What I did find were reports from Sweden and the Riponian
and previews for the East Riding Stages and Race Retro - nothing from Scotland’s
rally season opening event and no preview the week before either!
Oddly enough they did mention Pentti’s grandwean contesting the Snetterton Stages but no mention of her heading north to the wild and woolly country and they also mentioned the Welsh Rally Championship season opening - in Kielder! With storm ravaged forests in Wales, the Welsh contenders will kick off on the Carlisle Stages instead.
I did check the previous week’s issue which previewed Snetterton and Riponian, but no Border Access Knockhill Stages preview although there was indeed a wee report by Ian Mills on Highland Car Club’s Far North Winter Classic targa event, so not all bad news. With a bit of luck we might get a report in next week’s MSN.
Having said that it will be interesting to see how the 2025 rallying season is reported, not just from up here but down south as well. It’s understandable that most of the current editorial content is comprised of features, profiles and columns but there does need to be actual coverage from the events themselves.
Admittedly most fans nowadays get their fill from YouTube and other social media outlets but they don’t always provide the full story, instead concentrating on top seeds and winners. Other news is fragmented, and has to be sourced from individuals’ own personal pages when what is needed is an overview.
The current coverage of the Scottish Championship on SRC TV provided by Becksport should provide an example to other broadcasters. Not just the ‘professional’ interviews, but the pithy oversight provided by the on-stage ‘Still Game’ refugees (just don’t tell MSUK or the FIA about the language being used!) during the live on-event coverage, but more importantly they report on the classes and extras.
And surely that is what we miss from the majority of written rally reports these days. Not just a report on how the top seeds and winners fared, but the guys at the back of the field, amongst whom will be the champions of tomorrow. I recall reporting on the prospects of a youngster seeded at number 105 on the Snowman Rally way back in 1986 and who then went on to greatness. We need these sort of performances to be highlighted so that we can watch progress. Some will make it, many will not, but it would be interesting to follow their careers.
Whatever happened to Alick Kerr, Kevin Ross, Mark Wheeler, Tommy Finn and many, many more? All showed initial promise and encouraging progress then simply disappeared from the forests.
Which begs another question, will the modern younger generation of rally fan read such reports? Or is it just the auld gits and codgers who have the attention span to work their way through a full page of print?
On a more serious note, the days of long and detailed written rally reports seem to be long gone. Today’s fans want instant gratification and that is provided by the snapshots available on social media. I’m no longer a Motorsport News contributor but I reckon they are fighting hard to stay relevant and doing a pretty good job in the face of rising costs and dwindling audiences. Yes, there is much less rallying reportage than in the good old days but that is purely a reflection of the times in which we now live. Buy it or lose it, and then where will we be?
We’ve lost Rally Sport, Rally Car, Road Sport North, Cars & Car Conversions and many others while Autosport has gone from weekly to monthly. That should tell you what is wrong with British rallying publications. Fans didn’t buy sufficient copies to keep them viable while also losing out on advertising to on-line alternatives.
That’s the prime reason I started writing my books and I would urge other rally championships to do the same. For instance, the British Rally Championship is supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport in this country but where is its history recorded? Over the years there have been Yearbooks and features, but no complete authoritative printed record of what happened from the start way back in 1958 and what has since been achieved. If we don’t record the history now, it will be lost forever. The internet is not a reliable long-term substitute for paper and print.
