Visiting WRC events (what's your experience?)

[tommeke_B]

The 2012 season has come to an end. Last year I created a thread about visiting WRC rallies. Unfortunately a moderator (his name doesn't need to be mentioned, but I'll say he's not active on the rally-part of the forum) deleted all my posts (and threads) by accident... So also this nice topic was gone, together with everything forum-members wrote on it... I hope I can bring it back and I hope people will be just as enthousiast as they were last year. I would like to readpeople's thoughts about WRC events (or other very big rallies, like IRC, a historic RAC, Rallylegend and so on) and everything around it (all the positive and negative comments are welcome), what has changed through the years, in certain events. Why you would certainly go back, why you shouldn't, what you would do next time, etc etc...

Also this should be the perfect topic for people who have questions about certain events (especially if they plan to go to a rally they never visited before). :)

I've been to Finland, France and Sardinia this year, I'll write a post about it later.

I hope to get some response on this one. :)

[Mintexmemory]

Thanks T_B I did Catalunya this year for the second time and previously have been to Ireland, Germany, Sardinia as well as Ypres and of course GB. The sharing of info is one of the very best things this forum can do and I'm happy to share any help I can give to other forum members.

[ToughMac]

Didn't make it to any events this year but did make it to rally Spain last year. Have to say it was a very enjoyable and well run event, stages easy to get to and for the most part very spectator friendly. Only drawback was as Salou was a bit quite with the rally being run at the end of the holiday season and even later this year. Always like having a buzz around the host town but there seemed to be very little around apart from service and headquarters. Hope to get to some events next year and hope that VW will give it that extra bit of spice.

[Rallyper]

I´ve done Greece and Finland this year. Greece for the first time. I met some very nice friends there and it was a nice experience being at that event. Also as a visitor at Ford team, which made a deeper knowledge of all the things that will have to be coordinated during a WRC-event.

Then Finland of course. Always an exciting and good rally for visitors. I told you before that I regard Finland as the best rally in the WRC. Having said that inspite haven´t been on every round.
There´s so much you could say about NORF, and I´m sure we´ll come back to that in this topic further on.

[MartijnS]

We have done six WRC's this year.

Portugal: not going back next year. Difficult cause you're not allowed to walk on the stages at all most of the times. Stages are pretty nice though :)

Greece: second time and definitely going back there. Awesome rally, great stages, lots of freedom to go wherever you want and good itenary.

Germany: have been there a lot as it's close to home. Still a nice rally to visit :)

Wales: expensive, a lot of waiting, not much entries this year, but we had a blast! Great action here and there :) Good fun. Definitely going back there again.

Sardegna: first time and definitely not the last. Great rally, nice stages, good timing.

Spain: 3rd time Spain this year. Still worth going there, cool shakedown, nice stages on friday and also the tarmac is not that boring at all. Good mix and nice end of this season for us.

We skipped France this year and didn't really miss it. Possibly going to Finland next year for the first time.

[GigiGalliNo1]

Get to NZ guys!! You'll love it!

[tommeke_B]

I would love to... But for the price of the airflight only I can see 3 European WRC events... ;)

[Hartusvuori]

This is a great subject for topic. Really broughts up the best sides of forum like this.

This year we did WRC Finland of course (5th time for me full-on stage to stage spectating, 27th time altogether), WRC Germany (1st time) and IRC Czech (3rd time). On top of that a handful of local events. I'm already eyeing next year's calendar with hopes of doing at least two events abroad, perhaps both WRC (let's see how ERC turns out). I will most likely return to Trier, and it'll be difficult to stay out of Zlin, that've grown as a second home event to me, but perhaps the other event next year is something else. We'll see. There are many events I'd like to visit and also the ones I've visited, I'd like to return, so... too little time and money.

Here's my stories from this year's rallies: Finland (http://www.motorsportforums.com/wrc/149600-wrc-neste-oil-rally-finland-2012-a-52.html#post1056191), Germany (http://www.motorsportforums.com/wrc/151071-rally-deutschland-2012-a-48.html#post1062531)and Czech (http://www.motorsportforums.com/erc/153045-%5Birc%5D%5Berc%5D%5Bmm-r%5D-barum-czech-rally-zl%EDn-16.html#post1062609).

