Rally Ireland your Views.............

[chrisc]

Sorry but i think this should be a thread on its own

Now that the rally is over can i have everyone’s views on the rally. (forgetting everything else on the other thread about the WRC being dead and WRC radio etc) i am looking to find out what people think of rally Ireland as a event e.g. do people think Ireland is challenge for the drivers , exciting to watch and should it stay in the WRC etc

Thanks

[Mirek]

Chris, was the weather realy that bad that SS7 and 8 had to be canceled? I think that in Ireland drivers are used to drive in terrible conditions. Or was it just because of stupid tyre rulles in WRC?

[chrisc]

I was up at ss8 when it got called off and took a drive over it to see how bad it was and yes i think it was the right decision to call them off the water was very deep in places and there was a lot of running water coming off the fields, at that stage it had been raining heavy for almost 24hrs so it was very bad and in the dark it would have been 2 dangerous

[Mirek]

Thank You

[bluuford]

I mentioned it in Rally Ireland official tread that Rally Ireland is wonderful and very unique event. If someone asks me question, which rally I prefer to start the season Monte or Ireland then I choose Ireland. And at the end of January.. definitely.
Why:
1) The weather can be as challenging as in Monte and in some cases even more difficult.
2) It is the place where you actually can see cars sliding on tarmac kind of road.
3) Its is very spectator friendly rally. In my mind I am little bit agree with Mosely. He says that rallying is for internet. That is true. World is going to innovative direction and rallying is for innovative people and I just noticed that I haven't watched TV almost a week by now. At the same time rallying is very much "contact" sport. You have to see cars passing you only a few meters from you to get addicted. Therefore it is extremely important to create good conditions for spectator access. There are superb conditions for than in Ireland and organizers have used it well.
4) The best superspecial stage on tarmac I have ever seen.

If I look the rally from that side (leaving out the points you asked to), then I think it has potential to be one of the classic events and I hope its future will be bright.

[chrisc]

if you take a look at this vid the water was like this the whole way over the stage and like i said in the dark it would have been to dangerous

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8z-nPW...e=channel_page

[Mirek]

bluuford: I agree that the weather in Ireland was more difficult than on Monte 07 and 08 but definitely not harder than in 2009 and many of the years before. When there is heavy rain on every stage, You know that there is a lot of water everywhere, no real surprise and no tyre lotery. But this year Monte had totaly changebale conditions. In first leg one stage was totaly icy, one mostly dry and one was half way wet and half way snowy. Moreover snowing started half an hour before the stage. Second day first stage was icy, second snowy and third wet. That was one section. In second run, two were wet and mudy and third was partly snowy and icy. And in third leg first stage was completely snowy because of heavy snow falls in the night (we even didn't reach our point by car and had to walk 3 km up the hill), all the rest was partly dry with a lot of ice and some snow around Turini. And for that You could choose a lot of different tyres, not only two WRC type. That made huge differences in tactics and strategy of the teams and also caught a lot of them out.

Anyway I like Irish roads very much but Monte is Monte. Even though it has some dissadvantages as well.

[Torsen]

they should'a ran 7 & 8...

[cosmicpanda]

I enjoyed Rally Ireland in 2007 and I enjoyed it this year as well. Shame about the night stages, as they would've been great.

The only thing is, I hate it when rallies have such short third legs. They either need to have really spectacular stages to make up for the lack of distance - as in NZ with the Whaanga Coast, Argentina with El Condor, and Monte with the Col de Turini - or they need to have longer third legs. Otherwise there's almost no chance of the standings changing, which makes it boring.

Rally Jordan was perfect in terms of route planning, I think, with the repeated 40 km stage on the Sunday. As I remember, that had so much gravel that even on the second pass it hadn't cleaned properly!

[Shrike]

I absolutely love Irish Tarmac rallies. Even with the current state of the WRC I enjoyed Rally Ireland anyway.