What would YOU do to change rallying?

[anonymous-user]

sb-1 said:

Go back to the days of 2wd Ford Escorts!

You can see them at any rally all over the country. They're just too slow.

[DanDC5]

EDLT said:

DanDC5 said:

EDLT said:

To everyone who thinks they should switch to 2WD, what do you suggest the teams do with their now worthless 4WD cars that owe them £100,000 or more?

Maybe the manufacturers could buy them back using the infinite money pit they apparently have.

The thread is about changing the WRC. Plenty of other championships the 4wd cars could be used in...

Or even convert existing cars to RWD. Wouldn't be difficult.

1. Those other championships often run on the same stages as the WRC and on the same day, how do you think they get 100+ entries? The 4WD cars would be much, much faster on everything except dry tarmac. Whats the point of a top line championship that is slower than a club level one, can you imagine that happening anywhere else?

2. Many of the cars have transversely mounted engines, so yes it would.

The cars already have drive going to the rear so the hard work is done, can't be hard for a bunch of race engineers to take the drive away from the front.

[Mark A S]

PSBuckshot said:

You can see them at any rally all over the country. They're just too slow.

Well, if you think a Mk 2 is “to slow”, maybe you should look at this little YT clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IByNvSc-OZE
I am bound to be biased, as I am the red blue white Mk 2 at 54secs, but, you have a WRC car then a Scooby Doo through before, and whilst both are driven well, what cars look and sound the best ?

Just imagine a Fiesta, or DS3, in fact any popular similar sized modern car with RWD and up to 350 noisy horsepower, would that not make a better spectacle?
I know that on gravel and some wet tarmac, a well driven WRC will be quicker than a powerful lightweight RWD car, and that the current WRC cars are impressive when driven by the likes of Latvala, Loeb etc, but the cars don’t need to be the fastest to be the most impressive to watch.

Its interesting, that both Latvala and Hirvonen, both have historic spec Mk 2’s that they use to go and have some fun in, why, because they enjoy driving those types of car more, from my experience, your average rally Fan / Spectator prefers the powerful noisy RWD cars too.

[E-B]

If i may add my bit gents,

I am, as i like to call myself a Rallyist. All i want to do is drive rally format events. These events are dying in the UK. There is a reason for this, the tightening of competitors pockets, so yes lets drive the costs of competing down and get the entries back. Lets not forget that there are many other folks out there who compete in similar events, Cross Country for example. How about opening up events to Cross Country rally cars too?

Some of you may have seen the small handful of landrovers on the WRGB earlier in the month, I'd have loved to have been able to join them and enter in my Standard Production Spec Classic Range Rover but according to the MSA Blue Book, the standard Rover V8 isn't compliant so i can't have a Stage Rally Logbook (not required for Cross Country y'see).

To enable me to acquire said Logbook im having to fit a BMW 6cyl 3.0 from an M3 (it goes in without the need to modify things). Thereby incurring extra cost.


It'd give a greater variety to the competition field and the noise that some of them make is phenominal as well as the speeds that we can achieve.

Some may say that because they are bigger and more powerful than some 'normal' rally cars there'd be greater surface damage to the gravel surfaces - but how many have seen the devastation caused by a field of WRC cars?

So my changes to rallying would be to open up the regs again to the homebuilt cars, yes put max power/weight limits in place if necessary and open up the events to a greater variety of competitors.

More competitors eligable to enter, more entries recieved. More entries/variety = more spectators. More speccy's more advertising opportunities for sponsors, more speccy's/sponsors more TV time.

So come on MSA lets relax/ change the rules again and get our sport back to where it should be.

I shouldn't have to go overseas to register & logbook my car with the overseas motorsports governing body just so i can compete here in the UK surely?

[YorkshirePudding]

E-B said:

So my changes to rallying would be to open up the regs again to the homebuilt cars, yes put max power/weight limits in place if necessary and open up the events to a greater variety of competitors.

More competitors eligable to enter, more entries recieved. More entries/variety = more spectators. More speccy's more advertising opportunities for sponsors, more speccy's/sponsors more TV time.

So come on MSA lets relax/ change the rules again and get our sport back to where it should be.

My neighbour has a Stratos replica that was built for rallying, the MSA have pulled the logbook

One very pissed off owner!

Then they wonder why entries are falling,

[Reardy Mister]

E-B said:

If i may add my bit gents,

I am, as i like to call myself a Rallyist. All i want to do is drive rally format events. These events are dying in the UK. There is a reason for this, the tightening of competitors pockets, so yes lets drive the costs of competing down and get the entries back. Lets not forget that there are many other folks out there who compete in similar events, Cross Country for example. How about opening up events to Cross Country rally cars too?

Some of you may have seen the small handful of landrovers on the WRGB earlier in the month, I'd have loved to have been able to join them and enter in my Standard Production Spec Classic Range Rover but according to the MSA Blue Book, the standard Rover V8 isn't compliant so i can't have a Stage Rally Logbook (not required for Cross Country y'see).

