LOTOS 73rd Rally Poland 2016

[GigiGalliNo1]

No flowers for me... or rivers... but yes, I got your Hairpin comment before and I agree... an embarrassing image.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Watching those videos, the angles they are getting now over those jumps and landing them and continuing is getting more amazing !

[J4MIE]

Watching those videos, the angles they are getting now over those jumps and landing them and continuing is getting more amazing !

I agree. Unfortunately someone will get it wrong at some point and will go off into a crowd of hundreds. That's my point, really. If the FIA really had a focus on safety then the rally wouldn't come back.

But as we know, safety is not always the main priority.

I am all for allowing spectators/media to roam freely, but as we have seen, a lot of people can't be trusted with this. So restricting where people can go has to be done (or at least attempted), and the organisers have to carry out threats of cancelling stages - if they continue to run them whatever, then people will stand wherever.

[Franky]

The only place where I saw a tabard photographer having trouble with the safety guys was at a gravel to tarmac junction on Goldap 2, where the guy wanted to be inside the turn behind the hay roll. After a call to the HQ, they finally managed to make a deal of some sorts.

[MartijnS]

Amateur speaking here haha.

Agreed about shakedown, but hey it's not like those things don't happen anywhere else. Big gaps happen everywhere. So to say it's a bad rally only due to the 45 minute delay and some less safe standing spectators seems a bit harsh.
Got the media guide via via and had it with us during recce and had to laugh as 80% of the spots in there were the slowest corners in the whole country of Poland, so not much to work with anyway!

Access system is quite strict indeed, so that might be the only issue regarding Poland if you really want to go to specific spots you find during recce. But with some good navigating also that can be solved most of the times.
We didnt have any issues with farmers, only 1 good spot where they didn't allow anyone on their property next to the stage while they were there with a lot of friends, but hey still their own property so their good right.

We had a lot of fun, its easier to visit Rally Sardinia for example but this has to be one of the craziest rallies we have ever been to.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

I was talking more about the modern WRC cars and how they're suspension allows them to achieve all kinds of crazy-looking jumps to be made and safely landed.

Jumping high and long on fast gravel is nothing new, but that used to be on fairly level roads... but now even when the road is cambered drivers can still go flat-out knowing the cars suspension will soak up the landing with no problems at all, even at 45 degrees on two wheels...

The cars just sit down, take a level stance with no squirm or bounce, and accelerate away. Awesome really.

[ToKu]

I agree on a few points, especially local farmers demanding money to enter their ground is a problem... People are already paying to see the rally, and it's normal that almost all space around the stages is someone's property, and every spectator needs some place to stand. It's the task of the organizers to refund any possible damage from the rally (either from rallycars or from spectators) to the owners, and not the task of locals to ask money to spectators. On one place we entered a meadow where some 20-30 cars were parked already. Someone came to us, telling something in Polish (which we of course didn't understood). After finding someone who spoke Polish and English, we found out he wanted 5 (1,25 euros) zloty for being on his property. When I took out my wallet he saw there was more in it and suddenly he wanted 50 zloty (+-12,5 euros), still a small amount of money, but it's a very unfair way of doing things... One of his friends already took off a valve cap of one of our wheels/tyres and threatened to deflate the tyres. In the end we moved our car and went to another place, without paying anything at all, it's not a nice thing to do but it was the best solution. Organizers should look after this problem, or it will become worse every year, as locals will learn from each other...

It is a problem with rallies in Poland. Rally Pass gives You access to designated spectators area ONLY! If You want to stand anywhere else, You've got to pay the owner of the land (at least when one appears and demand payment).

The other hand of this situation is that once You've paid for a place, no safety is in power to move You from this place.

Same with camping alongside stages.

That's what law in Poland is like and probably that is why people would stand in crazy places, no matter how harsh the safety would be. Organizer is simply unauthorized to ban people from standing on private ground. Only solution (for organizer) is to make pre-rally agreements with land owners.