How do you see the future of rally?

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Originally Posted by darkstar

something interesting about the costs, start watching at 7:40 min. The Vatanen Touch

so it´s the same problem now since almost 40 years ;) costs are high in motorsport, it´s the same now then it was back then. of course we talk about mutch more money today but in relation to what money is worth now and what it was worth in the 70´s it´s probably not a big difference...

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Ganz fehl
I began working on rally cars in early 80s. And continue till now. Like 0130 last night making parts for a panic job.
I know the shell prep costs in the 70s because that is what we were doing in '84-85. And by the end of 80s it was more serious in just say shell prep. Ford Motorsport said in their great book "How to Prepare the Sierra for Motorsport" it took then about 100 man/hours for cage and shell prep (stitch weld)...
When the World Rally car rules came in, the costs for the most basic part, the shell JUMPED! to make a fwd shell into a AWD shell.
And in the 00ies when the long LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG suspension came on the scene, the cost to completely by hand fabricate the whole wheelhousings front and rear and do current cage was said by somebody at Ford or Mini to be "500 man/hours".
So, even if labor and materials cost the same--and they don't----that is 500% more time.

Now in the early 80s if I bought shocks for customer Opel or for my Saab, 4 rally Bilstein shocks and 4 hi quality Swedish cost under USD500.
Seit 2003 I manufacture rally suspension aimed at CLUB guys and a typical car set costs USD2000 here and the same exact thing in say Sweden from Janne Sellholm cost twice that.

A MkII Group 4 Escort in the 70s WRC used the same 40mm Bilstein inserts as I use today for most. Cost is up 400% for that one part.
(and in general all costs are up around ca 300% since the mid 70s)

But a works car today does not use the same thing as a WRC Escort then or a clubbie car in little old USA.
Their suspension costs more than $15,000. It is 100 times or more expensive.
The Gp4 Escort used a standard road car spindle at the bottom of the strut, maybe 6 Pounds English then.
The current cars have fabricated uprights costing thousands, CV joints (gleichlaufgelenk weisst du) and axles costing GBP 2000 for second hand

A gearbox for the ZF box cost several hundred Pounds in the 70s and many club level guys bought them then. A geabox today is 30,000-100,000 GBP or who knows.
200 times more expensive AND only 20 made maybe.

To barrow a phrase from yet another idiot Republican over here running for President "Nein Nein Nein" Things are orders of multitudes more expensive than in the 70s or early 80s, dozens of times more costly in constant dollars/Pounds/D mark usw than the late 80s/early 90s


Total entry numbers bear this out too and also WHO is participating.

Maybe if Citroen, Ford and Mini are not fully committed to 2012 we will see something like the early 1990s where not every manufacturer turned up to every event, or at least not with an factory car?

[quote="Plan9"]Maybe if Citroen, Ford and Mini are not fully committed to 2012 we will see something like the early 1990s where not every manufacturer turned up to every event, or at least not with an factory car?[/QUOTE]

Group A :up:

While I agree with a lot of points made here, the majority are negative.
I think the introduction of the powerstage is the best idea for the sport in years.

Outside of Europe I see rallying becoming very bleak. We've had a fair amount of growth in Asia and the Pacific over the last few years (excluding Australia), however this growth is going to go to waste, and become a European game. Reason why this is was because we moved away from Group A regulations. What does Group A have to do with screwing up the sport in the Asia Pacific. Simple...

We should have tried to go back to Group A
The abolishment of Group A meant that manufacturers like Toyota, Subaru and Mitsubishi who had built road cars for Group A are not valid in today's market due to no Group A. After a while even Subaru and Mitsubishi are stopping production of the Impreza WRX STI (in favour of a 1.6 WRX STI) and the Lancer Evolution is going completely. Now all of you Europeans aren't going to find that a problem, however, in the Asia-Pacific it is going to be a massive problem. European car manufacturers hold most of the homologation for the 2WD cars. No Japanese manufacturers are doing that. And European cars in this region won't work as they only hold a tiny percent of the market. This means we're going to end up with another region, along with Canada/USA who have non FIA cars running around at the top. Absolutely pointless. The FIA either need to relax their rules to allow the building of 2WDs like Group A was run, where you could turn up in any car which complied with the rules and not so much of this homologation-crud. We had no Aussies running at Rally Australia pretty much as we don't go with FIA anymore (a big mistake), but we can't get manufacturer involvement with the current car rules set by the FIA, because these manufacturers hardly make up any market share in the Asia-Pacific region (apart from Subaru and Mitsubishi).

Really, the FIA lost their way on the rule changes for this year. We should have been seeing a Group A style championship. The hot hatch currently rules the roost in world markets, yet we still don't have something remotely similar on the stages. We have a Countryman instead of a Cooper JCW. DS3 and Polo are about right, but they still don't have that road car element. It could have potentially saved Mitsubishi and Subaru's cars, and possibly made the PWRC a lot cheaper like it was back in the late 90s, as well as making the step up to the top level a lot easier for national runners. S2000 nor this 1.6 Turbo kit car thing does this element as well as they are still expensive cars you really need to buy from an M-Sport, Prodrive etc.

Finally at a national level, I do not think that the spectacle of the sport should eventually become a bunch of front wheel drive cars with limited power. The Honda Civic and Renault Clio are great don't get me wrong, but it isn't the same, and not as exciting on gravel.

