Rally Sweden 2016 at Risk
This year's Rally Sweden is currently in jeopardy due to a drastic lack of snow and ice on what is supposed to be the World Rally Championship's 'winter' event. The 2016 event could be cancelled outright or at the very least run on a shortened itinerary, but that's only subject to the temperature dropping before the rally starts, but if the temperature doesn't drop a long way below zero by Wednesday or Thursday, then it remains almost impossible for the event to go ahead.
The implications of trying to run the rally without a snow and ice layer are that the roads would be destroyed, as each tyre has 384 studs fitted; meaning collectively 1536 metal studs tearing a soft gravel roads which wouldn't take long to form deep ruts in braking areas and corners. In addition, the studs last only about 12 miles before they begin to rip out of the tyre and then there's nothing to slow the car down when they do encounter the occasional patch of ice.
The financial implication are that the organisers will have to pay to fix the damaged roads and running a route with no snow or ice could potentially bankrupt what is already an event which is financially struggling. The economics are tricky, as if they cancel, they'll fail to recoup the money they've already laid out on the event and if they run and damage the roads - the repair bill would be crippling. Who'd be a WRC rally organiser?
9th February, 2016