Was ending the IRC a mistake ?

[Fran2013]

Bernardo said but facts oppose him. There is now around 50 registered competitors (in February) and far majority of them are privateers. IRC never had even close number of regulars to this. Just check the list and think why all of them entered: http://www.fiaerc.com/uploads/files/...rs_updated.pdf

Of course Sousa may say truth about himself but the general rule is definitely that media coverage matters and matters a lot.

Facts ?

The facts are simple...

Bernardo Sousa sponsors are portuguese. What he said was simple... He gets more covereage from portuguese press and media competing in WRC than in the ERC... The same for many others in europe....

Live TV is not all..... Because of social media, the Live TV factor is not so important as it was before....

[Sulland]

There has to be a real incentive to choose ERC vs WRC if you have a R5, R3 or R2, and are aiming for the top in rallying.

in IRC you had an own car class, fresh management, and teams that chose drivers from IRC.
FIA need to get some real winner incentives implemented in ERC to get the talents to chose ERC over WRC as their place to grow!

Maybe also invent the new R4 class, maybe something like this:
http://www.omse.se/?page_id=186

[Fran2013]

One simple example..

Last year Rally Liepāja topic had +400 posts. 2015 Rally Liepāja topic only has 280... That's a big drop. Maybe less people on the forum ? No interest in this rally ? Maybe yes maybe not... But things are not looking good

[tommeke_B]

What sponsors for Sousa? A football club and rally-team of Tamrazov?
Another simple fact is that Peugeot Portugal always chose IRC/ERC over SWRC/WRC2.

IMO the issue in ERC now is that there are not enough events that are big enough (in their own country and in international reputation). Events like Liepaja and Ireland don't attract enough local drivers and spectators, ERC is at it's "peak" in events like Ypres and Barum where a big number of national drivers takes on the battle with the "big" international drivers. ERC is the biggest championship that is/was somewhat accessible for national drivers. But now FIA is messing it up by seperating the fields for those who are entered in the championship and those who are not. A national driver with top car can start 30-40 cars after the other "top" drivers... They are destroying the most interesting thing of the championhip...

[Jarek Z]

They are destroying the most interesting thing of the championhip...

Exactly! They intentionally destroy the beauty of this sport and insolently call it "Serious competition ahead".

[mousti]

The junior championship is great. In some ways ERC is better than IRC was - there is much more regular competitors and the junior category slowly becomes the most important part of the package which isn't that wrong in my opinion. The competition on the top level is worse than in the best IRC years but we shall not pain the past in pink colors. Most of the IRC seasons were full of up-and-downs with strong events mixed with weak ones. Just remember how many drivers went to China, Brazil etc.

Chris Ingram is definately agreeing
@1ChrisIngram

The competition in @FIAERC junior is unreal! Forget your dmack cup and JWRC -

[Mirek]

People shall not look at ERC as a competition to WRC. It will never be a competition to WRC unless FIA or RBMH fucks things up. There is plenty of bad things about ERC now but the fact is that ERC has never had so many regulars. It shows that some things we don't like actually work (such as those separate fields).

When IRC was on its top the regulars were only about a dozen of drivers of very high quality largely sitting in works cars. People were crying that only several drivers do the whole championship and some events looked like a farce (China for example). Now we have plenty of drivers but we have reasonably weaker competition on top. That may by a temporary issue caused by waiting for Škoda. It's not only the works team. I'm sure there are private teams waiting for Fabia R5 which may want to take part in ERC. In any case for me only the existence of JERC makes ERC worth following.

I also very much disagree with saying that IRC had better calendars than ERC. The calendars were messy in that time. There were great events and really bad ones. Calendar was too large, changing a lot every year and often made little sense with ambitious experiments like China, Kenya, Brazil or Russia. The calendar what we have now is reduced to a sensible number of events and is relatively well balanced.

[A FONDO]

ERC is now bullshit....

No, it is normal now. Marginal series with marginal drivers on marginal events. It was interesting for a couple os seasons a few years back but it was just its peak, not its usual status.

[AndyRAC]

I'd agree with Mirek - the IRC was sometimes very, very good. But, alas it was also sometimes pretty poor. It seemed it wanted to be another International Rally series; which sounds good in theory, but is expensive.

The IRC Montes were the highlight, along with Ypres and Barum; I also enjoyed Valais 2008 with the first live TV coverage. The Sanremo with the monster stage on the Friday night was also something that worked - and probably wouldn't have been allowed in the WRC. I did like the freedom the organisers had, something the WRC still can't get right.

It seems that if a country had a strong S2000 scene, then they usually got a very good IRC entry. And, the opposite is true - the IRC Rally Scotland was a fantastic event; apart from the entry. Very few 'local' UK crews entered. And that is because hardly anybody had a S2000. Off the top of my head, the 2009 event had Wilks, Meeke, Cronin, McRae, Gould, plus '0' car driven by Wilson as the only S2000 cars... The following 2 years were slightly better, but not fantastic.

I think by 2012, they had to call it a day - and merging with the ERC was probably the right move. Though, I'm still not convinced they've got the ERC totally right.

[Munkvy]

So far ERC has only run 2 very specialised events this year. Neither used regular surfaces and were highly unpredictable as to exactly what tyres and/or setup to run. They are also dominated typically by specialist drivers and require prior knowledge of driving on a rather unusual surface...

Even Breen who is a semi works driver struggled with setup in Janner. If I was wanting to enter a series and had a limited budget and there were events like that, I would avoid them and stick to regular gravel or tarmac events that I have a reliable tyre and setup arrangement for and not risk a gamble. This sport is expensive and if you have to have 3 types of tyres on hand in significant quantities, that could well bankrupt a privateer.