Australia and New Zealand are at loggerheads over the future of the antipodean round of the WRC, with one accusing the other of trying to “steal” their event.
The dispute arose after WRC teams pronounced themselves unhappy with Coffs Harbour as an Australian base. Coffs is located in a small town in upstate New South Wales, some 500 miles from the nearest major population centre, Sydney. Given Australia’s immense road distances it is not surprising that the event generates very few spectators.
Teams have expressed a dislike for the location. They hanker after the good old days when the rally was based in Perth, a major city with a million–strong population… and, significantly, five or six hours closer to Europe. It’s where Rally Australia started off and was definitely a centre of excellence for the sport. Now some in the sport are talking about a one-off return to the WRC next season for New Zealand. Australia's current agreement with Coffs is up at the end of this season and there is no real desire from WRC stakeholders to return.
"Australia needs to find a new home for its WRC round, we know that,” one source said. “New Zealand is looking like a sensible option for next year. The thinking is there's the necessary investment to go back there and that would give Australia the chance to find somewhere new, most likely not in New South Wales."
The WRC was last in New Zealand in 2012, based in Auckland and there was potential for the rally to return in 2018, centred on Tauranga, but a 2020 rally would most likely be staged in Auckland. Overall, there is no love lost between rally organisers either side of the Tasman Sea, called “The Ditch” by locals. New Zealand joined the WRC 12 years before Australia. It was then a hugely popular event among drivers, with its roads called “wonderful to drive”.
But during the 1990s the pioneering spirit of Australia – then based in Perth – drew huge praise. However, when Western Australia dropped the event, it only ran twice in seven years. Now it has been based for six years in Coffs Harbour, a small fishing town and organisers have constantly fought criticism about the lack of spectators and the immense cost of sending the WRC there by containers.
But New Zealand suffers from the same problems. It is also even further from Europe. The two countries have tried rotation before; sharing a calendar date from 2008-12. But it didn’t really work with organisers always putting their events first… hardly surprising, really.
Neither was running one after the other – especially when Australia was on the sub-continent’s West coast, leaving it some 3,500 miles from Auckland. So it remains quite possible that New Zealand will be back next year and hoping that Australia can’t find a suitable base in a big city for the year after.
Rally NZ chairman Peter Johnston has said he hopes to know: “in the next couple of weeks whether it will happen”. And a local sports writer has quoted him as saying: “We’re hopeful of having it back in 2020. The WRC promoters aren’t keen to go back to Coffs Harbour, so they are thinking that maybe there’s an opportunity for NZ. We’re right on it at the moment. The Australians are fighting like crazy to retain the event there, but even for 2021, they’ll have to find a new venue. We’re ready, we’ve got all the roads, we’ve got everything planned but we are after a naming rights sponsor.”
Johnston said the latest push had “a lot of support” from Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development, an arm of the Auckland Council. The previous campaign to get the WRC back failed through lack of government financial support, but Johnston said Rally NZ is in fresh talks with the government.
Meanwhile, a Rally Australia spokesman said: “Rally Australia’s negotiations with WRC Promoter over future events are continuing. There has been no suggestion about being anywhere but the Coffs Coast.”
