European Rally Ladder

[HaCo]

The number of compulsorily entered rallies to be counted in the final ERC classification has been lowered from six to five events. Then with four European Rally Championship events common with popular IRC serial, the ERC can be more interesting than in the past also for the regular IRC competitors with just one more event ran out of their usual competition ground.

If you do IRC, you would be stupid not to do ERC as well! So as far as ERC integration in IRC, or the other way around, it is good as it will be next year. Also entry fees are much lower for next year.

It's a pitty so many drivers neglect ERC: they all want to step up to WRC. Would be great if some Belgian drivers would drive ERC, like they did in the past and were successful!

[Jarek Z]

No sense, of course. There would be a minimum limit for those championships: perhaps 5 or 6 registered drivers. If that level is not got, the championship will be no run. It´s so simple...But, if we had that number of registered drivers, there would be no problem. FIA could try and see...

Morgan, the only thing you want to do is kill ERC and/or IRC. The more drivers in regional cups, the less in ERC/IRC. How many drivers compete in ERC/IRC on a regular basis? No more than 8-10. Do you want to reduce this number to 4-5? There simply is not enough drivers with international programmes in this world. Regional cups have existed for at least 5 years and there have never been any interest in them.

[morganmilan]

Morgan, the only thing you want to do is kill ERC and/or IRC. The more drivers in regional cups, the less in ERC/IRC. How many drivers compete in ERC/IRC on a regular basis? No more than 8-10. Do you want to reduce this number to 4-5? There simply is not enough drivers with international programmes in this world. Regional cups have existed for at least 5 years and there have never been any interest in them.

Not really I don´t want to kill nor anybody neither anything I think, Jarek, both of us are saying the same! You are right: There are few drivers running ERC and regional cups. Going on with IRC, ERC and regional cups would be fantastic if we counted with enough crews. I hope sooncoming end of worldcrisis and lower fees bring more teams to international rallying. I only believe it´s a little bit mad keeping IRC and ERC with few drivers (all of them from Europe), similar cars and the half of the rallyes in common. That´s make no sense. Next year, probably almost same drivers will be fighting for both titles, and that´s make no sense at all too

[Raven]

IRC is "private" idea, ERC is by FIA. I hope they will coexist. The best way to kill IRC is to let it be totally controled by FIA (look at ERC).

[Sulland]

Trasfered from the ERC 2010 thread

Reduce the number of events in ERC by removing Istanbul (nobody wants to watch rallies in Turkey anyway) and replace Rallye du Valais with Arctic Rally. Not a good idea?

That would help a lot imo, ore are there better ideas ?

Maybe;

Layer one: Regional cup: 4-5 rallies
Layer two: ERC - the x best from each region - 3 rallies with different surfaces
Layer three: IRC or SWRC
Layer forur: WRC

Would it be an idea to limit classes allowed in layer 1 and 2 to for instace only R-class to keep cost down ?

[morganmilan]

Good idea, but I believe it would be enough with R cars at first level, and S2000 and N4 in the ERC. regional cups could be North, East, Southeast, Central and West or Atlantic. Perhaps six to eight rallyes in each one, and ten in ERC with tarmac, gravel and snow (in regional cups where possible). Two best rallyes from each regional cup could count for ERC. Regional cups only for 2WD and ERC for all cars but WRC ones. Does it sound good?

[Steve Boyd]

The ERC has been around a lot longer than the WRC (RallyBase has champions listed from 1953) and I believe the advent of the WRC took away much of the kudos of winning the ERC. Over the years the ERC developed a system of coefficients where higher status events gave more points than lower status events. This was rationalised a few years ago so that only the coefficient 20 events counted for the ERC & the lower graded events were separated into the regional cups.
Rallying has always allowed any competitor with the correct licence to compete on an event & has never had licence upgrading requirements above the basic International licence. If you want to enforce a ladder then you would need a higher licence for a WRC event than for ERC or BRC. You might finish up with only a handful of WRC licence holders, would it be worth putting on a WRC event for only 20 cars? F1 & racing in general might be able to live with this but I'm not sure that rallying can.
Restrictions based on the class of vehicle are already in place to some extent. WRC cars are not permited in the ERC or BRC. If you were to restrict further then the ERC & Cup competitiors would look silly on event where non-championship entrants could use N4 & S2000 cars. If you stopped locals from entering unless they had an R class car you wouldn't have enough entries. I don't believe that there's enough money in rallying to support a ladder, there's barely enough to keep going as it is.

[Jarek Z]

I don't believe that there's enough money in rallying to support a ladder, there's barely enough to keep going as it is.

Well said Steve! I'm of the same opinion. I like Morgan's ideas, but he seems to be living in a dream. The truth is that rallying is not thriving and there simply is not enough competitors to have so many levels. WRC + ERC + IRC + regional cups is already too much...

[morganmilan]

Well said Steve! I'm of the same opinion. I like Morgan's ideas, but he seems to be living in a dream. The truth is that rallying is not thriving and there simply is not enough competitors to have so many levels. WRC + ERC + IRC + regional cups is already too much...

Hi Jarek. I like you like my ideas and, yes, perhaps all of it sounds a little fantastic nowadays. We haven´t today all the money we need in our sport, but I believe this thread just goes on ideas about making rallying better and more interesant for everybody. Perhaps not today, but in the future who knows. Anyway, thnx for your posts.

[Jarek Z]

Anyway, thnx for your posts.

You're welcome. I'm always open to discussion and always respect your opinions.

Just to confirm my fears about the number of competitors... Do you know how many drivers entered JWRC 2010? 4. Four! Can you imagine?