To enable me to acquire said Logbook im having to fit a BMW 6cyl 3.0 from an M3 (it goes in without the need to modify things). Thereby incurring extra cost.


It'd give a greater variety to the competition field and the noise that some of them make is phenominal as well as the speeds that we can achieve.

Some may say that because they are bigger and more powerful than some 'normal' rally cars there'd be greater surface damage to the gravel surfaces - but how many have seen the devastation caused by a field of WRC cars?

So my changes to rallying would be to open up the regs again to the homebuilt cars, yes put max power/weight limits in place if necessary and open up the events to a greater variety of competitors.

More competitors eligable to enter, more entries recieved. More entries/variety = more spectators. More speccy's more advertising opportunities for sponsors, more speccy's/sponsors more TV time.

So come on MSA lets relax/ change the rules again and get our sport back to where it should be.

I shouldn't have to go overseas to register & logbook my car with the overseas motorsports governing body just so i can compete here in the UK surely?

Is that like Britcar, for Rallying?

[EDLT]

DanDC5 said:

EDLT said:

DanDC5 said:

EDLT said:

To everyone who thinks they should switch to 2WD, what do you suggest the teams do with their now worthless 4WD cars that owe them £100,000 or more?

Maybe the manufacturers could buy them back using the infinite money pit they apparently have.

The thread is about changing the WRC. Plenty of other championships the 4wd cars could be used in...

Or even convert existing cars to RWD. Wouldn't be difficult.

1. Those other championships often run on the same stages as the WRC and on the same day, how do you think they get 100+ entries? The 4WD cars would be much, much faster on everything except dry tarmac. Whats the point of a top line championship that is slower than a club level one, can you imagine that happening anywhere else?

2. Many of the cars have transversely mounted engines, so yes it would.

The cars already have drive going to the rear so the hard work is done, can't be hard for a bunch of race engineers to take the drive away from the front.

They tried it with a Mondeo BTCC car in the early 90s and the drivetrain loses were so high that the FWD car was faster. Changing to a longitudinally mounted engine would require a lot of work and a relaxing of rules regarding what you can modify which in turn gives the bigger teams more scope to develop the car making it even more expensive.

You'd have to have a silhouette series and people already whinge that they can't go out and buy a road version of a WRC car.

[ArnageWRC]

While the WRCars are based on Production cars - I'd say they are virtually Prototypes - you can't buy them in the showrooms. No different really to F1, LMP cars....and similar to a DTM car; they look familiar, but they're not really.

The 'Homologation special' isn't coming back, so why not go for a 'Silhouette type' car? As ever, the Manufacturers rule the roost, and they will decide the sport's future. Unless, Jean Todt loses his patience - and starts playing hardball.

[FiF]

Some cracking answers on the thread, especially from interlopr, Arnage WRC and E-B.

As a retired rallyist, my best years being in the 70s and very early 80s I do find that Dave Richards has a lot to answer for. OK to be fair he was trying to raise rallying's TV profile, but in the process has lost the real fans.

One thing that seems to be missing is that I'm not clear that there is a clear and accessible entry progression through the sport any more. The fans who stood out in all hours as we slogged round Lombard RAC routes in the 70s could see we were competing in the same sport they were. OK they may have still been at the 12 car, closed, restricted night rally level, but it was identifiably the same sport albeit at a much different level. But they could see how they could be where we were in a few years. I don't feel that is the case today, but then maybe I'm too remote from it now.

I know someone will say that night road events are still here, well after a fashion, true, but it seems the accessibility at lower level has deteriorated.

Last event I had anything to do with was a few winters back, a one day event with a single spectator stage the night before, a regional winter ice event in Sweden. It probably cost as much as my last Lombard RAC entry, and nowhere near as much fun or as many memories.

So my pipedream suggestion is; bring back night road pre-plot events, like that's going to happen.

[Pwig]

FiF Pre-plot events are very big in Wales still.

Derbyshire have a few too, infact usually where's there pre-plot rather than plot and bash there is a rather large following for Road Rallying ..

[anonymous-user]

ArnageWRC said:

While the WRCars are based on Production cars - I'd say they are virtually Prototypes - you can't buy them in the showrooms. No different really to F1, LMP cars....and similar to a DTM car; they look familiar, but they're not really.

The 'Homologation special' isn't coming back, so why not go for a 'Silhouette type' car? As ever, the Manufacturers rule the roost, and they will decide the sport's future. Unless, Jean Todt loses his patience - and starts playing hardball.

You can buy a Ford Fiesta RS WRC car though...

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motoring/ford-fi...

It'd be my first millionaire garage buy.

[EDLT]

PSBuckshot said:

ArnageWRC said:

While the WRCars are based on Production cars - I'd say they are virtually Prototypes - you can't buy them in the showrooms. No different really to F1, LMP cars....and similar to a DTM car; they look familiar, but they're not really.

