Rally Argentina

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Originally Posted by N.O.T

Why is this the worst era ?? what about the late 80s? early 90s? or the mid 90s?


Definately this isn't the best period of the sport but also not the worst either.....

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One of the worst is what I said.

The sanitized WRC favors the most santized driver...


Lets see some night stages, some marathons, remote servicing, real river corssings, true tests of man and machine. Or some freaking heart and passion. Rallying has some of the best character of any motorsport. The push on regardless, help your fellow competitor, passionate, crazy, and flavorfilled personalities is what makes rallying great. This is almost gone from the WRC and with the crushing domination of Loeb and his ice robotic like driving style and personality, what flavor is left is slowly being pushed away.

My best memory from the Loeb era is a dissapointed Gronholm leaving his abandonned car and sitting down to have a beer at a stage side cantina

What we have now are sprints that re-use the same roads with very little flavor or flair. There is no real endurance anymore. None of the excitement and fascination of night stages...

As in most things, I was born 20 years too late...

The river crossings on day 2 was realy small compared to earlier years i think and were have the 100m ones gone

This was one sad rally. Glad it's over.

And could we agree that at the moment Loeb dominates WRC? He is an amazing driver. Could we also agree that we cannot know if he could have been the champion in the 80's or 90´s? That is something rediculous to debate of IMO. At the moment he is stunningly fast and that is sometimes quite boring to follow. Still all the respect to him.

Hopefully he is starting to feel bored and leaves the whole wrc

Perhaps he can use the Citroen-Peugeot link and get a seat i one of the Pug Le Mans sportscars...he seems to be quite fast in them as well.

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Originally Posted by pentti

Correct. I asked japanise engine man(he always flew with engines same time from Japan and nobody else was allowed to touch)how much power without restrictors. :Aah easy 600 hp.:

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Andrew has a hillclimb car, it is a space frame built around evo 8 components with a kevlar evo 8 bodyshell covering it. He used it at the Race to the Sky here in NZ and in last years Pikes Peak. It is reputed to have 850bhp. This year for the race to the Sky he added NO2 to it so as to get it spool up the turbo quicker and be better out of the tight hairpins further up the hill.

Sure must be like arm wrestling an Alligator

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Originally Posted by L5->R5/CR

Lets see some night stages, some marathons, remote servicing, real river corssings, true tests of man and machine. Or some freaking heart and passion. Rallying has some of the best character of any motorsport. The push on regardless, help your fellow competitor, passionate, crazy, and flavorfilled personalities is what makes rallying great.

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There is no real endurance anymore.

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As in most things, I was born 20 years too late...

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Come to NZ in October 2008. DVD's of last years event available from http://www.silverfernrally.co.nz

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Originally Posted by SUBARUNORWAY1

Hopefully he is starting to feel bored and leaves the whole wrc

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Yes hopefully he goes away and the wrc becomes a battle of the has beens and the managers kids.....

So what exactly do you all want Seb to say?
"yeah, this is all p!$$ easy, I'm not even pushing that hard and I can beat that old guy Marcus. I've asked Elena to buy a calendar so we can keep track of the gap back to Mikko.
I've been thinking of trying sports cars again. If I remember right they have rival teams who can build cars good enough to last the distance unlike Subaru"

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Originally Posted by Carlo

Come to NZ in October 2008. DVD's of last years event available from http://www.silverfernrally.co.nz

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We still have that in the Rally America championship here in the US.

Just a couple weeks ago at Round 3, one team had a terminal mechanical failure so they helped their rivals change a transmission over night so they could stay in the rally. While they were doing that a team from a different class also with terminal mechanical problems came over to help keep the car in the event.

Round 5 will be ~100 stage miles all on one day. First car should finish at about 12:45 am. About 45 miles should be all in the dark. Normally only 40% of the field finishes, if not less.

This kind of attitude is alive and well in the national and "lesser" championships but it is sad to see it lacking in the WRC.

PS I'd love to get to NZ for a rally or 3, maybe one day...