Rally Discussion and Bar Talk Thread

[Rallyper]

In Sweden we have group E and F, cars older than 12 years, floating age.
Gr E: >15kg/kW, typical car Astra 1,6, Golf GT 1,8 (1986) Golf III
Gr F: >12kg/kW Volvo 940, Golf GTI, etz.

Strict rules. No changes in engine and gearbox. All safety devices needed like rollcage, seats, belts etz..
Used cars for sale from 2500 Euros (25000 SEK) in Sweden. Almost as fun to drive in rallies...

[AnttiL]

In Finland we have also these V1600 cars which are very close to stock cars and very cheap to run. Maybe pantealex or someone else can explain them better.

[Mirek]

Almost 50 Rally5 cars enterd for Rallye le Touquet tell me that there is something right about them.

[Sulland]

Impressive with 50 Clios, and we have alsready seen that the Rally5 version is very quick, compared to old R1's.

Is there some discount or compensation for members of the french Clio trophy?

[SubaruNorway]

Petter just joined Sohlberg on twitch
https://www.twitch.tv/officialkristiansohlberg

[the sniper]

Petter just joined Sohlberg on twitch
https://www.twitch.tv/officialkristiansohlberg

Some great stories so far, surprised I hadn't heard them before.

[denkimi]

Almost 50 Rally5 cars enterd for Rallye le Touquet tell me that there is something right about them.

Lots of promotion by renault i assume.

But they seem to hit the right spot. Not too very expensive to buy and run, but fast enough to actually feel like rallying.

They are kinda what the clio2 group N and A were/are. In france many of those are still around, and i suspect lots of those drivers might switch to a new r5.

[dupanton]

Clio Trophy has very nice prices.

Everybody gets 2 tyres every rally, after 3 rallies you get €1000.

1st place in a rally gets you €5500 (some cash, some spare parts), €900 extra for 1st Junior.
1st in het championship gets you €5000 spare parts + 10 tyres. 1st Junior at the end of the season gets a program with Renault Sport in the Rally4.
1st team gets to run that program with the Rally4.
There are is a trophy for Gentlemen drivers as well. Female crews can enter the Trophy for free.

There is free catering, spare parts service, engineer at every rallye...

So in total, this is just a very good championship. The car isn't cheap, but a lot cheaper than any other new manufacturer car.


Full info: https://www.cliorally.com/IMG/pdf/20...delines_en.pdf

[lmmjvss]

BAR TALK: ON
- Do you think "Im ruinning WRC"? (Sorry for the long post)

I got into WRC in 2014/15 because of Rallycross. But I have been following the championship by watching the dialy highlights from WRC+ or RedBullTV. Sometimes I watch one live stage but thats it.
But I've been thinking that this is probably terrible for the series... dont you think?

I mean, what is the % of fans watching lots of live stages on WRC+ vs fans like me that watch only the 3 day highlights? If most of the fans around the world just watch the three 25min highlights, what would be the point for WRC? I mean... why to have multi-million buck programs and cars if a huge % of fans are only watching 25+25+25min of the whole events?

- I was thinking this because indycar and nascar are thinking about having a "netflix show", like F1 does.
But IMO thats so bad for motorsports. I work at a bar and everyday someone talks about racing and I say that "im a racing fan"... Then these young people say "Oh, Im a F1 fan". But when we chat, I always realize that they only watch F1's netflix show, the "funny radio" highlights and those "WTF1" youtubers talking about the race (but actually they focus on the gossip. Like "oh Max was so angry at Lewis" or whatever).
Basically the current F1 fan DONT WATCH the race, only these Gossip Focused things. So then theres the question: Why are F1 teams wasting half billion bucks in their programs if fans only watch the gossip and the highlights?

It looks "the future of motorsport" is not electric or hybrid (Cuz I honestly dont fall for "road relevance" in motorsports. Thats only P.R... and racing is just money laundry for big companies). The future of motorsport is 20min of gossip about drivers angry at each other, highlighs of the younger drivers talking sh**t on twitch and 5 min of actual race highlights... So, whats the point?

I understand that this is how we consume media right now. You guys are probably scanning this post searching for something usefull for you.. I know that. Cuz this is how we consume media right now. People (even more for youngsters) just want some quick dopamine rush or we lose our attention. This is what social media has done to us... even if you dont use it, like myself (only foruns).

So... what is "the future of motorsport"? Are we ruinning everything? Do you even think about this? haha
(again, sorry for this long randon thougth. Baah)
Cheers

[the sniper]

Something I've found rather depressing is that rallying would actually work in a documentary kind of format, like the F1 Netflix show, where the story of a rally could be properly told. The rally films of the 70s and 80s are what made rallying. Rather than the formulaic world feed style, soulless, cut and paste 25m highlights package that defined the ISC/North One era, something far more original could be created given more time. Taking the UK for example, if the general public has no idea when a WRC round actually was, would it matter if a 'film' telling the story of the rally was shown the following week on a late Saturday afternoon on BBC2 (terrestrial channel)? Anyone drawn into the sport by those could then go on to follow the rallies live on premium sports channels/WRC+ All Live. You can narrate a film in different languages.

Obviously, turning around a film/documentary in a week would be a challenge and compromises would have to be made, but can we honestly say the 'as live' highlights are the best expression of this sport? I appreciate the Red Bull highlights with Mike Chen were better than the standard format ones though, but how many people watch Red Bull TV?