2001 Rally of the Lakes

Posted: March 23, 2001 2:14 PM

The club regrets the cancellation, the first such cancellation in the twenty two years since the Rally of the Lakes was first run in 1979, but agrees with the ongoing ban on sports such as rallying, which are high risk for the spread of FMD.

While the disappointment of the organisers is shared by competitors, sponsors and Motorsport Ireland, all realise that our primary responsibility has to be to the national efforts to curtail the spread of the virus, and in particular to the protection of the landowners along the rally route who have facilitated rallying over the years, and whose livelihoods would be put at unacceptable risk by the influx of large numbers of spectators on to the rally stages.

The Rally of the Lakes is in a particularly sensitive situation in that many of its stages run through areas of unfenced mountains where thousands of sheep graze. In addition there are the herds of Red Deer and Sika Deer who roam freely in the Killarney valley sand who would also be at risk of infection.

This is the second round of the Toshiba Tarmac Championship to have been lost this year. The Circuit of Ireland at Easter also has been called off. The focus now shifts to the Shell Donegal International Rally in mid June in the hope that at least the latter half of the International series may be salvaged.