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The event will now feature two days in
northern Wales and one day in the
middle of the country. The first leg is
111.20 km (69.10 miles) long and starts
with a spectator stage at Tir Prince
Raceway on the evening of 4 October. It
then moves into the forests of Conwy
and Gwynedd on 5 October and is made
up of two passes over Clocaenog Forest,
Penmachno Forest and a new stage
formed by merging the Brenig reservoir
stage—which was run as the Power Stage
between 2014 and 2017—with the Alwen
stage using parts of the B4501to connect
them. Now known as Brenig, it is the
longest stage of the rally at 29.19 km
(18.14 miles). Penmachno Forest will be
run in its full length by using public
roads. The Cholmondeley Castle
spectator stage in England was removed
and replaced by a new spectator stage
called Slate Mountain.
The rally moves to Powys and
Ceredigion on 6 October for the longest
day of the rally, totalling 146.45 km
(91.00 miles) competitive kilometres. It is
made up of two passes over the
Myherin, Hafren, Dyfi and Gartheiniog
stages and a single running of Dyfnant.
The Hafren stage will be extended to
include the Sweet Lamb spectator arena.
Llandudno. The final stage of the rally
circles the Great Orme headland (top)
and finishes on the Llandudno
Promenade (bottom).
Organisers of the event had a dispute
with the Fédération Internationale de
l'Automobile (FIA) over the planned
route. The original proposal featured the
Great Orme stage — which had
previously featured in the route of the
2013 event — as the event's Power Stage.
The 2018 event marks the first time
since 1997 that these five stages have
been run on the same day. The rally
returns to northern Wales on 7 October
and the forests of Conwy and
Snowdonia. The third leg is the shortest
of the rally at 60.20 km (37.41 miles) long
and features Elsi, a brand new stage, and
two passes of Gwydir. The Gwydir stage
will be doubled in length from previous
years before the rally concludes with two
passes over a spectator stage around the
Great Orme headland and the streets of
38
However, the FIA rejected the route as
the proposed stage was not
representative of the rally; the route
primarily consisted of gravel stages, but
the proposed stage was tarmac. The
dispute was resolved when the organisers
agreed to run the first pass over Gwydir
as the Power Stage, allowing the event to
finish in Llandudno as originally
planned.
OCTOBER 27
England v New Zealand, 1st Test, Hull