RAC Rally - Great Times
Discussion
I’m new to this section of the forum so apologies if this has been done before. When it comes to motor sport, Motorcycle Racing and especially the TT is my thing. However, I did have an interest in Rallying in the eighties and early 90’s.
Coming from Chester I remember my Dad taking me to see the cars off in Chester, that must of been the late 70’s and I’d of been 5 at the time. I also remember camping in Oulton Park with a mate in 1987 to watch the 2 stages held there. I also went to see some stages in Wales in the late 80’s and early 90’s before totally losing interest in Rallying.
However, seeing a number of Rallies recently come up on YouTube from the 80’s, it’s suddenly reignited my interest. What is the current status of modern Rallying in Britain and why (it appears) that such an enormous event is no more.
Coming from Chester I remember my Dad taking me to see the cars off in Chester, that must of been the late 70’s and I’d of been 5 at the time. I also remember camping in Oulton Park with a mate in 1987 to watch the 2 stages held there. I also went to see some stages in Wales in the late 80’s and early 90’s before totally losing interest in Rallying.
However, seeing a number of Rallies recently come up on YouTube from the 80’s, it’s suddenly reignited my interest. What is the current status of modern Rallying in Britain and why (it appears) that such an enormous event is no more.
There are multiple issues. But lostsof good things too.
The main one at club level is there were several deaths a few years ago in Scotland, this impacted insurance and the like hugely, meaning on some venues, notably private single venues it become intolerable to have spectators present for insurance reason, if you were spotted you could literally cause the event to be canned. This does not happen anywhere else in the world sadly, only here in good old insurance mad Britain.
Even on bigger rallies in forests you were prevented really from free roaming and put into "pens" if you like, large designated areas where you can watch, this again was linked to insurance from the organiser. That is the main difference. You could still do it, but it was potentially a b
king ensuing!
On stuff like the RAC you could wander, and you still can on some rallies, the recent Wyedean, being very close to population was notable, but from my evidence they were running it close in terms of some places. The MSA are very, very touchy about any rallying stuff to be honest, venues get scarcer due to the costs and entries are very expensive, but continue to be popular, the sport is not dying.
As for the sport in the UK, our boom time really ended when Colin and Richard died, that was peak WRC in the UK. Since then the RAC just ended up in Wales, backed by Wales and once their funding was dropped we have not had an WRC round here since. We have had ERC rounds, in Scotland and recently a very good rally in Aberystwyth on closed roads that is doing very well.
Some other good things have happened, there are now a limited number of closed road rallies in England, like there are in Ireland and the rest of Europe, they do very well, and as you can imagine are horrendously difficult to organise and get the locals onside, plenty have been mooted but not many have actually happened.
In terms of the British series, it is vastly different to before, but after some rough years has stabilised, I doubt it is really going to catapult drivers into WRC, as there are so few seats, but we still have good representation globally there.
Another good thing is the Roger Albert Clark rally which start this week, it is a historic event run just like the old RAC, it used to be more national ,but now mainly concentrates on Wales and the North primarily, meaning Kielder and south Scotland etc.
It is a great event very well put together and well attended. The quality of the field goes up and down, for instance last time we had Kris Meeke, Oli Solberg etc, this year not such high quality./ It is very British aswell, no showing off, no show, just old cars driven very slowly or very well!!!
The main one at club level is there were several deaths a few years ago in Scotland, this impacted insurance and the like hugely, meaning on some venues, notably private single venues it become intolerable to have spectators present for insurance reason, if you were spotted you could literally cause the event to be canned. This does not happen anywhere else in the world sadly, only here in good old insurance mad Britain.
Even on bigger rallies in forests you were prevented really from free roaming and put into "pens" if you like, large designated areas where you can watch, this again was linked to insurance from the organiser. That is the main difference. You could still do it, but it was potentially a b
king ensuing!On stuff like the RAC you could wander, and you still can on some rallies, the recent Wyedean, being very close to population was notable, but from my evidence they were running it close in terms of some places. The MSA are very, very touchy about any rallying stuff to be honest, venues get scarcer due to the costs and entries are very expensive, but continue to be popular, the sport is not dying.
As for the sport in the UK, our boom time really ended when Colin and Richard died, that was peak WRC in the UK. Since then the RAC just ended up in Wales, backed by Wales and once their funding was dropped we have not had an WRC round here since. We have had ERC rounds, in Scotland and recently a very good rally in Aberystwyth on closed roads that is doing very well.
Some other good things have happened, there are now a limited number of closed road rallies in England, like there are in Ireland and the rest of Europe, they do very well, and as you can imagine are horrendously difficult to organise and get the locals onside, plenty have been mooted but not many have actually happened.
In terms of the British series, it is vastly different to before, but after some rough years has stabilised, I doubt it is really going to catapult drivers into WRC, as there are so few seats, but we still have good representation globally there.
Another good thing is the Roger Albert Clark rally which start this week, it is a historic event run just like the old RAC, it used to be more national ,but now mainly concentrates on Wales and the North primarily, meaning Kielder and south Scotland etc.
It is a great event very well put together and well attended. The quality of the field goes up and down, for instance last time we had Kris Meeke, Oli Solberg etc, this year not such high quality./ It is very British aswell, no showing off, no show, just old cars driven very slowly or very well!!!
The British Rally Championship is alive and well, and National, and club level events are doing okay - there were some events cancelled because of closed forests due to storm damage early this year, but many of the championships are planing a return in the spring.
Work continues to get a World Rally Championship event back in the UK - with Aberdeen leading the way at present - more on that here:
https://ebooks.motorsportuk.org/revolution-novembe...
As mentioned above, the Roger Albert Clark rally is the closest to the 1980s/90s that you recall. Worth as look.
https://ebooks.motorsportuk.org/revolution-october...
Work continues to get a World Rally Championship event back in the UK - with Aberdeen leading the way at present - more on that here:
https://ebooks.motorsportuk.org/revolution-novembe...
As mentioned above, the Roger Albert Clark rally is the closest to the 1980s/90s that you recall. Worth as look.
https://ebooks.motorsportuk.org/revolution-october...
Gassing Station | Rallying | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff