Drivers complaining about the conditions in the Azores?

I am not entirely sure what to make of the following piece of text. It arrived to World Rally Blog’s mailbox little over an hour ago, and it obviously deals with the fourth round of the European Rally Championship, SATA Rallye Açores.

As you will see, text says there were complaints from unnamed drivers on the severity of the conditions on the stages, but it also says some crews were not able to do proper recce runs.

The question is put forward: is this rally a race for survival, or a rally? Hm, in all honesty, rally IS supposed to be a race for survival, first and foremost, at least in my book. It does make sense to run it, if the conditions are not too severe for safety and medical crews and services. If there were issues with recce runs, that’s another story, and should not be tolerated, but if the severe weather conditions are only reason to complain, then there is nothing to complain about.

I am not familiar with the identity of the sender of this email, as it is not signed. I am sorry if I forgot to register someone was using the “Rally Opinions” handle, the only kind of “signature” to this email message!

Either way, here’s what WRB received this afternoon, without any alterations.

[quote]

RALLY AZORES : A RACE FOR SURVIVAL OR A RALLY?

A lot of drivers, mostly the foreign drivers, who have participated to the Rally Azores, couldn’t have carried out in the last days the practices of the special stages and so they couldn’t have had the correct pacenotes. This is happened in some traits of the official track for the extreme conducting environmentals because it was foggy, the visibility was about 5 metres in many traits, also the abundant rains have made many parts of the course virtually impassables. Yesterday many drivers, captained by Robert Kubica, have asked for the deletion of a race and the shortening of the 2nd special stage.

Yesterday the situation was bad and also today it isn’t improved, indeed it may have worsened. The question which, for the rumors, a lot of drivers, mostly the foreign drivers, pose themselves is :

Is Rally Azores a race for survival or a Rally? Does it make sense to run a Rally in these situations?

This is the question which a lot of drivers pose themselves and it isn’t the 1st time that this situation happens.[/quote]