Hey guys, seems all i do is ask questions on these forums but here goes.
I have just realized that the Rally Monte Carlo is going on at the moment at would normally watch the coverage on british Tv on Sunday (think it was ITV last year) anyway i have been scanning the listings and there doesnt appear to be a listing for the rally at any time on the sunday or other time i could find. So... am i:
A) blind
B) It has been moved to a different day/channel
C) It has been taken off of terrestrial coverage alltogether
Does anyone have any info about this cause C) would suck
It was not really a night stage... just driven on very early morning so the first drivers had pit black conditions. Rally of Japan have had "night" stages last year and year before that too...
Last season was definately the most boring ever, unfortunately this season looks pretty much the same. It just lacks the real competition. At least last season private teams had just no chance againgst factory teams. Loeb, Loeb, Grönholm, Grönholm, Loeb, Loeb... Wow, I can smell the excitement - yeah right.
Wake me up when there are more than pathetic three factory teams, WRC cars goes sideways again, Safari Rally is back on the calendar and stages' average length is longer than 5 km... :sleep2:
The commentator I saw said clearly "nightstage", blame this guy not me
But I agree that the last season was boring and this season won't really be better, but tell me a car race where private teams really have a chance? In any touring or formula championship they don't and in the whole history of rally there were always the werk teams who were succesfull.
- The actual rally stages are mostly over 10 kms (up to 25 as far as I've seen it last season).
- Safari Rally would be really great but then the private team would have even less chances and there is also the expensive shipping out of Europe (reason why some privaters don't drive in Japan, Australia and NZ).
I'm really interested how you would change the WRC to make it more interessting: Add some weight to the leader (like in som Touring Cars)?
And of course I will wake you up when I think you have missed something
I tink 3 works teams would be enough to create exitement if they were all actually on the same kind of pace. But Citroen has brought a new car that has been immediately faster than the old one. Subaru has switched to the same tyres as Citroen for this year and Atkinson did manage to set a few fastest stage times. So there's hope that once Subaru gets it's new car for Mexico and as they gain experience with the new tyres that they will be able to close the gap. Or maybe Sordo will regularly put Loeb under pressure.
But if Loeb does go on winning like this then my interest will fade fast, like it did last season. And that has nothing to do with not liking Loeb, I'm actually quite a fan, it's just that there's no exitement when one driver/car is so dominant.
I really admire Loeb for his fast driving but Gronholm is still the most coolest guy ever =) I have tears in my eyes when I just try to remember the scene where he explained that his co-driver got a rock or smthing in his butt =)
Indeed... the problem just is that there is only three factory teams. And last season Subaru just had so many problems so practically there was two teams that had a chance winning rallies. Luckily Subaru looks better this season.
It says on wikipedia that it was actually abandoned because lack of funding... somehow I've had always the feeling that FIA just wanted to get rid of it.
The event was part of the World Rally Championship calendar for many years until being excluded due to lack of funding & organisation in 2003. The Kenyan government is trying to get the rally's WRC status restored. Since 2003 the event has been part of the African Rally Championship organized by the FIA. It is currently known as the KCB Safari Rally after its sponsor, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB).
I would build a time machine and go back to year 1985. Ok, realistically:
I think wight penalties wouldn't make much difference in rallying.
First of I would make rallies total lenght much longer. Now they are barely 300 km (compare that with Safari Rally which in the longest from in the 80's was nearly 8000 km ).
Short stages doesn't give enough "space" to drivers. Drivers practically must drive on the limit all the time, that makes them do lots of errors instead of driving on longer stages where really talented and fast drivers could show their skills more and achieve seconds, even minutes in one stage.
And the thing that most of the stages are driven twice, usually in the same day - I think that is just COMPLETELY stupid rule. FIA has transformed rallying from endurance to some kind new form of hillclimb sprint rallying. I don't like the way FIA tries to make rallying some kind media sexy sports, it's not the way it's been and will never be (compared to GT races or F1).
And what comes to cars, I would restrict even more the electronis on the cars to cut some costs (like FIA did year ago, obviously not enough - Mitsubishi and Skoda left etc). Also I would make all diffs mechanical, maybe that would make the cars go a little bit more sideways... maybe. It's just somehow very funny that some 30 year old historic rwd Escort, which is nearly a normal road car, is more spectular to watch on the stage than a modern WRC car.
And lastly, I would change the calendar in a way to that it would start in August and end in the next spring. I think they called this "winter season" or something. FIA actually planned to do this, season 2008 was supposed to be like that and the current season was supposed to be a shorter season in the middle of the transform. Dunno is this plan now washed down the toilet. I think this would be good because it would give more air time for rallying (in summer there are so many other series going, and rallying is not really that big) and because the break between seasons would be longer maybe it would make the season feel more fresh after waiting few months.
Ok, that was my bad.
You probably missed the point. Didn't mean that literally, my point was that modern WRC simply lacks the endurance element that it had before. Like I just explained above.
i just checked the WRC 2005 calendar, and every rallye was ~350km - and im sure there is some request of minimal length being somewhere around it. Ok, sure its nothing compared with 8000km, but watching that would be even more boring. as for myself, i LOVE rallying, but couldnt care less about dakar - its too long, boring stages, and not enough action
and about the mechanical diffs etc - i think the group S2000 which is curently being developed (and is supposed to replace WRC group at some point) has that.
Ok, my bad again... but if I can nitpick you, Dakar is not the same as Safari Rally.
As far as I know this Super 2000 group was not supposed to replace anything, it's supposed to be fit in the - at least in Finland it's called "big A Group" (2000cc, 4wd cars) which is highest groupl level, but of course not quite WRC level because the cars are mostly old WRC's. Or then it was supposed to be rival for Group N cars, I don't remember. But yes S2000 has only mechanical diffs.
well, i read many times that S200 is the ingoing group of WRC. And i dont think they are made from "old wrc cars" - atleast i cant think of any. There is this Fiat punto, VW polo, some toyota, dacia logan, skoda also developing s2000 car....
Of course not... I meant this "big A group" in Finland is mostly old WRC cars. And the upcoming S2000 cars are supposed to be fitted in that group in the national rally series in Finland.
I've also read that currently it's only intended to be competing against the Group N cars~
but I also have the feeling that it'll replace the WRC cars a few years down the track, getting rid of the turbo seems like a good way to slow things down a bit, as that's what FIA has always wanted...
As far as I have heard, the Super 2000 class was considered to be a cheap entry class for upcoming drivers in the WRC class. But the S2000 class got expensive very quickly and they are back at square one.
but here goes. 