The 'Homologation special' isn't coming back, so why not go for a 'Silhouette type' car? As ever, the Manufacturers rule the roost, and they will decide the sport's future. Unless, Jean Todt loses his patience - and starts playing hardball.

You can buy a Ford Fiesta RS WRC car though...

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motoring/ford-fi...

It'd be my first millionaire garage buy.

Citreon and Mini (well, Prodrive) have customer cars too. Completely road legal.

[E-B]

YorkshirePudding said:

My neighbour has a Stratos replica that was built for rallying, the MSA have pulled the logbook

One very pissed off owner!

Then they wonder why entries are falling,

I feel his pain. I hate to think how much my Rangie has cost over the last couple of years. I did however take the Std Prod class title at the 2010 British Cross Country Championships.

For now though, the car is coming out of a bodywork refresh coutesy of my local college's auto engineering dept (thanks Cornwall College) and im so desperate to get back to competition im going to enter a road rally for fun.

Next year is a different kettle of fish though. I've a big trip to Iceland for the Rally Reykjavic. 360 stage km's all on gravel all for a 250 Euro entry fee! the whole trip will cost though, i'm budgeting around 5000 Euro for a 2 week trip. that includes shipping 2 cars there and back flights for 4 and accom for 8.

[E-B]

Reardy Mister said:

Is that like Britcar, for Rallying?

Sorry Reardy, not quite following you there. Is there something unsusual about Britcar?

[E-B]

Jerry Can said:

2 very simple things need to be done to make it 20 times better.

engines - increase the size of the restrictor so that the cars can breath easier and maybe have 80 - 100 more hp. At the moment they sound like F3 cars!

Get someone who knows how to film a rally, to film the wrc, There is some seriously good stuff on the youtube of the 2012 season, then broadcast it on a channel that can afford HD ( not motors tv)

2 quick fixes that'll make it much better.

This i like! The little i have seen of the TV coverage of the IRC on eurosport i have been impressed by. Live in car feeds from the stages - come on, how cool is that!

[majorproblem]

Group S cars with the restrictors taken off.

[DiscoColin]

GroundEffect said:

The sport hasn't changed since its hayday, really, but there's one big problem with it:

Sebastien Loeb. He's too good.

Much as I hate to admit it, I reckon that this is a lot of the problem. For one driver to dominate so comprehensively for so long cannot do anything except sap interest away from the sport. And with a view specifically to the UK - mass market interest over here isn't going to pick up again until a British driver is contending for wins on a regular basis regardless of what happens to the rules.

As for the rules - they should do whatever it takes to get more manufacturers on board, whatever that ultimately means. And that isn't going to happen until the most important thing of all is addressed <drum roll>.

BETTER TELEVISION COVERAGE.

[anonymous-user]

EDLT said:

Citreon and Mini (well, Prodrive) have customer cars too. Completely road legal.

The Citroen is not the WRC car I believe? Can't remember.
Its mad how these beasts are road legal though.

[sanf]

EDLT said:

sanf said:

EDLT said:

sanf said:

Allow a WRC(clubmen) class to be created, a la the Grp A days so more teams could build the cars, and they wouldn't need to be the full WRC spec. I went through the entry to the 1995 RAC and there was something like 38 grp A8 cars OUTSIDE of the works ones. Some were starting at 120+. They were not full works cars, so allow something similar again and get more clubmen involved without the need of full WRC spec cars.

The SWRC already exists.

As usual in these threads, nobody mentioned the elephant in the room...





WRC is still popular outside of the UK!

SWRC is for super 2000 cars - not WRC cars. Even Super 2000 cars are expensive, and don't get massive entries, again part of that is that there being both the WRC & IRC running it dilutes the main offering. S2000 cars look fantatsic and go amazingly. However the point of the suggestion is this -

At the moment if you want to have a go at a WRC event in 'WRC' level car then you can only go to M-sport/Citroen/Pro-drive to buy the car. Under group 'A' cars could be built by different companies to different specs. Escort Cosworth's were built by Boreham but also by Malcolm Wilson, Mike Little, RED etc. So there were more cars for people to use on events.

The WRC is 'more' popular in other countires, but still not on the level it once was. But the FIA are working on this, and doing a good job.

And a WRC car is based on the S2000 spec except with a turbo and a few other changes. Converting one to the other is a far more realistic proposition than converting a Focus/Xsara/C4/Impreza to the old WRC spec.

Interesting article in today's MN - Ford have launched the R5 Fiesta ready for 2013. R5 is seen as a replacement for S2000 cars, it's based on the Fiesta ST 1.6T and is a WRC car (4x4 1.6T) but far more simplified and at a greatly reduced cost. It's built to new cost regs being laid down by the FIA, so it is cheaper than both the S2000 & full WRC cars.

Thought that was interesting timing, especially after discussions on this thead. Peugeot are launching an R5 208 as well. All seems very good....

[Allyc85]

Hyundai confirmed their WRC car today and the promotor deal with Red Bull Media is likely to be for 10 years.

Things hit the lowest of the low for the WRC this year, but there is a glimmer of hope