Quote Originally Posted by Astro83
Sean: How big is the rallysport in the states if you think of all the motorsports, Nascar-Indy-Motorcross and so on??? I have always wonder...

My own reflection is that many "rallyfans" in US only follow Ken Block and his rally events over there and rallycross and so on and as you say, think of him as just the greatest driver in the whole world. And that's not the case as you absolutly know

They need to open their eyes and see the real sport of rally and not his stunt movies

Don't get me wrong, I like Block very much, he is a really fun and skilled driver and business man in the motorsport family. He really is a fun guy and I hope he will compete in all WRC-events for 2013! It's even good for the sport.

But I have always wonder how big the sport really is in US...

Hejsan Astro, I can tell you that in terms of participation, its not even like a good KM dvs Klubb Mästerskap rally därborta.
DM events here might get 20 cars, sometimes 30-35. If they call it a ''Amerikanskij Champignonskit'' event like we just had last week up here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, they had maybe 60 cars... There are 2 teams with utterly absurd and pointless budgets, Monster and Subaru, a few with just stupid budgets and then the rest with prep and skills about like a first or second year C driver in Sweden..,. in the last 10 years many events have half the fieed in various lightly built and mostly poorly driven Subarus, the rest 20 year old Golf, Honda, various things.....
A friend who I sorta am sponsor to said the Monster mechanics, all English were swarming around his car because it is a very well built US version Sierra. They said they went to mount and adjust lights and went down some väg-stump, smacked some rocks and banged the kevlar sump guard, so it was a $15,000 light test.. That is insane to beat a few guys in garage built Subarus. In a way it reflects the US society: there's the 1% and then there's the rest.

Plenty of people stare at you-tube but theres never more than a couple of hundred speccies in the woods..

Nationwide in this country of 312 million there are maybe 300 people that might enter an event in a year..

So we're special, we're one in a million. I remember reading a few years ago that there was a list of official scrutineers for folkrace i Sverige and there were about 1200 names on the list...

The emphasis is on, like everything in America, the appearance, and "status"....Shiny cars, shiny suits , lots of graphics, spend lots of money---and some guys on SS speed are averaging about 65 km/hr where Block might be averaging 115 km/hr...
But trust me, those boys will argue about "the indispensability of Left Foot Braking" (at 65 km/hr) and argue about "the burning need for good pace notes"

And discuss at length which on board video camera is the best..

One word is best: Larv

More than 25 years I point my friends and strangers too to Grupp H and your neighbors great series F-cup----and now in the last few years it seems there is a change and more and more guys are going back and building simpler, mostly rwd cars that they can afford to run for more than a season or maybe 2 before dropping out and disappearing...

(I build suspension for rally cars and some brake kits, and build motors (1 National Chamionship to my motors, a few Regional titles, and a record that every Saab that has ever won a US National round in our equivalent of Grupp F was full of all my parts, all 3 ... so I'm in touch with lots of people all over USA and Canada. )

And there is absolutely no clubb or volunteer numbers to support a EM rally much less a VM.