2019 Rallying Thread (WRC, ERC and all other)!

[ArnageWRC]

GravelBen said:

https://www.wrc.com/en/wrc/news/september-2019/201...

NZ is back baby!

Might be a road trip to the other end of the country for me.

Fabulous news, and well deserved!! Best gravel roads in the world.....

Catalunya takes a break, but is to return, Corsica is dropped, which is a great shame - which leaves us with only 2 pure Tarmac events in a 14 round calendar - which is a mistake.

And Rally of GB is moved back a month....(though it still needs moving a few weeks later).

[Big Robbo]

Odd having Japan as the last round, you would have thought from a logistical point of view it would have been better to be after the New Zealand round. Shame about Corsica but for the teams it wasn't the easiest to get to. Other than that it looks a good mix considering its at least one tarmac round light

[Allyc85]

Great to see iconic events like the Safari and New Zealand back on the calendar. It would be nice to finally see a press release about Rally GB, as it seems like it will now stay in Wales.

Even with storm Lorenzo hitting the country I'm very much looking forward to this weekend. Plan consists of Dyfnant 1, pre-Dyfnant 2 refuel, Sweetlamb/Hafren and Brenig.

Getting into Shakedown sounded lie chaos this morning, so I'd advise anyone attending the event to get to the car parks at least 3 hours before the 1st car, or face a very long walk!!

[df76]

Oulton park stage starting at 19:08 this evening. Weather should make it interesting this weekend!

[velocemitch]

Members of our club set up and are running Stage 1 this year, there was talk of handing over the safety and rescue to the RNLI given the conditions earlier in the week.

[epom]

velocemitch said:

Members of our club set up and are running Stage 1 this year, there was talk of handing over the safety and rescue to the RNLI given the conditions earlier in the week.

best of luck to you all. Should be a great weekend.

[Captain Obvious]

Having moved to NZ a couple of years ago I can say I'm so excited to finally be able to attend a WRC event!

It is big news over here, pretty much everyone I know interested in cars has booked the week off work to follow the event already, the club I started for owners of WRC homologation cars seems to have positioned our way into having a display on the launch day also (if it all works out).

I can't wait!

[Munter]

Well the spectators do it again

From twitter:

"STAGE STOPPED

The cars have driven through at non competitive speeds with no further action through Aberhirnant 1

This is due to spectators on a fast section mid stage standing in dangerous positions - and returning to them despite instructions to spectate elsewhere"

Muppets

[df76]

Munter said:

Well the spectators do it again

From twitter:

"STAGE STOPPED

The cars have driven through at non competitive speeds with no further action through Aberhirnant 1

This is due to spectators on a fast section mid stage standing in dangerous positions - and returning to them despite instructions to spectate elsewhere"

Muppets

Ridiculous isn’t it. Tbh, I watched the stages this morning and there’s plenty of spectators in positions that I wouldn’t dream of being in. Drivers are saying that the cars are out of shape on the straight bits even, could end up anywhere in those conditions..

[Blink982]

I caught an hour or so of the WRC this morning and saw one straight stretch where the spectators obviously shouldn't have been. The cars were at full chat and they were leaning into the road to take snaps. I suspected that something would be done about them being there but it's a shame the actions of some idiots who think they know better have spoiled the event.

[ArnageWRC]

They spoil it for everyone; especially when they were repeatedly asked to move, and returned to their dangerous position.

Any other spectator 'issues'; and you can see the organisers eventually strictly enforcing the 'viewing areas'.

[Allyc85]

What a bunch of idiots! I see Elfyn covered a load of spectators in mud in his big moment in the morning, before Latvala had his rally ending shunt at the same corner, with people in the same place!

We had a great (Though very wet!) morning at spectator point v1 on Dyfnant. The speed was ridiculous!

https://twitter.com/AlastairCummins/status/1180221...

We then watched the nationals at the next double junction, which was entertaining, before heading to the pre-evening stages refuel.

