A criticism of cloverleaf rallying

Then they should use this remote service proper, as by my examples before. A 4 hours lunch break for road sections is an utter joke. If you see my article, I show an example in which I actually managed to include every stage of 2 days into 1 day and the day did not take longer! This should also allow us to include more classic stages, which is important for the WRC and its events.

You call 8 stages a day a tough day? 8 stages should be the absolute minimum!

But other than that you all are right with the Rally Norway example. I don't think however Rally Norway was more interesting because of clover leaf. It was more interesting for exactly as you said having a proper last day's rallying! And that is in fact part of what I tried to bring across with the article. If the last day is 50km, dragging like crazy for long road sections, last stage a 1km superspecial, of course after another 2hours break for long road sections after non-classic mini stages, well then don't be surprised if last days are boring as hell! If I remember right the last stage of Rally Norway was the longest of the whole event, now that is what I call a finale!

That all is in fact what I tried to indicate as food for thought with my article. Not being silly with chase cars and all. But I feel there is too much tootling around on public roads and too much money invested in the service park. We could actually have a larger area despite less road sections and more action rather than tootling. My food for thought came from my believe - and in Rally GB 2008 delivering a surprising example proving it is realistic - that from what we have now it does not actually take that much to make the show better, a lot better! Why stop at 350km. Why not 500 or 600 (maybe 600 is too much for 3 days, but the article was meant to be food for thought), but impose limits to days and service vehicles and staff, as we partly have already. With only little adjustment and some clever thinking we could have last days with classic stages, 8 or 10 of them, 150kms at least. Where have we saved money in letting WRCars do 200-300kms road sections for a 20min service instead of sending Transit and Boxer vans up the country? Take the emphasis away from long road sections and expensive service park. I don't think financially it makes a difference, organisationally it maybe makes a difference, but not a miracle I believe. The only big difference will be a last day with 8 stages including classics rather than 2 10km stages run twice plus a superspecial. This in turn will provide for more show, more action down to the last km, which means more marketing potential which more than makes up for the little extra cost and effort.

Not to forget, this way ralllies could include more of their classic stages, but also rallies should be vastly different from one another, like night stages. The IRC of course is only 2 days mostly, but still, if the IRC, which is fairly budget orientated, can do such exclusive and excited rally day schedules, why can't the WRC?

Add on to my own post, but then I think I leave you in peace here. Just so you don't misunderstand my article for replies that haven't read the linked article...

"but also rallies should be vastly different from one another, like night stages." Could have expressed myself better. I find one of the biggest problems of WRC today is that public and media don't find corner stones in WRC which serve to identify and recognize the challenge, adventure of WRC and single events. There should be night stages, an African round, and events as Argentine, RAC, they must have recognizeable classic stages, and there is a way of including these further away stages without changing too much and without much additional cost.

Just another example picked from my previous post, for whatever reason we have these 4 hours lunch breaks, do you really believe a Transit van is more expensive in fuel and tyres and less save than a WRCar full of mud, oil leaking, wheels hanging off, for the 200-300kms road sections?

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Originally Posted by Chris_B

You call 8 stages a day a tough day? 8 stages should be the absolute minimum!

But other than that you all are right with the Rally Norway example. I don't think however Rally Norway was more interesting because of clover leaf. It was more interesting for exactly as you said having a proper last day's rallying!

If I remember right the last stage of Rally Norway was the longest of the whole event, now that is what I call a finale!



Not to forget, this way ralllies could include more of their classic stages, but also rallies should be vastly different from one another, like night stages. The IRC of course is only 2 days mostly, but still, if the IRC, which is fairly budget orientated, can do such exclusive and excited rally day schedules, why can't the WRC?

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I thought it was quite tough, anyway, but then I`m an old geezer...

I didn`t write that Rally Norway was more interesting because of cloverleaf. I said that Rally Norway was an example that cloverleaf rallying actually could function quite well. See the difference...?

The last stage of Rally Norway was not the longest. That was in 2007 when they finished with a 42 km "monster". This year the longest stage was third to last, with 30 kms. The last stage was 19 km.

I think we have to accept that centralized servicing has come to stay, with the demand for a commercially viable service area, to entertain sponsors, VIPs, other guests and spectators. The main problem is that it is very often located too far away from the rally action, because of the demands for a proper infrastructure around it. But in a modern world - and as in most other sports - there will be conflicts between the commercial side and the pure sporting preferences. I also think we have to accept that WRC-rallies will not go back to a format with 500-600 km stages any more. It`s just too expensive and personell/marshal-demanding with safety regulations being much stricter than it was only 10 to 15 years ago.