[Fly_Half]

We only did one WRC event this year and that was my home event, Wales Rally GB. The shortcomings of the event have been well documented elsewhere, and it's pretty clear it needs a complete overhaul - firstly going back to it's traditional end of season slot. Wales Rally GB without the cold, horizontal rain in a Welsh forest just isn't right. The organisers have promised to look at every aspect of the event, so let's hope they deliver.

The other main event we did was Boucles de Spa early in the year, and we had a complete disaster. Crap weather, crap stages, numerous stage cancellations, too many spectators causing huge delays. It was a complete nightmare and I don't think I'd bother going back again unfortunately. That being said the atmosphere in the town the night before was superb.

Hoping to do either Greece or Germany next year!

[James Graham]

I haven't been to Wales Rally GB for a few years now. I've spectated and marshaled (cheapest way to see the rally) on the event probably twenty times. Living in the UK it is my 'local' WRC round but the cost to spectate is now crazy which is a shame as it is a great rally to watch with some really fast stages which really show the commitment of the top crews. I've got some great memories from over the years though and I'll hopefully make it back to Wales in 2013.

The only other WRC round I have watched is Cyprus and that was by accident. I was out there for a friends wedding and as rally cars were my day job I wasn't keen to go and watch, preferring instead to read and drink beer by the pool. My girlfriend was a rally nut though and she found out the rally was on and pestered me to take her and the rest of the wedding party out to spectate. I didn't have any info on the event so we got horribly lost in the Troodos mountains and the section of one of the stages we were on was like the Safari so the cars weren't too spectacular to watch. Still, I had friends at M-Sport who let us in to enjoy some hospitality which seemed to go down well with everyone.

I spent some time living in New Zealand recently but I left about a month before the rally came to town so I was a bit bummed about missing that.

Rally Finland is definitely on my bucket list though.

[tommeke_B]

The other main event we did was Boucles de Spa early in the year, and we had a complete disaster. Crap weather, crap stages, numerous stage cancellations, too many spectators causing huge delays. It was a complete nightmare and I don't think I'd bother going back again unfortunately. That being said the atmosphere in the town the night before was superb.
Made a small correction:
Crap weather > Belgian weather in february
Crap stages > bad choice of places
Numerous stage cancellations > I think just one of the 12 stages was cancelled (first one)?

About the spectators you are correct, they shouldn't make it a free event, there are way too many spectators and too many who are not really interested in rallying, so they make a public party of it (with too little respect for others). It's by far the worst organisation in a big event in Belgium, chaos is the key word... The event was very close to being not organized anymore next year, but apparently they'll organize it again (16th of february), but I'm not sure if I'll go there, even if it's only some 2h15mins of driving, last 2 years the organisation was not worth it.

[Mintexmemory]

Thinking of Germany next year, does anyone have experience of the Igel camping?
I went to Klusserath Moselblick in 2010 and although a good campsite I thought I'd like to be nearer Trier and the cheap Luxemburg petrol in 2013.

[tommeke_B]

What you win on petrol will be lost with extra km's of driving. ;) We've been on the camping of Schweich 3x, good camping, good accomodation, and a good restaurant just next to the camping. It's perhaps the most central camping you can be. The distance from there to the center of Trier and service is maybe 3-5kms more, but all stages are around 20-25km closer from there. (if you have 3 days of rallying that means some 120 to 150km).
Website of the camping: Wassersport- & Freizeitzentrum Kreusch: Wassersport- & Freizeitzentrum Kreusch (http://www.kreusch.de/)

[BleAivano]

I have been to two larger rallies this year.

First Swedish Rally where we chose the Vargåsen stage.
First loop we were at Colin's crest, which is my second visit there. Not so much spectators this year at CC
and the jump isn't really that spectacular. For the second loop we moved to Älgtjärn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7JshUr6bRTo#t=290s) which is also on the Vargåsen stage.
We found a pretty good place and I wouldn't mind going to that place again.


The this summer we went to Midnattssolsrallyt It was very good as usual. We first when to the Bie stage and
found a great spot, then we moved to Skeppsta stage and spectator area Öllösa kvarn. It was also a pretty good spot.

In general MSR is a pretty good event although the stages are only run once and they are also quite short.
I guess it has to do with the Regularity class since they only do about 50 km/h.