[sanf]

ArnageWRC said:

They spoil it for everyone; especially when they were repeatedly asked to move, and returned to their dangerous position.

Any other spectator 'issues'; and you can see the organisers eventually strictly enforcing the 'viewing areas'.

I've just posted the below on BRF, if you watch the in car from Evans on the WRC highlights program, that is the section in question. Evans was the last car through before they stopped the stage. There is also a still photo on BRF.

There's a bit more to it, there was some confusion on the ground as to what the actual issue was. We were marshalling at post 4 the main spectator area, as a team of 5 from our club, amongst a much larger group of marshals.
All the spectators we dealt with were polite and listened to instructions. Once Evans had come through it became apparent the stage had been halted, a pick-up truck then appeared and stopped at post 4 to talk to the sector commander. It was agreed that the 5 of us would be moved to help out, so we jumped in the back of the pick-up and were taken about 1km up the stage (the fast section) to help. This all happened within about 10 minutes of the cars being held. By the time the pick-up stopped to drop us off it was announced the stage had been cancelled. So no chance was given to rectify the problem.
At that stage what we were hearing - from the team that moved us was either;
1 person was walking up the stage and would not move, and had an argument with a marshal
1 person was filming standing on the edge of the stage
People were on logs.

There were rumours that this was being seen by a WRC film crew, but this seemed to change to it's all from in car. To compound matters, the marshals at the quarry and the 2 marshals halfway down the straight weren't actually aware of any problems. It seems the communication as to what the actual problem was limited.

It's a shame as the 5 of us that were sent up could have split into 3 - 1 pair to handle the people on the logs, 1 pair to move the group on the left hand side of the straight after the logs and 1 person to work with the pair of marshals and make sure (what I think was the Belguim group) didn't jump into the road after a car had gone by.

That section is very, very quick - it is staggering watching the cars through there. However it also runs parallel to the main car park, but is at the top of the valley, spectators naturally cut up from the car park to avoid walking the long way around, hence you end up with groups of people, but it's also worth saying not unmanageable amounts of people. It does seems the decision to cancel the stage was made before a serious chance was offered to actually rectify the problem, and whatever the actual problem was, wasn't fully communicated to the teams on the ground to fix.

It's also worth noting another marshal was sent down from post 5 - so 6 of us turned up to help.

Having now seen the in car shot from Evans car on the WRC highlights program, there are 2 people on the left of the road before the quarry (1 I think with an Umbrella), so are close but in the trees. There is the big group halfway down the straight on the left, the group on the logs and the few groups on the left hand side as the road starts to bear right. All of whom could have been dealt with quickly once we were in place - there nothing especially challenging. That section is quick but relatively straight, even when the right hander starts the WRC cars hardly break at all.....

For the Nationals and evening run we then stayed in that area. Initially we were told - nobody near or on the logs on the right....this then changed to anybody that far down needs to be in front of the logs (not on them) as it's higher. Nobody was allowed on the left, beyond the logs which was fine.

The groups on the left between the quarry and the logs were deemed as fine by all safety cars, and that is point that the cars are very close to the left hand side. We were asked to move 2 marshals from the logs back to the mid section to help the two marshals deal with a big crowd, when we got there, it was about 10 spectators and the marshals felt everything was fine and all spectators were behaving. So it kind of backed up the idea communication was not brilliant.

Hopefully that offers a little context into what took place. It's shame they pulled the plug, especially as all the cars needed to go through the stage non competitively!! Which some appeared to be faster than the nationals.....we actually had to slow a couple down due to spectators moving about. You do feel for those paying, the WRC needs to be careful about pulling the plug so quickly on a stage when you have a paying audience. It was a great day out - just a shame we didn't see a full run on the first running of the stage.

[RESSE]

ArnageWRC said:

They spoil it for everyone; especially when they were repeatedly asked to move, and returned to their dangerous position.

