A criticism of cloverleaf rallying

[Daniel]

An article by Chris Biewer @ www.rallye-info.com

"The WRC needs recognizable events and a calendar with cornerstones, so Joe Public can grasp the show. Instead the WRC has been shrinking their events beyond recognition and they insist on event rotation, which nowadays sadly means nothing more than switching classic names as Monte Carlo, Safari, RAC for no-names as Cyprus, Jordan, Bulgaria. I have long promised an article on clover leaf vs recognizable, unique adventure challenges. Here it comes...."
http://www.rallye-info.com/article.asp?sid=0&stid=7859



I think Chris has a point to be honest. I'd love for rallying to go back to the old days when it was like this.

[Daniel]

The whole WRC as well as its single events need to find their identities! Identities that are unique enough that it does not need much explanation to the media and their audience to see the diversity and challenge of this fantastic, spiritual sport. (- Take this sentence and explain to your neighbour clover leaf, superally and why he should watch Turkey!) A WRC season without a round in Africa is as much a crime to rallying as is a Monte Carlo without the “Knight of the long Knifes” finale and Rally Argentina without adding the high altitude Anden hairpins to fast and flowing Cordoba. And the RAC has to visit a much larger area, this country has so much to offer, this rally has so much potential to fascinate!

OK, AND HOW CAN THIS BE DONE IN THE CURRENT CLIMATE IN WHICH BUDGET IS SO IMPORTANT?

Hmm, let me drop in that I believe for the manufacturers it is not just about the expense. It is about value for money. If the show was good, everybody would understand it and want to watch it, budget saving would be far less of an issue. Just as said all along, this is not done in having a calendar and events people don’t understand, all looking the exact same and in no-name locations without a car market. Rally Cyprus is too similar to Turkey, Acropolis, Sardinia and maybe Jordan, plus Cyprus does not have a car market. Interesting in comparison that Volkswagen spent 50 Million Euros on the Dakar alone, only one event, and use this event even for selling cars outside of Argentina! And how i.e. Opel switched page filling adverts in German newspapers about their Safari successes! Events the public understand as unique adventures and challenges!

The IRC shows how it is done. Not only with a Monte Turini Night. The IRC has no clover leaf. Having named Safari as an example before, in 2007 the IRC Safari was still a too short event for a Safari, but by moving the service 150km North of Nairobi, we managed 11 Rift Valley stages in a day. When did the WRC last have 11 proper stages in a day? If out of all the Safari can do this, for other events it should be easy! For 2009 similar trick. This time we had less stages in the Rift Valley leg, but mammoth stages. The 4 longest of them totalled 200kms! The WRC norm is 6 stages a day for 120kms! Apparently the WRC wanted to be easier on the clover leaf and therefore in 2008 the Wales Rally GB could return to Sweet Lamb. Boah was I disappointed!

My annoyment is that we still have such office hours rallying with only 3 stages repeated. If you look at Wales Rally GB 2008 leg2, we come from South to Central Wales, Crychan Forest ends near Builth Wells, which I checked is some 50-60km from Sweet Lamb. It’s maybe 40km from Hafren, but I decided to locate the service in the Sweet Lamb complex was realistic and actually interesting for team guests and VIPs, so even that is catered for! With the day's service 3 x 20min located within the Sweet Lamb complex, plus doing the leg2 stages in reverse in the evening (starting from Builth Wells – Crychan back towards the South), I am absolutely convinced with this service location and a tiny bit of clever thinking, we could actually combine Rally GB 2008 legs 1 & 2 and still be home at 7 or 8pm the same day!!!!

