Spreading it around?

[BamBam]

An idea to ponder?
It seems with other WRC rallies many countries vary the location from time to time. Australia is a big country & unlike many European countries nowhere is close to anywhere so.....What do we think of spreading the WRC event around to give us all a chance of experiencing a world class motorsport event?
All states have rally courses already in place so location shouldn't be an issue. I know the Banana Benders won't be impressed nor would the Sandgropers have been but seems like a fair idea to me. What say you?

I feel the following of rallying & in fact motorsport in general has waned over the years & I'm thinking this would improve that issue (if we could just back off on the "safety" some to make it worth seeing!!). Or is it just me getting older???

[BamBam]

What's this?? More than 70 views and not one of you have an opinion?

What was that I was saying about interest in rallying being on the wane?

Ahh well, no interest, no point! Besides, doing something might mean there'd be nothing to winge about, not to mention a lot of bleedin hard work, eh?

[DatsunFan]

Mate i think in theory it sounds like a good idea but its just not practical. The move from Perth to Qld has already cost us Rally Australia this year. The logistics required to run a WRC event are too great to move from state to state each year. And who is going to co-ordinate the 1300 odd volunteer officials requried in each state to run the event.

[BamBam]

Doesn't have to be an annual thing. Can be a 2, 3 or even 5 yr turnaround for example.

As for the vollys - whats wrong with the state rally clubs doing that? I'm sure they have to find vollys for their own events, don't see why they can't get a database up & running for such a thing. It's all to do with giving the sport a higher profile - advertising to the general public about rallying, WRC & for vollys are all great methods of exposure.

If it were to come about I'm sure each state would have an admin team set up to handle such things anyway and the more exposure given the more money it makes PLUS the more likely it is to gather govt. funds - hopefully without govt organisation being part of the deal for obvious reasons.

Just an idea that needs a few creative people to look at it - anything is possible!

[ian959]

No one is going to try an run a rally of the magnitude of a WRC event in the knowledge of it only being a 2, 3 or 5 year deal.

I cannot vouch for every club in the country but the LCC, WACC and AMC in Western Australia have enormous difficulties getting officials (please, do NOT use the derogatory term volly) to run even their own events - and that is finding as few as 150 people.

These clubs have access to the Rally Australia database of over 2,000 names - yet I can attest to the fact that of around 200 telephone calls made to some of those people not actively involved in the local rallying scene, only 3 new officials were found for the Forest Rally. Databases are good in theory but you still have to get people off their butts and that is very very difficult to do. All the database gives you is a few more names to contact - if you have the hours to spend doing so in amongst all the other work that has to be done in getting an event to run.

Higher profile? Take any event in the country - with the possible exception of V8 Supercrap - and you will find that barring a few notable events nearly every event runs with barely the minimum number of officials necessary. Most times you will not see it as we do a damn good job of covering the lack of officials. I am sure though that even the highest profile events in the country would quite happily take more officials if they could get them. High profile does not guarantee you anything.

To run a WRC event takes around 2,000 people. The difficulty trying to find these is enormous - even Rally Australia after all the years in WA found it difficult to actually get the numbers it really required to run the rally. Service Park for instance ran with as few as half the actual number of people required to run it properly, allowing officials to have proper breaks and so on.

With fewer and fewer people actually offering their time to help run events nowadays, the situation will only get worse. Changing the venue every couple of years would just add to the problems.

[bowler]

interesting idea.

shows how little some people know about the effort that goes into a WRC Rally.

If you are keen to help, then go and help at the closest Rally to you.

Multiply an ARC effort by about 100,000, and you are getting close.

Rally Australia used to claim it had 2500 "vollies" and they didn't play tennis.

The volunteer officails that hey had are not easily found and transplanted.

Figure the costs of transferring 100 key people to train the 2500, and work out the costs.

In finest Australian "Mate it wouldn't work" but apart from that it's a fine idea.

[GigiGalliNo1]

keep the rally in one place. its moved over east, now keep it there for the years to come and don't trade it between states! you have to keep it unique and not mess around with the quality of a chosen spot for the WRC to be held. I do hope next year will turn out great.

[BamBam]

Mmm....I could go on forever with this but as I said:

"No interest, no point! Besides, doing something might mean there'd be nothing to winge about, not to mention a lot of bleedin hard work."

[bowler]

Mmm....I could go on forever with this but as I said:

"No interest, no point! Besides, doing something might mean there'd be nothing to winge about, not to mention a lot of bleedin hard work."

agree with you.

doubtless you will be at a car club near you soon, doing something