Any other spectator 'issues'; and you can see the organisers eventually strictly enforcing the 'viewing areas'.

04/10/2019
We left home at 0400hrs Friday morning and drove to Betws-y-Coed to watch SS2 before heading off to SS5 at Bala

Found a great viewing spot on a downhill 90 right and watched the first 8 WRC cars through. Excellent stuff.

Not so excellent was spectator(s?) further up SS5 who would not move despite the marshal's requests so the stage was cancelled.

Edited by RESSE on Saturday 5th October 12:20

[sanf]

RESSE said:

ArnageWRC said:

They spoil it for everyone; especially when they were repeatedly asked to move, and returned to their dangerous position.

Any other spectator 'issues'; and you can see the organisers eventually strictly enforcing the 'viewing areas'.

04/10/2019
We left home at 0400hrs Friday morning and drove to Betws-y-Coed to watch SS2 before heading off to SS5 at Bala

Found a great viewing spot on a downhill 90 right and watched the first 8 WRC cars through. Excellent stuff.

Not so excellent was spectator(s?) further up SS5 who would not move despite the marshal's requests so the stage was cancelled.

Edited by RESSE on Saturday 5th October 12:20

See post above.....your piece about the marshals is not quite correct.....the marshals positioned from 4b-5 were all happy and not aware of an issue, it was picked up on in car footage. People moved after the safety car had gone through.

[RESSE]

sanf said:

RESSE said:

ArnageWRC said:

They spoil it for everyone; especially when they were repeatedly asked to move, and returned to their dangerous position.

Any other spectator 'issues'; and you can see the organisers eventually strictly enforcing the 'viewing areas'.

04/10/2019
We left home at 0400hrs Friday morning and drove to Betws-y-Coed to watch SS2 before heading off to SS5 at Bala

Found a great viewing spot on a downhill 90 right and watched the first 8 WRC cars through. Excellent stuff.

Not so excellent was spectator(s?) further up SS5 who would not move despite the marshal's requests so the stage was cancelled.

Edited by RESSE on Saturday 5th October 12:20

See post above.....your piece about the marshals is not quite correct.....the marshals positioned from 4b-5 were all happy and not aware of an issue, it was picked up on in car footage. People moved after the safety car had gone through.

If they moved why was SS5 cancelled?

Apologies if I have missed something in an earlier post.

[rallycross]

sanf said:

See post above.....your piece about the marshals is not quite correct.....the marshals positioned from 4b-5 were all happy and not aware of an issue, it was picked up on in car footage. People moved after the safety car had gone through.

Shame people are missing out due to things like this (CR)

[Allyc85]

Frustrating morning on Hafren for us, obviously not helped by yesterday's events.

Found us a safe spot up on a bank, on a straight a couple hundred yards past v4 spectator point.

The first couple safety crews said we were fine, but 000 had different ideas and wanted everyone back in the spectator pen. Naturally getting our stuff together took a minute or so, and as we reached the pen, we were aggressively shouted at by Mouton, to which I clearly pointed out we would get in as soon as there was a safe point for us to climb the steep bank! Annoyingly even before 00 turned up some other spectators turned up and watched from near where we were!!

I don't like to moan about marshals, but it didn't help that they were allowing so many to walk down the stage so close to the 1st car starting.

We still managed to have a decent day. This was the end of V2 in the afternoon.

https://twitter.com/AlastairCummins/status/1180536...

[df76]

Another stage cancelled this morning due to “insufficient safety cover”. Not great.

[ArnageWRC]

Have to say, I was in Hafren yesterday, and I didn't think there were as many marshals as there usually are. In the morning I was at the run up from the Nant Melen hairpin; and in previous years there have been marshals at regular intervals up on the banking opposite the viewing area, this year I can't recall seeing many between the hairpin, and the radio/ambulance junction.
It's obviously getting harder to get marshals - and will likely get harder.