The Wales Rally GB 2008 schedule was:

leg1
SS1 Hafren Forest (9:08)
SS2 Sweet Lamb (9:32)
SS3 Myherin Forest (9:53)
service break (near 4 hours!!!!)(OK, incl. road sections, but still a hell lot!)
SS4 Hafren Forest (13:16)
SS5 Sweet Lamb (13:40)
SS6 Myherin Forest (14:01)
SS7 Walters Arena (17:06)
SS8 Walters Arena (17:17)
finish Swansea (18:02)

leg2
SS9 Resolfen (8:18)
SS10 Halfway (9:47)
SS11 Crychan Forest (10:13)
service break (3 hours)
SS12 Resolfen (13:21)
SS13 Halfway (14:50)
SS14 Crychan Forest (15:16)
SS15 Cardiff Millenium Stadion (17:00 car soccer with VW Foxs, all VW or German cars are good for?, stage start 18:15)
finish Swansea 19:23

Bollox, my suggestion:

leg1 (approx times):
SS1 Resolfen (8:18)
SS2 Halfway (9:47)
SS3 Crychan Forest (10:13)
service in Sweet Lamb (with far less road sections)
SS4 Myherin Forest (12:10)
SS5 Hafren Forest (12:30)
SS6 Sweet Lamb (12:50)
service (20 min – in Sweet Lamb!!!!)
SS7 Myherin Forest (13:40)
SS8 Hafren Forest (14:00)
SS9 Sweet Lamb (14:20)
service (in Sweet Lamb!!!!)
SS10 Crychan Forest (16:30)
SS11 Halfway (17:00)
SS12 Resolfen (18:30)
SS13 Walters Arena (19:20)
SS14 Walters Arena (19:30)
arrival Swansea service approx 20:15

I would dump the soccer playing Volkswagens in the North Sea Channel and burn down the indoor arena and start leg2 in Kielder Forest, starting midnight!

Well, seriously, I actually have still made compromises! I could even go more radical. In my schedule I still have repeated stages and 2 near superspecials, Walters Arena. Yet, except 2km indoor rubbish (won by Loeb in 56.5sec, so we lose on less than 1 minute of competition!) I have the full 2 legs in one day and am home at 20:15! Doing so, you will realise that the gaps between stage starting times are roughly the same as in the original schedule, while for the two services between Sweet Lamb and Crychan Forest I still allow 2 hours, which should be plenty for a normal 20min service and 60km road section. If you manage to find these stages on a map, you will realise that with Resolfen-Halfway-Crychan, we are actually moving towards Sweet Lamb! That service right in Sweet Lamb is realistic I know, because this is exactly what we did on the 1994 RAC, when we had 170 starters!

Alternatively we could go for service to Devils Bridge, 10km down the road and actually even nearer to Myherin. It is such a fantastic example of what is wrong, maybe my best example because it is an area I know very well, so maybe similar could be done on most rallies, if I only knew the areas. I actually managed a leg schedule that starts exactly as leg2 starts, but only ends with Swansea service less than an hour later. But thanks to service in Sweet Lamb I have both days in one! And it is fully realistic. If I calculated too tight, we could start an hour earlier, or move the Walters Arena superspecial into the next day....

I want to be sensible and don't ask for a complete return to the old times. But really, somewhere along that route the rule makers have lost the plot. I certainly don't need 3 weeks training. I don't need ruining brand new road cars as chase cars, that have to travel round the stage on busy public roads quicker than the rally cars in the stage, creating a logistical nightmare in travelling absolutely all country with night stops 1000kms apart, although all that was great fun team effort. But what we ended up with was that service cars could not travel 150km from Cardiff to Crychan, instead dirty rally cars, potentially with wheels hanging off and leaking differentials had to travel 150km road section from Crychan to Cardiff. Where exactly is that better? Where have we saved money? All we have achieved with service cars could not come up to Crychan is that Sweet Lamb became unrealistic despite only being 50km up the road! Instead of competing, the rally cars spend their time on road sections, while the mechanics and VIPs are bored to tears back at service. Strange that!

While at it, although I have managed a lovely layout in this example, I would probably reconsider if the rally really has to be based in Cardiff or Swansea. (!!In fact this is how bad things have become, me die hard rally fan writing all this cannot tell which was the host town of Wales Rally GB 2008 - the night halts were in Swansea, the official rally signs advertise Cardiff!!) Or could we have at least one night stop elsewhere? If we try to keep costs and logistic management down in using just one night location, maybe the host town should be a little more central. Imagine a non-clover leaf RAC Rally based in Chester for example, we could actually visit Lake District and maybe Kielder as well as Wales without moving night location.

