KEY POINTS:
The drivers in the world rally championship will bypass New Zealand every other year after 2008.
But Rally NZ general manager Paul Mallard is confident of filling the vacuum with an international class event on the alternate year that the WRC misses the country.
The WRC had become a victim of its own popularity with many countries chasing dates on a packed calendar. There were 16 events in 2005 and 2006 and 15 this year and next.
In the face of WRC teams pushing for a reduction in the number of rounds to reduce costs and increasing demands from countries to be included in the championship, the International Automobile Federation decided that the championship, beginning in 2009 would consist of 24 rounds on a two-year rotation among countries.
"Effectively ... the WRC will be having more events but over two years ... so in New Zealand's case we won't get in for 2009 but will be in for 2010," said Mallard. "There will be just 12 events [rounds] in each year and each country can only be in either in 2009 or 2010 - they won't be in both."
New Zealand opted to be included in the WRC calendar for 2010 "to give us a better date than the current date in August which is not ideal for us. In 2008, we run at the end of August again ... but for 2010, we had a better chance of getting a date in late May which will give us better conditions, better roads, better marketing and bigger crowd numbers".
Mallard said Rally NZ had a number of options to fill the gap when the WRC bypasses New Zealand. "It does create some challenges but we want to run two international class events every year."
New Zealand already runs a round of the Asia Pacific championship, which was held in Whangarei this year and would look at other options such as an international rally for classic cars.
- NZPA
