Missing the rough rallies

[itix]

Hi!
I should start with introducing myself since I am new here. I am an -88 from Sweden who lives in Italy and work on boats as a marine engineer servicing and maintaining ship machinery. I have been a rally enthusiast since I was a kid. Started following rallying around -96.

Now, when I was a kid (I am probably still a kid in most peoples' eyes), there was a huge number of "endurance rallies" in the world rally championship calendar, such as the safari rally, Acropolis and cyprus. Why have they all been ditched?

7 rounds of smooth (in comparison) gravel rallying and 1 with smooth gravel and shit weather is slightly repetitive in my opinion.

'tis a shame :(

[A FONDO]

I dont miss them. Rally must be on tarmac. For rough roads there are thousands of offroad events, with machines proper for it.

[Mirek]

Hi!
I should start with introducing myself since I am new here. I am an -88 from Sweden who lives in Italy and work on boats as a marine engineer servicing and maintaining ship machinery. I have been a rally enthusiast since I was a kid. Started following rallying around -96.

Now, when I was a kid (I am probably still a kid in most peoples' eyes), there was a huge number of "endurance rallies" in the world rally championship calendar, such as the safari rally, Acropolis and cyprus. Why have they all been ditched?

7 rounds of smooth (in comparison) gravel rallying and 1 with smooth gravel and shit weather is slightly repetitive in my opinion.

'tis a shame :(

I'm a bit nostalgic about them too but usually there is a reason why every one was ditched.

Safari was left because of safety reasons. In 21st century nobody wants to drive over opened road sections where a crew can meet a bus full of children in full speed or something similar. Acropolis is out due to financial reasons. I believe there is no other reason. Regarding Cyprus in my opinion the IRC variant with mixed stages was way better than the rough and extremely slow WRC one. Hopefully this years ERC edition keeps similar shape as the last IRC ones which were great.

There is Argentina left in WRC as the last proper tough rally but any other can become a hell when it rains. With recent tyre regulations rain makes all very difficult especially on asphalt where the single pattern tyres are pretty useless in wet. Anyway it's true that there are marathon events for people who love rough off road events. In terms of competition Dakar moved somewhat closer to the old WRC.

[itix]

I enjoy the Dakar, that is not the problem here. The Dakar is harder to follow though with its two week length.

As a concept, a whole season of known drivers, known teams and cars, the WRC is a more fan-friendly idea.

It is just a shame to loose the proper unknowns that these rallies meant. I remember for instance one year when Richard Burns 206 got stuck in loose sand on the entry to the service park and he couldn't get it out in time and had to retire. That doesn't happen in say NZ.

I can understand the safety aspects and that is something that needs to be worked on of course, but I can't see why it can't be solved and why it can't come back.

Unfortunately I never followed the IRC well enough to know how the rally cyprus looked under the IRC banner but mixing stages sounds like a good concept, and I do remember that it was very slow with cars not averaging more than 60 kph.

[Mirek]

If You are interested in how Cyprus was run in IRC You can have a look on the record of Cyprus live "Golden stage" from 2011 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phJkjQbkp1Q
Or here 2011 live stage 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3odJVjmDTMM and here 2011 live stage 11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBG3yYXDBVs

What is shown as Golden stage was a concept from those times where after the end of Rally Cyprus (last event of the season) the crews competed one long stage twice for a big money. It was merely public stunt but it worked very well (in my opinion better than Power Stage as the golden stage was held as a separate event). In 2011 it was an epic run of Thierry Neuville who survived a huge moment live on camera and won the prize. That crazy moment alone is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI3FO0xHzWA

[nafpaktos]

I dont miss them. Rally must be on tarmac. For rough roads there are thousands of offroad events, with machines proper for it.you say you dont miss them.I respect it absolutely.But when you say rally must be on tarmac what can i say???????

[nafpaktos]

@mirek
the greek prime minister called todt to assure him that the money for the rallly was secured.so no money problem.the problem was that some people got dizzy by lotos money.its that simple.money is pretext.

[stefanvv]

Mirek said it right, for Safari there is the cost problem as well, the teams must prepare cars just for this event, that cost money - last Safari Rallies were with special "attributes" to the cars, and of course the distant location is also expensive (comparing to Europe events).

PS: I'm not sure about Acropolis too, the Greeks can always find a way to find the budget.

[N.O.T]

only safari would be nice to be back... the rest got what they deserved.

[N.O.T]

@mirek
the greek prime minister called todt to assure him that the money for the rallly was secured.so no money problem.the problem was that some people got dizzy by lotos money.its that simple.money is pretext.

of course... the problem is that there were 12 events to ditch and they chose the weakest link... i doubt Lotos had any grudge with Acropolis.

