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I’m saddened to hear of anther event lost due to the current climate. I feel for all those involved who have given 100’s and 100’s of hours of their time planning and organising this event.
Here are the comments from Rally Chairman, Dave Loughlin:
The MBOP Rally team met last night to discuss the most recent developments in Covid 19 government response. Essentially the most recent announcements we expected to be made next week have been brought forward. Surprisingly though there have been some new conditions advised by the Ministry of Health around spectators at sporting events under Level2. These limit to 100 people contained in an enclosed area either inside or out. These new conditions make the rally show part of our event impossible to operate.
We also now know that there is no chance of Auckland or Waikato folk being able to cross the borders to attend our rally – Early December is the soonest this could happen but is unlikely given the current rhetoric from Wellington around regional 90% vaccination targets.
What this means is we can no longer give value to either our event sponsors or the Whakatane community by running the event as planned. Aside from the significant financial loss we would incur with reduced competitor numbers.
It is with considerable sadness I must advise we have to cancel the Battery Town Rally BOP 2021.
I know you have all done an incredible job promoting the event and assisting us to get everything in place and I thank you very much for that.
We now look forward to 2022, when we plan to run the rally around the same time. There is some flexibility in the date due to the WRC circus coming to NZ in late September but we will be able to lock in the date by early July 2022. Should the WRC not come due to Government border restrictions we will be the final round of the NZ Rally Championship.
We will be organising a Rally Sprint Event on the 21st November based in Matata and using Herepuru Road to give the competitors, who are not locked up, a final event for 2021. I would love to see you there.
Once Again Sincerely Thank You
See you soon
David Loughlin
Chairman
Battery Town Rally Bay of Plenty
