British Rally Championship 2022

[the sniper]

Sounds like it's time to restrict tarmac rallying to private land and race tracks again. Any more closed road fiasco's like this just isn't acceptable.

I wouldn't say that. I think there's a place for them. I see them as better suited to events below BRC level, essentially replicating the spirit of the old road rallies, but legally as stage rallies. Club level guys, somewhat less competitive, some nice rural tarmac stages, avoiding the damage to cars associated with gravel rallies. The first year of Rali Bae Ceredigion worked well to my mind in this respect. I appreciate this isn't the 'bringing the sport to the people' vision some have sold closed road rallying on, but I think it's too late for that to pay off now. With the way spectators are supposed to be managed nowadays, I'm not sure 'bringing the sport to the people' in this way makes much sense anyway. Like Andy says, I think they missed the boat.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Good twitter thread here:

https://twitter.com/TonySimpson74/st...qA8kRWcRguF6Vg

[Brynmor Pierce]

Good twitter thread here:

https://twitter.com/TonySimpson74/st...qA8kRWcRguF6Vg

I’m on this weeks Absolute Rally giving some more depth to my thoughts

[AndyRAC]

Listened to it; and it's a great discussion - and equally depressing.

I spectated at the 1999 Seat Jim Clark Rally - and was seriously impressed with it. The whole town of Duns was taken over, kids with the Seat 'Cupra Sport' gloves, a park taken over with activities, screens, stalls, etc
I remember thinking, "yes, this is the future of the BRC, the sport is getting it right, happy days". I couldn't have imagined that it was basically a 'one off', and hardly any other events would be like this.

The sport (and BRC) has stagnated for about 20 years......

We used to see three levels of championship events:

BRC - 120-150 mile events over 2 days.
ANCRO - 60 mile events.
BTRDA - 45 mile events.

Now, even the BRC is somewhere between a BTRDA & ANCRO..... Do the majority of competitors just want a one day 45 mile event for their sport? It seems that way.

[HKSjbg]

Now, even the BRC is somewhere between a BTRDA & ANCRO..... Do the majority of competitors just want a one day 45 mile event for their sport? It seems that way.

I’d even go as far to say the BRC is now just at clubman 70km level. Only Yorkshire is longer, and not by much in the grand scheme of things.

I’ve been thinking lately that in order to try and regain some of the lost prestige to the championship the BRC should reduce the number of rounds but keeping more or less the same stage km. So three gravel rounds at ~100km each and two tarmac at ~175km each. If we can have a longer Rally Yorkshire running alongside the clubman Trackrod Forest Stages why can’t that be done with just a little bit extra for the ‘International’ event, if you can call it that?

Some cost saving might be had by the fact that your fixed costs for turning up to a rally are reduced from 7 to 5 times a year but your cumulative stage mileage stays the same.

And to get a bit of perspective the other day I had a trawl through ewrc-results to figure out what gravel rallies, in Europe (comparing BRC to America or New Zealand for example doesn’t make sense to me), outside of the ERC and running to International status (if my understanding of what makes a rally an ‘international’ is correct), in 2021 & so far in 2022 are actually running significantly more stage km than in the BRC;

•Arctic Rally is by far the longest loose surface rally at something like 223km
•Rally Saaremaa last October ran about 132km (not entirely sure it counts as international…. but I think it does)
•Not much else runs over 100km - mostly rallies in Cyprus
•A fair amount of countries are still putting on 70-100km gravel rallies, but none really seems to be doing the same sort of stage km as Azores, Rajd Polski and Rally Liepāja (Serras de Fafe doesn’t count as the Portuguese championship only counted for the first ~100km)

[AndyRAC]

I’d even go as far to say the BRC is now just at clubman 70km level. Only Yorkshire is longer, and not by much in the grand scheme of things.

I’ve been thinking lately that in order to try and regain some of the lost prestige to the championship the BRC should reduce the number of rounds but keeping more or less the same stage km. So three gravel rounds at ~100km each and two tarmac at ~175km each. If we can have a longer Rally Yorkshire running alongside the clubman Trackrod Forest Stages why can’t that be done with just a little bit extra for the ‘International’ event, if you can call it that?

Some cost saving might be had by the fact that your fixed costs for turning up to a rally are reduced from 7 to 5 times a year but your cumulative stage mileage stays the same.

That sounds plausible - however I'm sure the reason we have short gravel events is the cost; these events are put on by one Motor Club, they're the one taking the risk. I've said before, at BRC level, it should be one group organising the BRC, with support from the local clubs. Yet we're told it can't/ won't work......well the current model isn't working either.

[HKSjbg]

As Brynmor Pierce said in the Absolute podcast - BRC rallies should be more of an ‘event’ rather than just a rally. If that mentality was implemented then I’m sure there’s more plausibility in having a sensible increase in stage km. The increased cost could be outweighed by a host town getting behind the whole fanfare an event can bring to the locals.

[AndyRAC]

That's what is so staggering; that rallies should be events - that's what virtually every other sport does. I don't know why BRC hasn't done this. It really beggars belief. It's either a lack of ambition, or as volunteers, they simply don't have the time for non rally activities. Which is why the BRC needs to be centrally organised.

[the sniper]

I’m on this weeks Absolute Rally giving some more depth to my thoughts

Listened to this, by the way. I doubt we'd be on completely the same page, but I do wish you'd got the job MSUK advertised, that then disappeared, rather like British rallying itself...

If nothing else, there HAS to be one make cups outside of the FIA homologated structure. I talked to Iain Campbell around 2016 about the potential for a Vauxhall Adam Cup, he gave the impression of having little involvement in any efforts to get one started, which seemed a bit odd to me. Maybe it wasn't the ideal formula, but I'd expect the head of the BRC to have been to Luton himself at some point to try and drum up interest, even if success was unlikely.

And of course, BRC rallies need to be events again, like any other sport. Easier said than done, but at least we'd know someone was trying to achieve that with a vision/plan.

[hutchie]

Sounds like it's time to restrict tarmac rallying to private land and race tracks again. Any more closed road fiasco's like this just isn't acceptable.

I disagree with this, sounds like the Jim Clark sadly had issues but East Riding Stages was a great example of how these closed road events can be great for the sport. Situated just outside Hull, Beverley and not far from York. Compact route of great stages, loads of spectators enjoying the event and the feedback I've heard from local residents, councils and other competitors is almost all positive.