Time had run out and things were not exactly looking up for the survival of the Swedish rally 2022. But Christmas miracles do happen sometimes. 

The only true winter round of the World Rally Championship has thus secured its place in next season’s calendar, 24 hours after the period established by the WRC promoter to communicate its resolution had expired. 

The confirmation took place on Tuesday afternoon, when Rally Sweden’s CEO, Glenn Olsson announced they already had an itinerary (19 stages & 303.74kms) for the upcoming campaign.

Althoug Rally Sweden’s itinerary is not yet completely set as two stages (SS9 & SS10, Saturday Feb. 26th) due to permissions are not ready to be published. The goal is that an updated itinerary can be communicated as soon as possible.

The design of the new route involved reaching several agreements with landowners in Umea (Västerbotten) in the northeast of the country where the race has its headquarters.

Achieving those deals, however, has supposed a great challenge for the organizers, since plot owners were initially reluctant to have the rally cross their lands. 

Rally Sweden & WRC Promoter, very happy with the announcement 

Both the Rally Sweden organizers and the WRC Promoter were delightedwith the news.

Swedish CEO Glenn Olsson said:

“That we are late and even today do not have the full itinerary in place is absolutely not something we ourselves wanted. Our goal was to have a route proposal ready internally before the summer and given the size of the event and its impact on a number of different stakeholders around Umeå, it was a big challenge. Without all the cooperation and all the good will, this journey would have been impossible”.

Besides, Route Manager, Johan Magnusson said:

“Together with local motor clubs we have tried to find the best rally roads the Umeå region can offer. Already during the investigation over a year ago, the work of finding possible routes began and during the journey to today, very many alternatives have been handled” .

Clerk of the Course Stig-Rune Kjernsli afirmed:

Problems since 2019  

The Swedish rally had its worse year in 2020 when it was nearly cancelled due to lack of snow. In the end, an emergency solution was found that reduced the length of the rally by half with a total of nine specials and 105.47 kilometres, most of them in neighbouring Norway. 

In the following year, 2021, the race had to be suspended due to the health emergency and mobility restrictions that followed the COVID-19 pandemic. All of these hurdles further eroded the already fragile financial viability of the event. 

As if that was not enough, the rotund success of the brand-new Rally of the Arctic-Finland 2021 exerted even greater pressure on the Swedish promoters who were already struggling to save their country’s round. 

An ordeal to find snow 

Following the 2020 fiasco, where the lack of snow nearly had the round cancelled, it was decided to move its location from the Värmaland region (Torsby) to Västerbotten (Umea) further to the north, where a white mantle of snow is virtually guaranteed at that time of year. 

The move of such a large international event, always riddled with logistical, administrative and organizational difficulties, became a true odyssey that put the new project in jeopardy once more. 

Fortunately, despite all these difficulties, the Swedish Round will feature at the premiere of the hybrid era of the WRC. 

Images: Rally Sweden.com.