After two years of missing the sound of anti-lag or straight cut gearboxes or a Millington screaming up Glen Aros the Mull Rally is back. Back due to popular demand.
The new closed road legislation that was passed for Scotland in April means that the insurance clause that was causing an issue no longer applies. Mull is back, 50 years since the first one in October 1969. The one evening format from that era is replaced with by the well known itinerary of Friday night, Saturday daylight, finishing with Saturday night stages going into Sunday morning.
The 2019 edition follows the 2016 itinerary very closely. The only real difference to the competition being the omission of the short Ardtun as the opener on Saturday daytime.
Each leg is approximately 50 competitive miles. There are 5 special stages on Friday night, eight on Saturday during the day (all run at 30s intervals). Saturday night starts with the 21.5mile Long One from Calgary to Aros 33X before the remaining three special stages see the winner announced at the end of the Mishnish Lochs stage in Tobermory around 1am on Sunday.
Mull is a motorsport festival. It is a week of socialising, reconnaissance and craic before the rally begins. Once the rally begins the socialising and craic continue – just the recce is replaced by flat out motoring.
For spectators, both on the island and on line, the organisers are doing everything to get the magic of Mull to everyone. Colin Clark will be bringing live reporting from stage ends and he and David Evans will be setting up their Kitchen Table in the centre of Tobermory for on the spot analysis. And probably the odd disagreement about what driver is doing best.
There are more plans to make this comeback as memorable as possible. Many of these are still in the pipeline and will be announced over the coming months.
Entries open on 2nd August and such is the expected demand we hope to close them on 3rd August!! 150 is the maximum entry that we can start.
Aros 33X? This is the phone box just outside Salen where in the distant past the rally was more or less run from. It was here that results were called in from, where the communication centre was long before everyone had a mobile phone.
