I had thought that up-to-1400 cc Endurance Rallies were the way ahead and I built a 1275 Cooper in 2004 for these. However, after doing the RAC Revival in the Mini I decided that using a Mini against modern cars was a bit like kicking a dead whale up the beach, so I sold it and built a Rover 214Si (twin-cam) this was much better and I got some good results in it including a 3rd place on a Welsh Championship event being beaten only by another Rover 214 and a 2.0 litre Subaru. It was still flat-out motoring in the lanes at night. I reckoned the pace of the little Rover was about the same as an Escort Twin-Cam in the early '70's.
It was one thing to drive an 850 Mini or a 998 Cooper flat out in the lanes, but modern cars with over 100 bhp/ton, long-travel suspension, fantastic vented brakes and modern tyres will do incredible speeds even in narrow twisty single-track lanes.
Really we have to accept that it cannot continue, sad as that is. The MSA are understandably concerned about it.
The big expense with stage rallying is the cost per mile per car in the forests. If we could all lobby for closed road events that would help, but it still wouldn't be cheap as the safety requirements for stage cars cost a fortune and entry fees would still be high.
The days of the Motoring News Championship type of event are (sadly) long gone and I'm pleased that I experienced the golden age of road rallying in cars like the Porsche 911 and Datsun 240Z