Problems with rally routes

[cosmicpanda]

So it seems that the direction we've headed in the last few years, towards a central service park and a three leg cloverleaf format, hasn't been a great success with rally fans due to the lack of variety of stages.

In addition, the rallies have been growing steadily shorter - the Acropolis was about 330 km this year - and night stages, although making a comeback, are a bit of a rarity.

My own opinions follow:

I think rallies should go from one point to another - for example, as in Monte Carlo where they've recently been starting in Valence before heading to Monaco. It's just makes sense to me that it's a point to point race rather than a circuit race. This makes it difficult, of course, to have a central service park, which is not always a bad thing.

I like the idea of repeated stages, in moderation. For example, running classic stages like El Condor, the Col de Turini or (because I'm a New Zealander) the Whaanga Coast twice is a good thing by me, because it gives us more chances to see these classic stages. In addition, running popular spectator stages twice is a good idea.

Superspecials are bad! Especially Superspecials that close the event. I did enjoy the running of the final stage in Ireland last year, but that wasn't so much a superspecial as a very short stage since it wasn't a specially constructed race track. It seems like a similar thing was tried in Italy this year but it didn't work so well.

The thing I dislike about rally routes the most is the way most feature two long first legs and then a short final leg. I prefer a longer final leg as this tends to promote more action on the final day than otherwise happens.

Judging the rally routes I've seen so far this year, my favourites have been Monte Carlo and Jordan.

Thoughts?

[janvanvurpa]

Panda,
your thoughts aren't cosmic, they're down to earth.
But it's a bit broader than just the routes. I think it's the whole insistence (by some) of exact uniformity in every aspect of the event from the "loop style' to the day of the week it starts and stoops on, to the distances as you said---what ever happened to "The sting in the Tail"?, a real nail biter you HAVE to charge on? I like suspense both as speccie and driver and my favorite National event was one where the last 2 stages was a 'turn around' 21 miler or 35km run one way then back. On the final stage a huge electrical storm with lightning and a huge downpour really presented a challenge, and when you read about or DO an event with some real challenge, it stays with you as a pleasant memory.

But such musing obviously doesn't convince some people who make decisions and who are swayed by arguments by some people who tell the decision makers that "all these (simplified, short, repetitive, boring) formats are ABSOLUTELY!!! NEEEEEDED!! for the sake of TV coverage if Rally is to survive".

Oddly those advising that all this STANDARDISATION of everything have made hundreds of millions of dollars/Pounds/Euros from TV coverage.
And oddly the WRC series popularity in terms of both viewer and Manufacturers and entries has plummeted in the time that these cookie-cutter events have become the norm.

To a observer of the sport for a couple or three decades, it seems the two things happenening at the same time might be connected.

One can look at Monte Carlo WRC and Monte Carlo Classic and count entries and see where people are voting with their dollars.

Hmmmmmmmm......

I should mention that in the USA where I am the same "We have to do shorter, simplified and above all TV friendly entries if we are ever to hit the BIG TIME" attitude has prevailed for the last 8-9 years and the already meager entries have plummeted while costs for entries have quadrupled.
A connection?

[AndyRAC]

Interesting post - and a bit if a sore point to me and countless others on here.
I seem to remember about 1996-7 when these changes started to come in, i;e the 'Cloverleaf' format - returning to the host town/city every night. It then became mandatory - which at a stroke reduced the available stages and limited the routes severely. The idea was that it would be easier for the TV companies to get the film back to the editing people to edit to show that night. Because of this a lot of the classic stages of Rallies were lost, e;g Kielder Stages.
Up until 1999 Rallies were run on different days of the week -some mid-week, some at the weekend, our own Rally GB ran from Sunday - Tuesday/Wednesday. However, this changed and in 2000 everything was standardised - just like F1 - So we got Friday to Sunday.
In fact all these changes have mirrored F1 - just because it works in F1 means it will work in WRC. The question is, well has it?
Just look at each even now;
Friday Stages A,B,C Service then Stages A,B,C repeated end of day finished by 4-5 o'clock in the afternoon! Sorry, but that's not Rallying The same with Saturday and Sunday. Absolutely no variety - and they wonder why there is no interest.
I know we can't go back to the 'old days' but a bit of variety is needed and a rethink of routes - I'd allow 1 night away from the host town ( if needed) - I'd also like to see a variance in route mileage - have some short events over 2 days, but some longer events over 4/4.5 days.
Agree about the changes were made to increase TV/Media coverage, yet it worse than ever. Mmm, work that one out.

[anstis]

agree completely on this one!

I would like to see organisers encouraged to run events in a format that best suits their particular country, instead of having one standardised format the world over that compromises each event. For example here in nz, the central service park format doesn’t work well at all, given that our country is long and thin, i don't think there are enough roads in that small area to make up 3 days of intensive competition worthy of a world championship event. but 5 or 6 years ago they had a different service park each day, and it did work well - all different stages and a lot of variety. spectating was still a bit of an adventure, and the second day even finished in the 'late evening'.
i thought that sort of format here was quite a happy medium between 'compact-ness', and the old long distance events - which i realise are probably impossible now, unfortunatly.

And there may be very different format that is more suited in another country. I think as long as the route is organised early for teams and media planning etc, i don't see what the problem is. If it's 'hard,' well, i thought that was what rallying was supposed to be.
on that note, I know rallying's changed alot, but as long as cars are still fitted with lights i think they should be tested using them. night still comes after every day, that's not about to change.

I don't know this for sure, given that i'm not a driver, but I get the feeling now that there are many national events, although shorter overall, are more intensive and challenging for competitors over 2 days than the world championship events are over 3. which just seems wrong.