Lotos just wanted a rally in Poland which is a great place for rallying from any point of view (apart from the lowlife drunk spectators)

[Mirek]

@mirek
the greek prime minister called todt to assure him that the money for the rallly was secured.so no money problem.the problem was that some people got dizzy by lotos money.its that simple.money is pretext.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

[Zeakiwi]

I remember Neil Allport said Argentina trashed the Mitsubishi Group N his team ran there.
Just rallies like Romania? where the teams run the cars on a standard high ride height might be ok or just a rule to have higher ride heights rather than like Cyprus? where Solberg's car ate stones from a low ride height.

[Mirek]

Good that You mention Sibiu. Škoda used there the highest possible setup for the cars and they had no problem with roughness of the roads (as opposed to gr.N cars and Peugeots). Check this video with Andreas Mikkelsen running on the "off road" setup of Fabia S2000. I kinda like that :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yllWUPRYNFk

[COD]

only safari would be nice to be back... the rest got what they deserved.

I don't think the Acropolis was so bad + it is a legend like the Safari. Cyprus, Turkey etc. Deserved to go

[RAS007]

I don't think the Acropolis was so bad + it is a legend like the Safari. Cyprus, Turkey etc. Deserved to go

Agreed; it would be good to have maybe one endurance type event back in the calendar; but because of cost cutting, and persistent attempts by the FIA to change the fabric of the sport, we have much more compact rallies, shorter and re-used stages, clover leaf routes to accommodate central servicing etc, so I can't see the sport ever making a return to those days, I am very sorry to say.

[Mirek]

Agreed; it would be good to have maybe one endurance type event back in the calendar; but because of cost cutting, and persistent attempts by the FIA to change the fabric of the sport, we have much more compact rallies, shorter and re-used stages, clover leaf routes to accommodate central servicing etc, so I can't see the sport ever making a return to those days, I am very sorry to say.

In my opinion Argentina stands for that one. It's longer than other events and rougher too. In these days I don't think it's wise to make it even longer. 500 km is enough.

[Koceens]

I dont miss them. Rally must be on tarmac. For rough roads there are thousands of offroad events, with machines proper for it.
There are even more thousands of racing events on tarmac and most of them are incredibly boring. Well at least watching on TV.

So I think it's a good balance now with 3-4 tarmac events per season.

[itix]

Mirek, the rally cyprus vid was really cool. If they ran those kind of stages mixed in with the slow rough stages, that would be a very interesting rally!

I think rough rallies adds to the sport and to the test the drivers face. A good rally driver should be an allrounder. This is not circuit racing where all you do is 15 corners which requires a lot less skill. At least the safari should return... it is called WORLD rally championship after all, and having 3 rallies outside Europe on a 13 event season is not really a world thing.

[lewalcindor]

Mirek, the rally cyprus vid was really cool. If they ran those kind of stages mixed in with the slow rough stages, that would be a very interesting rally!

I think rough rallies adds to the sport and to the test the drivers face. A good rally driver should be an allrounder. This is not circuit racing where all you do is 15 corners which requires a lot less skill. At least the safari should return... it is called WORLD rally championship after all, and having 3 rallies outside Europe on a 13 event season is not really a world thing.

I agree that ideally, rallying should encompass varied surfaces to test the all-around driving skills of the competitors. But it appears that the economics of the sport precludes this ideal vision of rallying from becoming a reality.

The sport doesn't appear to generate much money directly (from ticket sales, merchandise, sponsorships, broadcasting rights revenue, etc.), but costs a kings ransom to run a team or even a single car for a season. As it is, the WRC and its supporting championships are probably seen more as glorified hobbies than something in the F1 (or even NASCAR) realm. The difference here is that manufacturers and teams will pay drivers to play the F1 game because of the enormous revenues involved, while drivers in the WRC have to pay manufacturers and teams to play the game because there is comparatively little revenue or reward to be had.

I would compare competing in most auto racing championships to operating a restaurant. Many connoisseurs of racing or food would love to delve full-time into their passion. But economic realities prevent this from happening most of the time. Both involve massive overhead costs to start-up and operate over time, and most of the time, both reward their owners with a much smaller return (and often a negative return) than had the owners invested their money elsewhere.

Also, I wouldn't denigrate circuit drivers. Their goals are no different from rally drivers' goals: gaining time from their competitors from each corner and section. And in both sports, the elite drivers are the ones who can take off more time at each corner and section than their competitors can. Arguably, circuit drivers have a harder task of beating other racers because (a) the competitive field is more even than it is in rallying, and (b) there's less time lost to factors like going off-course, crashing, or puncturing your tires. That's my opinion on the matter, anyway.

[Mirek]

The real works team pay their drivers in WRC too. Even the big teams in IRC/ERC have been doing so.