Good afternoon,
The organisers of the 2002 Dell Classic Stages Rally are very concerned about the current fire danger crisis in the ACT and surrounds and therefore held a meeting with representatives from ACT Forests today to determine the best way forward for this event.
ACT Forests advised that this was the dryest they had seen the forests in around 10 years (remember the fires of '91-'92 ?) and that conditions, as they stood today, were not suitable for rallying. However they also agreed that anything can happen between now and the 2nd of Feb.
The Organisers have therefore thought long and hard about the best plan of attack that will ensure the success of this event for compeititors, sponsors and the club. As the initial intent was to run pace notes, it would have required access to all areas of the forests in the lead up to the event. This can not be guaranteed (ensuring fairness and equity for all competitors) and so the organisers have determined, contrary to initial advice, that PACE NOTES WILL NOT BE ALLOWED and the event will run under normal "blind rally" conditions.
Therefore, at this stage, the event is still scheduled to be run on Feb 2nd. There will be no notes, and the organisers will be conducting searches of cars and the usual penalties will apply if they are found.
The organisers appreciate that some crews have already made notes and have the expectation that this was to be a pacenoted event, unfortunately, if we had maintained our firm stance on notes, the event would have had to be postponed this week. Our priority is to ensure that the event happens on schedule, and felt that this small change (whilst dissapointing to some competitors) would have benefitted the event overall.
If you have any questions about this please feel free to email me on
matt.dyne@team.telstra.com and I would be happy to discuss the situation.
Correspondingly, the planned sessions for tomorrow and this Sunday will no longer be held. As there is some general interest in pace notes, the BMSC committee may choose to run these sessions later on in the year.
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