Route announced for Rally GB 2020!

[AnttiL]

This thread inspired me to fine-tune my design for a Carlisle-based Rally GB. At first I attempted my previously mentioned idea of moving the cars to Wales for Sunday, but the liaisons became unbearable without using remote services. I thought it would be a great idea to do Grizedale on Saturday afternoon and then just continue over to Wales, but I forgot the cars need to be serviced before that.

If only Friday would be driven in Lake District, then the drivers would have two days of driving in Wales, but that would require another long liaison to mid-Wales, which I doubt they will want to do. So in the end I ditched the idea of combining Wales and Lake District.

I even tried to make a schedule for the rally using the formula of one minute per kilometre (stage or liaison) with 5-10 minutes added to the equation. The same service and regroup times are used as on real rallies of today. I think it worked out fine and the Saturday structure is close to that of Wales Rally GB 2017 with some night stages.

The full itinerary is here and the map here

Thursday super special is Lowther (used in 1986, modified a bit).

Friday consists of a leg North with Twiglees, Craik, Redesdale, Falstone and Pundershaw. I have modified the stages to remove the most straight sections and sometimes adding some new roads.

Saturday goes to Grizedale (combined West and East stages) through Wythop and Comb. I faced again the problem of going to Grizedale and thinking "what's next", because there is very few known stages near it. Of course it would be possible to find new stages or maybe there's something I'm not aware of.
Thus, after the first round of these three stages the cars go to Hamsterley, which is driven twice with a single run of Stang in between (this could also be a super special as well). The second run of Hamsterley is preceded by a regroup to ensure there's enough time between two runs and also to make sure the cars are in time for the televised stage. After the service the Wythop-Comb-Grizedale loop is repeated, most likely with darkness falling.

Sunday is driven at West Kielder and on Scotland's side, relatively close to the service park. I chose the Bewshaugh stage whose onboard I posted last night, but it ends after the technical section as it would suit the current cars the best. Power stage is then Newcastleton, on roads which have been a part of the Kershope stage in the 90's. The ending of the stage is shown in the other direction on this video until 1:20. It would make up great helicopter shots over the river bank. The ending would then be on tarmac here and the podium up on the hill.