So I don't see the sport getting anywhere outside of Europe with these regulations which are in place.

You are right. In NZ they are just running old PWRC spec cars and are kind of boring to watch now that you have seen them for about 6-8 years in a row. I am not sure how we can improve down here either but we have been running some older Fiesta s2000s that have become quite popular. I think that the R2,3 cars could do okay but as you say there is not a big audience for Renaults just yet; although they are quite cheap here.

I hear what you're saying Mitch, in fact I've been telling our decision makers much the same for some years, so I agree with most of it. However, whether or not the future is bleak (and it needn't be) is dependant on the decisions made by promoters and administrators.
Following the FIA is fine to a point but it makes little sense if all the homologations don't reflect your domestic scene. In a land where the market is almost entirely Japanese, why would you promote a category of European machinery?

Rallying in Australia & New Zealand owes little, if anything, to the WRC. In fact it's sole purpose in recent years is to provide fuel for the chest puffing of our gravy train riding past presidents.
The sooner we ditch it and begin promoting something regionally that relates more to our domestic scenes the better off we'd all be. Not only will it serve our competitors better but we'd make far better fist of it than the dreary old FIA.

Plan9, I don't know whether I agree with your description of "old PWRC cars". In fact we run up to the minute GrpN. And yes, for the most part it is boring but the competitors seem to like it.
The Fiesta's were never popular. Only 5 have ever existed and seldom more than 2 or 3 turned out at a time, and they only attract drivers because of the big overseas prize on offer.
Rally cars should look & sound like race cars. Let's be honest, both the Fiesta's, R1 & R2 are about as exciting as kumquat soup. R3 has the goods but at $150K a go, for 2WD, who's going to run one?

For S2000, the FIA allowed a 'regional homologation'. If they could do it for S2000 they can do it for all formula and permit their usage in all levels of event. That might get some wheels turning.

Maybe the real problem with cost will go away if we kill the manufacturer championship?Then simplify the tech regs and leave the building to private tuning firms!



The really interessting thing with the Escort Gr 4 example, is that that is the car every driver still love to drive, and we love to look at.
That should tell fia something.......

janvanvurpa: While I basically agree with You I can see difficulties to get such logical ideas into the reality of today.

I'm working in car industry (aircondition development for many car brands, myself working on Ford projects). From what I can see the car manufacturer world is now different than in 70' and 80' when the cars were originals, there were services able to repair something - not just the common way of today when modules are just replaced by new ones without thinking what is wrong. Cars were not made of same cheap parts produced by millions and shared by half of the global market. There were no automatic production lines which are not suitable for small productions of performance cars. There were simpler standards and requirements about safety, ecology etc. which leads to very complicated and expensive testing of anything new which on the other hand must be made in largest possible quantity and as simple and cheap as possible to get the cost back.

The production principles got to the state that they are so effective that in result it is way cheaper for manufacturer to separate sport from production completely. Rather than lightly modify a stock car with all the risk in putting something new in the moving colossus of serial project You choose to build a completely new hi-tech hand-made car as in result it is both more performance-effective and cheaper.

Unfortunately I don't see getting back to gr.A-like principles possible. The big players will keep rules suitable for their business...

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Originally Posted by sollitt

I hear what you're saying Mitch, in fact I've been telling our decision makers much the same for some years, so I agree with most of it. However, whether or not the future is bleak (and it needn't be) is dependant on the decisions made by promoters and administrators.
Following the FIA is fine to a point but it makes little sense if all the homologations don't reflect your domestic scene. In a land where the market is almost entirely Japanese, why would you promote a category of European machinery?

Rallying in Australia & New Zealand owes little, if anything, to the WRC. In fact it's sole purpose in recent years is to provide fuel for the chest puffing of our gravy train riding past presidents.
The sooner we ditch it and begin promoting something regionally that relates more to our domestic scenes the better off we'd all be. Not only will it serve our competitors better but we'd make far better fist of it than the dreary old FIA.

Plan9, I don't know whether I agree with your description of "old PWRC cars". In fact we run up to the minute GrpN. And yes, for the most part it is boring but the competitors seem to like it.
The Fiesta's were never popular. Only 5 have ever existed and seldom more than 2 or 3 turned out at a time, and they only attract drivers because of the big overseas prize on offer.
Rally cars should look & sound like race cars. Let's be honest, both the Fiesta's, R1 & R2 are about as exciting as kumquat soup. R3 has the goods but at $150K a go, for 2WD, who's going to run one?

For S2000, the FIA allowed a 'regional homologation'. If they could do it for S2000 they can do it for all formula and permit their usage in all levels of event. That might get some wheels turning.

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I'm unsure that anyone outside the Paddons, Masons and Gilmours have the latest gear from Europe?

The formula is Group N. Since when has it been regionally based? The homologated parts are the homologated parts regardless of where they originate and you can be quite sure that, with the commitment & competitiveness of the NZRC, those guys are using the very best componentry they can source. Of the three you mention, as far as I'm aware, only Mason's car is a European product. There are others in the country but regardless, a car out of NAM or PBM or any number of other workshops is every bit the measure of Group N machinery anywhere.
That is exactly the point being made by janvanverpa and others about Group A. Return to a formula where the rules are the rules, the parts are either legal or they're not, and let anybody with the ability and inclination get on and build an eligible car.