So may this be a master example of my long time complaint about modern WRC with clover leaf etc.. What I have done above, with 14 stages in a day, of course does not mean my rallies would have less than 3 days! Maybe we will have some short days with "only" 11 stages too, but I am convinced it is possible to do 3 day events like this, 35-40 stages, 500kms, memorable locations like RAC, Monte, Safari, 12 rounds calendar, and it would actually cost less than the 15-16 rounds seasons of late! Why should the above cost more? Apart from petrol and tyres for an additional 150 or so km, maybe we spend one night in a different town (hotel), and have to move the service vehicles a couple of times (do we need to transport the full lot with each team's 5 articulated lorries?), so I can't really see were in logistics, testing, etc., here each single event costs much more than it does now. The bit it does cost more is good value for money, as we have more memorable events and much more to show from each event.

Stolen from Chris Biewer @ www.rallye-info.com


I think Chris has a point to be honest. I'd love for rallying to go back to the old days when it was like this.

[AndyRAC]

Chris is a real enthusiast - and when he starts, he doesn't stop.
I know what he means though - it struck me on the Saturday of RallyGB - around lunch time while sitting in the car at Halfway. They were waiting to go into service, yet had completed the morning loop over an hour ago, yet the next stage wouldn't be for another 2-3 hours - what's all that about? 3 stages all in a small area, in a short space of time - then a drive back to Cardiff for service - then wait around, then another drive from Cardiff to repeat the 3 same stages. Utter madness - it might work for some events, but for others, especially the 'classics' it's just not good enough. A rethink is needed seriously, and quickly.

[muscrae]

Chris is a real enthusiast - and when he starts, he doesn't stop.

Absolutely. I always feel great fun and appretiation when reading Chris' articles.

[m4rk]

guys, couldnt have put it better myself
i work for a Dakar rally team, named after a certain flying scotsman...
all our mechanics are ex-boreham Ford Motorsport guys
80s group B & early 90s group A boys
they long for a return to the glory days
like the ones you mentioned
long live the crazy stories!

hopefully the penny drops sooner rather than latter.
and we can all go rallying again


propper rallying!















(I'm only 19 years old...geeeeeeeeez)

[J4MIE]

[BDunnell]

Chris is a real enthusiast - and when he starts, he doesn't stop.
I know what he means though - it struck me on the Saturday of RallyGB - around lunch time while sitting in the car at Halfway. They were waiting to go into service, yet had completed the morning loop over an hour ago, yet the next stage wouldn't be for another 2-3 hours - what's all that about? 3 stages all in a small area, in a short space of time - then a drive back to Cardiff for service - then wait around, then another drive from Cardiff to repeat the 3 same stages. Utter madness - it might work for some events, but for others, especially the 'classics' it's just not good enough. A rethink is needed seriously, and quickly.

It must — MUST — be abundantly clear to the powers-that-be that the format of current WRC events simply has not worked in terms of generating extra interest and coverage. There is no other conclusion that could be reached by a sane person. If they cannot see this, there isn't much hope.

[RallyCat909]

I find it odd that the WRC has gone with this crappy formula trying to be friendly to television and most of the programming is a shadow of what I personally consider lackluster compared to what was aired on Speed Channel when Mark James, Jeremy Hart and those guys were commentating.

Not too mention just getting rid of the signature stages that fans came to love.

I daresay that rallying needs a few big-mouthed [b]personalities[b]. Some headlines.....most people that dont know about the sport can't find such a figure to latch onto, I dont hate on Loeb, he's just out there crankin out the stage times, but it was fun to watch a Burns, Mcrae, or Gronholm make a remark in the heat of the moment.

Gah, I dunno, I still think there needs to be a RWD class in WRC.

[cosmicpanda]

I don't even think that a cloverleaf format is 'real' rallying. I like the idea of point-to-point events, or at the least, a long loop (ie. Monaco - Valence - Monaco).

[Jake Stephens]

Step One: Bring back interesting commentary a la Jeremy Hart. Step Two: Get rid of Superally.