What future for PCT's

I wonder if I could have some feedback on a situation that has developed over the last few years, please?

I have Clerked for my local A&P club for many years, organising club PCT's most years, that culminate in our National 'B' round of a ten round regional championship and also the ANCC championship too. I have also competed and Clerked in the once hugely popular Ilkley club and national PCT's too. Lately the entries have dwindled to the point where MSA events have had to be cancelled due to having less than a half dozen applicants. Is this a nation-wide trend?

 

When people could run a trials car as a shopping car, Escort, Nova, etc, there seemed to be no problem but as tyres have grown wider and skirts have become integrated with the bodywork, entries have fallen dramatically. The opportunity to run a suitable car exists if you are prepared to buy an older vehicle and trailer it around but it is often a car dedicated wholly to liesure purposes. In fact, there is little difference between owning, storing, towing and maitaining a PCT car from that of classic triallers or sporting triallers. So I would say that PCT's are no longer a 'Grass-roots introduction to motorsport'. (I know they are no longer called PCT's but how much more confusing can the MSA legislation get)? 

 

We have tried to dumb-down the sections so the alloy wheels don't get scratched but there is so little challenge in what is left that we, unsurprisingly, got few entries.

 

What is the situation in the rest of the world?

 

Regards

|John