Its usally have pretty good cars, tons of Escorts Rs1800 abd RS2000's a fair amount of 911's, old Saabs and Volvos.
Unfortunately no Steve Perez and his Stratos in 2012 :(

[Roy]

I visit many times Germany. Nice! My first time I saw a rally was there in 2004.
France in 2010 was hopeless. Bad organisation. Example of many mistakes: To the stage the bus wait and wait and wait for what? No explanation.
And back from the stage a lot of people wait in front of the bus. The bus driver was... .
I prefer the tarmac roads and the atmosphere in Germany.

Also I visited Sardenga one time, nice stages. Maybe I come back.
I couldn't visit the stages in Jordan 2008. But I was at the finish ceremonial. It is something...

[tommeke_B]

I haven't post my "review" from my events this year here yet, so here it is... I'll give every rally a post and add a few pics.

- Finland

The first time we were going to Finland, and thanks to the many stories we heard the expectations were high... We arrived on tuesday afternoon untill sunday. Enough time to drive several stages (Mokkipera, Surkee, Leustu, and of course Ouninpohja) to find some nice places to watch. We stayed in a cottage near a lake (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/137.jpg), as central as you can be for the rally, if you have some time before and after the rally I highly recommend it (thanks again Hartusvuori). If you stay only for the rally itself, I would book a regular hotel (+- same price, usually there'sbreakfast available, and usually there are some restaurants close to it or even in the hotel, all these things are handy as you arrive late and leave early).

On wednesday we went to see the service-area, nice that it's so close to the center of Jyvaskyla. The shakedown and qualifying on Ruuhimaki was great. The first "rally-action" you see in Finland are cars flying high and far (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/056.jpg). The weather was a bit strange there, in the middle of the afternoon there was a big shower, with thunder and lightning... (Thanks again to the still unkown person who wanted to share his umbrella for those 20 minutes). After the rain there was some big splash just before the finish of the stage, great for photos (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/078.jpg). :) For the qualifying I went some 500m before the first jump, you had 3 corners in a row (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/073.jpg), the drivers were throwing the car from one side to the other, ending in a long right corner that opened (cars being drifting while full on throttle), really nice.

On thursday it was a very long drive to the first stage (a tip for the organizers would be to do 2 loops of those 3 stages if they really want the rally to be held in that region). On the road we ate something in a big petrol-station along the road, you got something that was good regarding that it was very cheap (exactly the opposite of what we find along motorways in Belgium, France, Germany etc), something to recommend, if you don't have really much time, stop by at a big petrol-station (of course I can not know if all are good). On the first stage we arrived at some relatively fast corners in a more open area (,http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/017.jpg) watched the WRC and SWRC cars, when the first Gr.N-cars were passing by we went to the third stage. Arrived in some open area, where you had a nice overview (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/006.jpg), extremely fast also (Ahlin crashed there http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/030.jpg). Then back to the cottage for some 3 hours sleep before going to the friday stages.

First Urria, my friends stayed at the big jump (where Giraudet hurted his back), I went on for 500m, some great combination of 2 fast corners (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/019.jpg http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/065.jpg), both in a small jump, amazing to see the cars flying sideways, Novikov had a big moment there (just after that moment on that jump). Then we went to Mokkipera (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/110.jpg). There was huge traffic between those stages as there was such a big time-window that everyone decided to do Urria and then go to Mokkipera... Anyway we got to the stage with parking relatively close on some small gravel road. We wathed only the WRC-cars to go to Lankamaa (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/057.jpg). It worked, but only just... We combined Mokkipera (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/105.jpg) and Lankamaa (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/037.jpg) 2 times.

On the last day we started on Surkee. Some calm place, an S that they could take flat out, but only just. Mads Ostberg almost lost it because he was too much in the inside of the first one, so he couldn't get an ideal line for the second corner and was wide out (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/114.jpg). There we watched only the WRC cars, everything was timed, it had to work to get to SS Leustu from there. We drove through the gravel road, had some traffic in front of us and we lost a little bit of time, but when we arrived on the stage the 0-car had just passed by... :) An amazingly fast place once again, there was long left corner (we could see just the exit of it), then a long right one (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/111.jpg), flat out, then some straight, a very fast right one again before disappearing in a forest part (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/135.jpg). There we watched for a long time and then went to Leustu, a place some 1km before the finish where we had a nice overview of 4 corners (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/090.jpg http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/047.jpg), the last one ending in a jump (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/129.jpg). From there we went to Ouninpohja for 2 times. Once some fast medium-fast corner (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/086.jpg), once a jump to end our rally with (http://rally-image.be/foto/0311/images/038.jpg). What I remarked was that the safety on Ouninpohja was much more strict than anywhere else in the rally, some steward didn't even allow to cross the road where there was full sight, even with media vest it was a no.

