July 24th, 2024

Statement from the Armstrong Galloway Hills Rally on the cancellation of the 2024 event

Up until 2021, forestry usage in Scotland was charged on a fixed rate per mile basis, meaning that no matter the entry level, all events paid the same. All events benefited when the Scottish Rally Championship negotiated a fairer deal for the 2022/2023 seasons, where a proportion of the costs were charged on a ‘per car per mile’ basis, meaning that a smaller event was affected less. As a temporary arrangement, the 2024 fees* for forestry usage have returned to a fixed rate per mile basis – with the repair scheme being managed by an external company on behalf of Motorsport UK, and Forestry and Land Scotland charging only a small set permit fee.

We know that the fixed rate model works very well in Wales, where entry numbers are much larger, however in Scotland – especially for the later events in the championship calendar where the entries are traditionally lower – this fixed rate model is, in our opinion, unsustainable, and will make future gravel rallying unaffordable.

We appreciate that other better-supported Scottish events have been able to alleviate the problem this year by either using financial reserves or increasing their entry fee by an amount which has not substantially affected their overall entry level. In our case we don’t have substantial cash reserves and because of our smaller entry number, using the fixed rate scheme would require us to add up to £250 to our entry fee, and the consequential drop off in our entry level (by those who chose not to attend) would make our event financially unviable.

In the past, our stages have held up well and we believe from both historic evidence and the repair quote we have for this year from the Contractor who has been fixing our event’s stages for over a decade, that the post-event repair works (in our area) can be completed properly at a vastly reduced cost compared to the fixed rates being applied nationwide.

Therefore, we have been in prolonged discussion with Motorsport UK to negotiate a different approach to cover repairs on the 2024 Galloway Hills Rally, where we propose to pay the true cost of our repairs plus a management fee covering the paperwork and insurance element. This scheme, we believe, would help offset the disproportionate costs that a lesser supported event running later in the year suffers from. Despite pushing the deadline for these negotiations back three times, and even with everyone’s best efforts in discussions which have taken place up to and including this week, we have not managed to get this deal over the line in time for our 2024 event.

As a committee, we feel that we cannot morally justify adding up to £250 to our entry fee to run the event on the fixed rate scheme, when this would not be needed to cover our event’s true repair costs. Therefore with our loyal competitors’ best interests in mind, and to protect future Galloway Hills Rallies, we have been left with no option but to take the very difficult decision to cancel our 2024 event.

Like the organisers of every other event in the country, we do this for the love of the sport, and only want the future of gravel rallying in Scotland to be protected.

Despite our overall disappointment, we will endeavour to further explore the proposal we have put to Motorsport UK. We hope that after open discussion with the other Scottish forestry rallies, a deal which works for all sizes of event can be agreed for 2025+, and thus ultimately help to safeguard the future of gravel rallying in Scotland.

We have always enjoyed a great relationship with Forestry and Land Scotland (formerly the Forestry Commission) in our corner of Dumfries and Galloway, and they have been nothing but supportive of every event we have run. Similarly, we would like to thank our headline sponsor The Armstrong Group for all they have done over the past 24 years, and hope that a deal can be struck which enables us to give them the 25th Anniversary event they deserve, and allows us to return to run the 50th Anniversary Galloway Hills Rally next year.

Released: 24.07.2024
The Armstrong Galloway Hills Rally
On behalf of Solway, Machars and East Ayrshire Car Clubs

* 2024 fixed rates for forestry repair:
Single usage: £988.80 per mile
Double usage: £1,575.60 per mile