PH Blog: whence the next McRae?
In the wake of the BBC's splendid documentary, Alex wonders where the next McRae will come from
But for me, it wasn't just the inevitability that the story would end with McRae's untimely passing that brought an air of sadness to proceedings. It was also the realisation that since McRae - and, indeed, Richard Burns, on whom the documentary also touched fleetingly - there's been a notable absence of great British rally drivers.
I find that surprising. Here were two of the UK's greatest on the slippy stuff; men who rose to the pinnacle of the sport within just a few years of each other. The result was rally fever; the WRC, and WRC-inspired cars, achieved levels of popularity hitherto unknown in the UK. And yet, it seems that passion failed to draw in a new breed of rally drivers to represent Britain in the sport.
In Formula 1, the successes of Hunt, Mansell and then Hill together inspired a new generation of British drivers - today, Button and Hamilton are at the top of their game, while Di Resta and Chilton are coming through as potential successors. So where are the budding young rallyists inspired first by McRae and then by Burns?
Perhaps the lack of rallying on our TVs that we all love to moan and chafe about is an inevitable result of this course. Perhaps a lack of Brits in the sport was always going to turn off those audience members who aren't hardcore rallying fans. And therefore, perhaps we should be working harder to inspire young people to try rallying.
So what can we do about it? Well, for starters, we need to acknowledge the problem and open the discussion as to how to solve it. We should also be looking to the MSA, organisers of the British Rally Championship, to develop academy-style programmes and series that might seek to bring through young rally stars, to actively search for notable talent and to nurture and develop it. And finally, we should all continue to celebrate the glory years of McRae and Burns, handing down the story of British rallying's glory days to the next generation, in the hope that we can inspire them to follow in the footsteps of rallying's British greats. Perhaps that way, one day, they won't be the only stories we'll have left to tell.
Alex
Also, before you stick the oar into the MSA, they do run an academy for young drivers that encompasses rallying and previously ran one specifically for rallying: MSA British Rally Elite.
RESEARCH!
Every single part of Mr Meeke is McRae through and through
Just shame his talents havent been viewed the same from the large Sponsorship driven drives out there
such a shame really to think of all the talent out there falling by the wayside due to the nature of all sports now being driven by sponsors and investors. think you will find that so many seats are taken by a driver with a large connection to the investors in many cases.
I think Mads Ostberg is the new McRae, seeing him in the Welsh stages in an aged WRC car pushing the window and barr high! He is the next big thing in my view!
I think Mads Ostberg is the new McRae, seeing him in the Welsh stages in an aged WRC car pushing the window and barr high! He is the next big thing in my view!
Stupid EU emmissions regulations for road cars and high fuel costs have seen to that. No market for rally reps, so less manufacturers taking part.
I think Mads Ostberg is the new McRae, seeing him in the Welsh stages in an aged WRC car pushing the window and barr high! He is the next big thing in my view!
OK, so McRae's Imprezas weren't exactly the same as the ones you could buy in a showroom, but they were modified from them. By contrast, modern top-flight rallying is a silhouette series not dissimilar to Group B.
IMO if the top rallyists were in cars they could have bought from a showroom and modified (and people felt like they were emulating them by buying them), the sport would reconnect with its grass roots.
Even the cars look pretty good now (in my opinion), the wife said 'wow, look at that Fiesta' during TG last night, they seem to be in a pretty good place to attract a new young audience (even if those still longing for Group B to return get left out in the cold a bit).
As things stand though, Rallycross appears to be in a much stronger place to break through to the mainstream.
Rallying has always had the problem of difficult to broadcast and also a general intrest to broadcast. Back in the day, I remember the RAC rally was fully televised with special stages shown live. Now, the rally just comes and goes and nobody even notices. Same can be said for Dakar, zero mainstream TV coverage.
Without TV rights, there is no sport, and no new 'McRae' or 'Burns' getting inspired by the wonderful skill and spectacle of a car doing 100+ in forests!!
Car manufactures are loosing intrest since they get nothing from it. They are not allowed to advertise the fact that they have great winning car, e.g. Citroen, so what is the point when they are not seen on TV. Same with sponsorship.
I miss the Group B cars of olde, but I also miss watching a great sport on TV. TV only shows overpaid w%^&kers kicking a ball and overpaid bores going around and around an F1 circuit. Thank god there is MotoGP on TV!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPuVn-i4bw
Stupid EU emmissions regulations for road cars and high fuel costs have seen to that. No market for rally reps, so less manufacturers taking part.
IMO the drama of rallying is at least in part in the flamboyance of the drivers and the locations in which they're competing. To a degree it doesn't really matter if the cars they're in are spaceframed silhouette monsters or hatchbacks straight off the showroom floor - it's the closeness of the championships and the spectacle of the cars taking on the stages that matter.
The era of the bellowing 4WD special may be over, but what about the new generation of hot hatches? I'd love to see things like the Abarth 500 Esseesse, Renault Clio Cup, Ford Fiesta Zetec S, Peugeot 208 GTi and so on being driven hard by Ostberg, Lattvala, Meeke et al. Tweak the cars to take on the landscape, sure, mild tuning on the engines, but crucially, keep it production-based as it was in the Seventies.
Spectator figures used to be huge and it gave rally drivers from around the country an opportunity to prove themselves.
As a Lake District dweller I used to go to Grizedale forest as a spectator and as a marshall. Great fun. Never been to watch since the change.
The whole of the UK used to be involved.
Aspiring talent have greater difficulties proving themselves without major budgets.
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