The fantastic response to last year’s Pirelli International Rally has resulted in the Carlisle based event again being chosen as a round of no fewer than 4 major championships including the 2019 British Rally Championship which means that the rally, organised by the Cumberland Sporting Car Club, will again be a round of the UK’s premier rally series for a record-breaking 28th year, a unique achievement in British Rally history. The rally will also be a round of the FIA Celtic Trophy, the Fuchs Lubricant Motorsport UK British Historic Rally Championship and the Motoscope Northern Historic Championship.
The Pirelli International Rally has, for many years, been based in Carlisle, where sponsors Pirelli will this year celebrate 50 years of tyre production, while the event’s headquarters and main service area will be located at the vast H & H Borderway Mart complex, handily located just off the M6 motorway. The revised format of last year’s rally, which featured two laps of the giant Kielder Forest, went down a storm with both competitors and spectators as did the rally finish in Brampton town centre where another huge crowd of rally fans are expected to fill the main street creating a carnival atmosphere as the cars cross the finish line and the winners lift their trophies.
A spokesman for the Pirelli International Rally said, “ We are absolutely delighted to again be included in so many of these premier rally series and to have the opportunity to bring top drivers from all over Europe to Carlisle. It requires some serious hard work to produce an event of the standard required by these prestigious series but we are fortunate in having a dedicated and enthusiastic team who excel at everything they are asked to do and work tirelessly to make sure the event retains its top level status”. A feature of the Pirelli International Rally is the tremendous economic boost that it brings to Carlisle with hundreds of hotel rooms booked up by the competing teams, visiting officials and the hordes of rally enthusiasts who follow the event. Many establishments are booked out months in advance ensuring the city’s hospitality trade enjoy a bumper weekend.