to stage. Hence, stage A might be able to park 5000 cars and stage B another 5000. You could just sell 5000 forest passes for the day to ensure neither gets above capacity but then one stage will end up half empty and you need to up ticket prices to cover the costs. Alternatively, people have to specify which stages they do and you loose the flexability.

I've heard figures of the Forestry Comission charging £600 per mile which just for the ~230 stage miles is £138,000! Add in police costs, cleaning costs (some people left loads of rubbish on the stages), police bills, ambulance cover etc and there's a big cost base to cover.

IMO, if you go the Rally with concrete plans to do stages X and Y, you will get upset as you need to flexible.

Would I go again next year? Yup.

 

Oh, the other benefit of ticket control being slow...

It gives you a mile or two of almost empty forest road for your own rally styleee gravel fun (unless your a lucky bugger like Mr Askew!)

 

i got in most free!!

 

SS3 everyone just walked in as carpark was full.
Those of us with Forest passes were glad we paid in advance (NOT!)
Halfway was a farce. Every car park was hull apart from E which, when driving around to get in is the last in a clockwise route around the stage. Wouldn't mind but no official had a clue about the state of parking at other car parks so we just followed the advice to keep going to the next car park. Result was a lot of driving and missing the top drivers. Prob down to my lack of experience visiting the rally (1st time). Although not 100% happy, very glad I went. Experience wotrth repeating and I'm sure to visit some of the European rallies next year.
Unfortunatly I was waiting at SS12 in prime position only to be disappointed owing to the accident at SS11. Our great drive through Breacon National Park to arrive well in time was to no avail. I was disgusted with the attitude of the Marshall here though who encouraged people to stand in a dangerous position after the accident as long as they kept back while the control drove by. I think we want to minimise the chance of a more serious incident to ensure our future enjoyment at this great institution. Nice to see so many Scoobs there. Makes your car feel a bit common though!

 

Well I didn't have any problems getting into the stages I wanted to go to. But you do have to plan ahead and be prepared to get up pretty early to get a decent parking space to avoid walking for miles.
On Friday I was up at 4am and when I got to St Gwynno at just before 5am was told the first car park was closed but easily got into the second one. Watched about two thirds of the cars go through. I'd then planned to do either Brechfa or Trawscoed but decided to risk going to Halfway and got into car park D with no problem at all around midday . Saw about half the cars there and then headed for Trawscoed where I was lucky to get into the bottom of car park D. Wasn't so happy about the 4 mile walk up to the stage but just made it in time for the lead cars. At the end of the day I felt pleased to manage three stages in the one day.

Saturday wasn't so good but getting into car park B at Resolfen was a breeze at 6am although it was just a little foggy

Sunday, once again had no problems at getting into Rheola car park H at 5.30am. After the first run I even managed to get down to Felindre and then back to Rheola for the second run. There seemed plenty of space there as quite a few people had left, presumably for Margam.

I'm not professing to be an expert at getting round the Network Q but I think my point is that if you really want value for money then you have to be prepared to get up that much earlier, go to an early morning stage, and plan to attend an afternoon one. But allow for travelling time, plan the route and don't expect to turn up 30 minutes before and just stroll in.

Having said all this I did feel that the price increase was a little steep and that Saturday wasn't the best day possible.

Mark

 

Agree whole heartedly about getting one's **** out of bed early.
Having not been before I presumed that arriving an hour b4 would be more than adequate. Couldn't be more wrong. Arrived at Resolven at 5am and no probs at all. Once your in enjoy the anticipation of the first whistles and the pop pop through the trees. Great!

 

We had passes and got turned away from stages hours before they were due to start. I don't think that they should allow people without tickets in. It's unfair on the people who have bothered to get them up front only to miss stages because they are full of people who turn up on the day.

Geezer

 

Problems at the rally of Wales then?

I avoided it since it seems way too crammed together - what was wrong with having it all over the country - Cumbria's quite nice too after all?

Forcing the UK to all head down to Merthyr seems mad to me. There are always frustrating queues at these events, but having it all in one place would exacerbate the problem surely?

Kind of winds me up not to be able to go home to catch the rally...

Diesel
(not always such a miserablke git)

Edit: Ohh and don't get me started on the TV coverage - bloody talking heads for most of the BBC's prog yesterday. Talking bloody heads - NOT what a rally is about, as Colin McRae proves, beautifully monosyllabically!

[Edited by Diesel - 11/26/2001 7:46:22 PM]