BRC 2014

[Alex Langheck]

Haven't seen a thread for this.
So, the UK's 'Premier' Rally Championship - the supposed equivalent to the BTCC and BSB.

However, Round1 , The Rally of North Wales - cancelled due to lack of entries. Feel for the event organisers - but people aren't getting value for money, and are voting with their pockets.

The BRC organisers are blaming the slow economic recovery - but that is no argument. Explain the success of the BTCC; with mega interest, good TV & media, and the return of ex champions this year.

[mike80]

In fairness, the Rally is made up of several different championships, of which the British Rally Championship is only one, so it's not really down to them that it's been cancelled.

[MG CHRIS]

Not up to speed on brc but didn't they ban wrc cars in favour of s2000 or something similar. Either way to many series with uk rallying splitting the numbers up.

The reason of the success of btcc is the rules that allow small teams to build brand new cars from scratch where that was never possible before. Along with other things one being live tv on itv4.

[GravelBen]

MG CHRIS said:

Not up to speed on brc but didn't they ban wrc cars in favour of s2000 or something similar.

Just had a look at their website, they're only allowing R3, R2 and R1 cars - ie all sub-200bhp and 2wd.

Probably no suprise at all that people aren't interested then.

[MG CHRIS]

GravelBen said:

MG CHRIS said:

Not up to speed on brc but didn't they ban wrc cars in favour of s2000 or something similar.

Just had a look at their website, they're only allowing R3, R2 and R1 cars - ie all sub-200bhp and 2wd.

Probably no suprise at all that people aren't interested then.

Thought it was something like that so many more interesting series to use ex wrc cars, or rally the classic which more people prefer to watch.

[Alex Langheck]

When they allowed the WRCars - there were only a handful of them, and mainly driven by the 'rich gentleman'. They wanted to attract the 'aspiring youngster' - so went 2WD. However, it's virtually a Citroen DS3 R3 series.

Any prospective BRC organiser has to decide what the BRC is for? Then decide what cars should be used. Then what events to use. Then actually promote the BRC and the events - at the moment the promotion is shocking.

[cupofbeans]

Alex Langheck said:

When they allowed the WRCars - there were only a handful of them, and mainly driven by the 'rich gentleman'. They wanted to attract the 'aspiring youngster' - so went 2WD. However, it's virtually a Citroen DS3 R3 series.

Any prospective BRC organiser has to decide what the BRC is for? Then decide what cars should be used. Then what events to use. Then actually promote the BRC and the events - at the moment the promotion is shocking.

It was only ever any good in the WRC era when the Irish Tarmac lads joined in. I've been to the Jim Clark in the past and been lucky enough to see 20 WRCs on the entry list, but sadly even the Irish series is a shadow of it's former self now. I still go to the JCR every year, but for the national and historic events, as I'm really not very inspired by a DS3 or a Fiesta with little power. Having said that, it didn't do Elfyn Evans any harm to learn his trade in an R2 in the BRC.....

[GravelBen]

Alex Langheck said:

They wanted to attract the 'aspiring youngster' - so went 2WD.

Unfortunately boring cars make for less specator interest, which makes for less sponsor interest, which makes it harder for said aspiring youngsters to get into it. It is a bit of a catch-22 though, trying to lower the running costs without losing the spectacle is a tricky business.

NZRC has gone the other way in the last year or two - after years of running Group-N regs for the main championship they've opened it up to allow more freedom of modification and scratch-built cars, which has seen an increase in both competitor and spectator interest and from what competitors have said they're building the new cars cheaper than Group-N as well.

Edited by GravelBen on Sunday 23 March 11:30