In general it was a very nice rally. Amazing stages and a nice atmosphere. Pitty that from the locals not many people speak English (you can put them in 3 categories: 1-people who speak good English, perhaps like the people on the forum here, 2-people who don't speak English and make that clear, 3-also a big category-people who say "errrrrrr" "eeehmmm" more than words :D ). Would I go back? I would love to, but with 2 WRC events less than 5 hours driving and Wales, Sardinia, Catalunya, Portugal costing only half of what Finland costed, for us, I'm not sure if it will be soon, but one day, sure... :)

[tommeke_B]

Another review...

- France-Alsace

Third time we went to Alsace for the event (also 3rd time it was in the WRC). As always we drove by car and arrived on thursday, some 5 hours of driving. We skipped the shakedown and the first stage as they are useless, it has nothing to do with rally. We knew all stages quite well, as it was the 3rd time they drove them, the stages for sunday were reversed, we went to see one of them (Cléebourg) on thursday afternoon while we were on the road to Strasbourg. We were in a hotel in Molsheim (home of the Bugatti-factory by the way), some hotel in the city-center, 50m from some restaurants, also a short walk to some bars, good fun.

On friday We went to see the first and the last stage of the loop. On the first we went to some fast corner with a cut and little bump in it (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/002.jpg), we knew that one from the years before, nice place, close parking (less than 100m from the corner). On the last of the loop you had only very few accesses, we went to some more open place some 4km before the finish but there wasn't much really special. On the 2nd loop for the first we chose a place only 500m before the place we went earlier (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/055.jpg), just to have a good acces and so it would be easy to leave again to the last of the loop. But after all it was quite nice, some S with the first corner being much faster than the 2nd, quite interesting to see how much the cars were understeering there. For the last stage of the day we chose some place where we had a 500m-1km walk through the forst first (uphill/downhill), then I walked another km on the stage. Some long hairpin, great scenary (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/007.jpg) (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/080.jpg).

On saturday we did also 4 stages. We started with the place where Solberg crashed, we knew from the years before there had been some others who crashed there... And it's a nice place in general, also the junction after is nice (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/058.jpg). Then we went to the 4th stage of the day (last of that loop), but it was cancelled because there were too many spectators and in dangerous places, something that could be expected before, as the stage was quite short and in wineyards where you can get to every corner of the stage. So back to the first of the loop... We were on some very long right corner, that thightened a bit (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/106.jpg). Most cars were quite clean, but some, like Al-Rahji (as seen on pic) were taking another approach... :) After all it was a nice place. So off to the last stage of the day for us. Some place with several nice corners in short distance, I chose some nice S for the big guys (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/084.jpg), then another corner for the guys running later, as it was getting darker (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/024.jpg).

On the last day we had rain, normally I don't like it, but as we drove the stage before it was easy to predict where it was going to be good with rain. On the first loop we went to a fast left one before braking for a junction right (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/065.jpg). On the second loop a fast left one between the fields, where half of the cars went into the field. (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/017.jpg) (http://rally-image.be/foto/0324/images/103.jpg).

In general I would say France is a very nice event, except for the very boring shakedown and some super-specials. If they would make a proper shakedown and some more proper short stages in stead of in the middle of a city, it would be a much better event. Also if you like to be alone, it's better to not go there, it's the most crowded rally in the WRC at the moment, I think. Also for spectators it is very strict. In the wineyard-stages you aren't allowed to be anywhere except for the public areas, so the marshalls and police really search to take them out and send them to the place where they are allowed to stand... First time in the 3 years we've seen that, but it ruins the fun for spectators... For the rest, nice service area like everywhere, plenty of hotels and restaurants in the region, as there's quite a lot of tourism there. Am I going back? Most likely yes, but only because it's so close... ;) If I would have to travel more, I would consider it only if there's a proper shakedown (big difference imo).