Rally Discussion and Bar Talk Thread

[Fast Eddie WRC]

PSA has bought Opel? I didn't know they were going to do it!

And Vauxhall in the UK...

French ownership is a worrying move for the factories here, especially my local plant making the Astra.

[KiwiWRCfan]

Barman can you please play Ironmaiden's song 6 6 6 and dedicate it to the MSport drivers Tanak, Ogier & Evans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxnN05vOuSM
If anyone is unsure why this particular song have a look at stage wins by driver so far this season

[smokingjoe]

Barman can you please play Ironmaiden's song 6 6 6 and dedicate it to the MSport drivers Tanak, Ogier & Evans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxnN05vOuSM
If anyone is unsure why this particular song have a look at stage wins by driver so far this season

better order a round of Trooper Ale, while your at it. great song, excellent brew

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Promotion before sport - is this the way for the WRC ?
http://www.rallysportmag.com.au/home...ay-for-the-wrc

[AL14]

Promotion before sport - is this the way for the WRC ?
http://www.rallysportmag.com.au/home...ay-for-the-wrc

That is a very nice discussion to take.
I work in the marketing industry so I have also interest in these kind of dynamics.

But I would not take it like the author of the article did. I'm very much convinced that there is not such contrast between "promotion" and "sport".
I don't think that for the sake of promotion you have to sacrifice the sport. This is a leitmotiv when it comes to rally and I think it is one of the big mistake of the sport.
From one side (the promoters), there is the need to sacrifice the sport for the promotion because rally is a bad format for nowadays media.
From the other side, people thinks that driving 500km away and risking to lose 2 stages is a good achievement in a promotion point of view, but it's bad for the sport because at the end 2 stages have been sacrified.

In my opinion they are both wrong.

The need N1 for a good promotion is a good product! And a rally 70km shorter is not as good as the original plan! They have not sacrified a rally for the promotion, both the product and the promotion have been damaged from that hitch.
Rally is spectacular as it is and it is IDEAL to promote with new media!
Wake up promoters! People are all the time with a smartphone in their hands, something going on all day fits perfectly with our culture!

Also, the fact that it is different from other sports that have a single event of max 2 hours, apparently better to broadcast and promote, is fucking good. Rule N1 of marketing is to find differentiators of products, what makes them unique and use them to show people their value.

This is why I always feel the rage growing inside me when I see the kind of promotion WRC has. Although they have reached some very good achievement (I'm not that negative, they've done some good job), I think that still, a lot of potential is still unused and the reason is basically what I've written up here. (imho)

Would like to hear your opinions about this, not just how it should be promoted (we have talked a lot of time about it), but about the relationship between promotion and sport. Do they have to be in contrast all the time?

[AL14]

Beer break.

Delecour showing how to turn the wheel in a rally car using a pot cover.

https://www.facebook.com/22087739466...3229796432932/

(They laugh sometimes but my poor french didn't help me to understan why )

[Fast Eddie WRC]

I must admit that waaay back when I got into rallying, it was first through seeing TV highlights. Then it was being able to attend a world rally (1983 RAC, then also '84,85 & 86) as it had numerous local stages at venues such as stately homes, race circuits and even safari parks !

I think these are still the way to grow WRC... get it seen (although now more online than TV) and also take the rally closer to the cities (but not in cities) using decent stages, not these nasty SSS we have now.

[Rallyper]

My first event attending in rallying was Midnight Sun Rally (Midnattssolsrallyt in swedish) back in 1961. Believe it or not - last stage was a Mickey Mouse stage held on a horsetrack outside Stockholm (Ulriksdals travbana för dem som är tillräckligt gamla att minnas old Stockholm).

However my father told me that on a real stage it was way more exciting and that turned my interset on, being only seven years old. Had to wait until the year after and same event which then passed my new home north of Stockholm and local hero Bengt Söderström won in a BMC Cooper S.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

I always wonder how much the manufacturers get from WRC rallying... I mean how many extra sales from the money the spend and the exposure they get ?

Citroen for example, after all those years of Loeb-led success, did they increase sales much through that time ?

[tommeke_B]

Well, it's something you can't really measure, maybe it's better that way...