Pokerstars (Isle of Man) - 6-7 Nov 20 - CANCELLED

Event Cancelled

Posted: July 6, 2020 6:51 AM

Manx Auto Sport regrets to announce that the 2020 PokerStars Rally scheduled for the 2nd/3rd October will not go ahead as planned, due to the uncertainties surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic.

The organising committee has been closely monitoring the Covid-19 developments over recent weeks with the Isle of Man being fortunate to have had no new positive cases for 46 days at the time of writing (6th July 2020).

They have been in constant contact with appropriate Isle of Man authorities for many weeks. The island’s borders remain closed and if they were to reopen, the enhanced risk of bringing a large contingent of people to the island, has left the organisers with no choice but to call the event off for 2020.

Planning for this popular closed-road event was in the advanced stages and the team are extremely disappointed to have to make this decision, however the wellbeing of everyone has been paramount throughout the decision making process.

This is the second blow this year for the organisers as the Masterpixel Media Manx National, Isle of Man International, Manx Historic and Chris Kelly Memorial Rallies, which were due to take place from the TT Grandstand base, also had to be called off due to the outbreak of Covid-19. This event will also now run in 2021.

Mark Quayle, Clerk of the Course said
“We are very disappointed to announce that this year’s PokerStars Rally will not run as planned in October due to the uncertainties surrounding the position regarding the Manx borders and Covid-19 situation. Paramount to our decision was the health and wellbeing of our residents, officials, spectators, and competitors”.

As with our decision regarding the Manx Rally back in March, it has not been an easy one to make as we were very confident of producing a superb event on the island with some classic stages and new twists on old favourites. We feel it would be irresponsible to potentially open the island to an increased risk of transmission of the virus

The team is already focusing on using this additional time to produce a bigger and better series of events during 2021 which includes the Manx Rally (14 th & 15 th May) and PokerStars Rally (1 st & 2 nd October) next year.

The Organisers are looking forward to welcoming everyone back to the Isle of Man for more great rallying when it is safe to do so.

We would like to wholeheartedly thank PokerStars for their support and dedication, to our community for their backing, the authorities for their assistance, our team for their hard work, volunteers, and to all our loyal competitors for their patience. We can assure you all of a warm welcome when the sport returns to the island."

Manx Autosport Club