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  1. #1
    Senior Member Sulland's Avatar
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    Question How to make ERC a real stepping stone?

    What needs to be done with the ERC to make it a championship where becoming the European Champion means something, so they choose that instead of WRC2 or 3?

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    No expiration of homologation..
    In other words open the eligibility to what the overwhelming per-centage of European drivers choose to drive when they have choice.....
    Naturally I am thinking strictly literally..
    The title "Champion" goes to a person.

    Thus the car is secondary.

    So rather than making a huge instant sampling bias by requiring only homoloated cars--cars intended to enrichen whoever has the deal on supplying Homologated cars and parts, thereby instantly pricing out most drivers and leaving only those with either rich daddies or daddies business connections, or their own compaies to plunder, open the car elegibility to anything in a normal ASN class..

    Limiting things to 2wd and limiting travel to say 225mm might be good.

    Then maybe a few Grupp H and F-cup guys could mix it up with the trustararians and Gentleman drivers out in the insanely expensive cars now.

    A couple of years ago at Swedish Rally I saw in tn SM running together with--behind on what must have been roads with deep spår I saw Mats Jonsson in his Escort Cosworth setting times good for 4th, 5th, and 6th in WRC---in a car from 1997--but which the design goes back to at least 1982..
    And it warmed my heart to see 2 guys in GpH Golf and one in limousine size Volvo 940 making SS times better than Rally Stupor Star Ken Block was making in what was basically the best car you could buy (and better and they give you the car, only)..the WRC Fiesta.


    THAT ^ showed who can drive-- and who is worthy of giving credit and fighting to win titeln "European Chapignon"
    John Vanlandingham
    Sleezattle WA, USA
    Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

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    That idea might well weed out the best pure driving talent, but I'm not sure forcing a bigger divide between the ERC and the WRC would make it a better stepping stone to the top class.
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    Senior Member Mirek's Avatar
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    Limiting things to 2WD didn't work in every single attempt various ASNs tried. See British championship for example (similar experiments have been done here in CZ with lower tier series as well - also without success). Spectators are not interested in 2WD and sponsors are not intrested in series which are not interesting for spectators. Simple as that.

    The thing is that ERC isn't a village championship. It's really expensive from it's nature - it means traveling through the entire Europe, staying there, driving long events etc. etc. I f You think You can attaract any significant number of drivers to ERC by allowing outdated homologations You are wrong. Nobody will dive those cars because people don't take part in expensive championship just to drive around. See why nobody keeps driving Punto S2000, why nobody was interested in Proton S2000. Those cars have been a lot cheaper than the top notch S2000 yet everybody keeps buying those expensive toys. The only and simple reason is that those toys are good. Why there are three drivers in the entire ERC driving Gr.N cars but twenty or so with R5/S2000? I don't even speak about 2WD championship which aside of JERC (which is outstanding) is just a joke with no interest at all.

    It's not the cars what is bad in ERC. There was a looot of registered drivers, many with top cars available. The problems are in other things - media promotion is terrible and that's the core of everything.

    The calendar while reduced (which was for sure great decision) is still logistically very difficult with many events on distant islands. That brings big differences in the competition level from one event to another. Sorry to say that but Acropolis this year was really bad for example. Also Cyprus with nonsential clash of rules between ERC and MERC is another problematic event.

    While the mandatory registration certainly helped ERC it brought another strange phenomena which shall be avoided in the future - huge number of drivers paid the registration fee (3000 Euro) just to have better starting position on their home event. I think it can be solved by giving wild cards for local drivers who will drive only once. It may not be for free but certainly it shall not cost like the whole championship. The local specialists don't harm the series in any way, quite the opposite and it's nonsense to bring obstacles for them to take part.

    There were big lapses in the rules and steward decisions. For example during Barum rally a lot of teams were fined or penalised for not having readable bar codes on their tyres. That is something what those teams can't in any way affect so where is the logic to give them penalties for that? Now imagine that a lot of such teams did the whole rally with one set of tyres and the FIA gave them on top a fine of 300 Euro for every single infrigement they found during the rally - even multiple fines (and later also time penalties) for having still the same four tyres on the car from start to finish! For some of them the fines meant a premature end of the season and I'm sure that such stupid decisions will bring the number of locals who enter the ERC field down for next edition. That's just wrong. FIA shall encourage the teams to take part, even those poor ones, not penalize them for trying to fight with low budget.
    Last edited by Mirek; 8th November 2015 at 19:33.
    Stupid is as stupid does. Forrest Gump

  5. Likes: CWJ (8th November 2015),Jeppe (8th November 2015),Luis Pacheco (9th November 2015),Simmi (8th November 2015),TWRC (8th November 2015)
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    Senior Member Sulland's Avatar
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    So if you should propose 8 rallies, 4 gravel and 4 asfalt, that has a logic and cheap logistics for teams - what would they be Mirek?

    Rallycross are combining some world rounds with the european championship, could that be an option, or will it drown in the WRC round?

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    If the WRC and ERC had the same promoter they could work together - you could even rotate events from year to year between both series. As it is, RedBull promote WRC, and Eurosport promote the ERC - I'd say it's nigh on impossible to work together.

    Is there a better sound than that of Porsche engined Flat-6 ???

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    Senior Member Mirek's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sulland View Post
    So if you should propose 8 rallies, 4 gravel and 4 asfalt, that has a logic and cheap logistics for teams - what would they be Mirek?

    Rallycross are combining some world rounds with the european championship, could that be an option, or will it drown in the WRC round?
    I could write here some my dream series but for what? It doesn't work like that.

    Combining WRC and ERC is bad idea. Nobody wants to be viewed as second-tier competitor and those who fight for victories don't want to compete in some 4th level joint event after WRC, WRC2 and WRC3...
    Last edited by Mirek; 8th November 2015 at 21:24.
    Stupid is as stupid does. Forrest Gump

  9. #8
    Senior Member PLuto's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndyRAC View Post
    If the WRC and ERC had the same promoter they could work together - you could even rotate events from year to year between both series. As it is, RedBull promote WRC, and Eurosport promote the ERC - I'd say it's nigh on impossible to work together.
    Absolutely no chance. As you can see, promoters has problems to "survive" one championship. I cannot imagine that there should be promoter who will take care about both together...

  10. #9
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    you cannot do this no matter what, simple reason is that rallying is not that popular like track sport, you have far less competitors and far less choices plus the format doesn't help much.

  11. #10
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    I think an idea to try and help turn ERC around would be for Eurosport to link in with some of the national rally championships and maybe say contribute towards their champions being able to compete in ERC the following year e.g. you win the BRC in 2016 in R5 car, Eurosport will help fund a drive in ERC for 2017.

    If they linked in with numerous national championships like this, they could have different champions competing against each other e.g. British champion competing against German champion against Czech champion make it seem like it's the best in Europe competing - all wanting to be in the ERC

    Also Eurosport need to promote the events, more live coverage and better time slots.

    Events - stick to where people can afford to go.

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