SgtRauksauff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't see why so many people hate rallyX so
> much.
>
> Sure, it's not stage rally. So what?

Its not that rallyx isnt fun, its the mistake that many people make in thinking that doing rallyx can prepare them for, or improve skills that are useful in, stage rally. And if you look closely at who is posting what you'll see that its the rallyx-ers that are going "Yeah huh" and the stage rally guys going "nuh uh." Who are you going to believe about how good rallyx is at learning things pertinent to stage rally? The ones without experience doing stage rally, or the ones that have done both rallyx and stage rally? And if your goal is to become teh most winningest rally drivar evar! you may want to look somewhere besides rallyx to start off with. Look for something that involves loose surfaces, high speeds, and (like eric said) something that improves your confidence. Such things could be bikes, quads, buggies, sleds, ice racing, etc. I dont hate rallyx, I think its fun, but I also accept it for what it is: playing around in a (n unpaved) parking lot. If rallyx is fun for you, by all means do it! But dont expect it to turn you into a rally star.

As for the original topic of this thread... Clubs are cool. They work because people like to feel that they are a part of something. I'll add "starting a rally club" to the list of the other 1000 things (stupid adhd!) I'd like to do!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2008 07:48PM by Carl S.

Wish the rallycrosses were $25 around here. Seems they average $45-50, and now you apparently have to be an SCCA member or buy a weekend membership for $15.

So $65 for less than 10 minutes of seat time. In first gear.

For my $65, I can run about four 7-minute kart races at Maine Indoor Karting on those Sodi carts, which go faster than the last couple rallycrosses I've run (mind you, it's been a while).

I was on the periphery of trying to organize a rallycross a couple years ago, found a nice piece of commercially zoned land on a major road with a rally-sympathetic owner. Before we even had a real plan, somebody in town got wind and at the next town meeting motorsports were banned on all land.

But this was supposed to be about rally clubs. Even I got sidetracked. What happened?

---

Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

fiasco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But this was supposed to be about rally clubs.
> Even I got sidetracked. What happened?


A conversation happened.

Wouldn't it be boring if we all went to a bar,
sat down and said "this is the topic and no one
may talk about anything else". That would be
boring, no?

Lurch Wrote:> Hope this clears up the misunderstanding re:
> rallycross. I have nothing against it. It just
> isn't the best use of my time.

If rallying is an orchestra, rallyX is the triangle player. (ding)

Give me yumps, give me trees, give me some straight to bounce of rev limiter in top gear, give me codrivers and teamwork, give me scenery, give me hundreds of turns I'll only see once instead of 30-or-so 6 times over and throw some tarmac in there too.

Jens,

You should pull the V8 RX7 out and run Buffum's Winter Challenge.

---

Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

I'm not sure that folks 'hate' rally-x. I think it is simply that once you stage rally, you see the big difference. If you have only rally-x'd, it is hard to imagine the giant step change between the 2.

And then a few stage rally guys look as rally-x'rs going on about rally-x, and say to themselves or on forums "Man those rally-x guys just don't see the big difference." Well, it may be true, but I wonder how many of the now-stage-rally guys started in rally-x and they THEMSELVES did not see the difference. It's a case of something between forgetting ones roots and maybe elite-ism.

I think rally-x is fine. You do learn some things, but you can also be easily fooled into thinking you know far more than you do about stage rally. As Eric described in a certain way, it is a night and day differnce, and rally-x teaches you about 5-10% of what you need IMO...really! It can also lead one into a false sense of competence on one's early stage rallies.

I think rally-x is useful, it's fun, and I get out to one maybe once per year at best. Wish I could do more just to be able to meet more like minded folks. If we got a club going aournd western VA, rally-x would be a core element.

Regards,
mark B.

SgtRauksauff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't see why so many people hate rallyX so
> much.
>
> Sure, it's not stage rally. So what?

Jordan, nobody, not even me, hates Rally-Ex.
What many take strong issue with is these guys who run their stock street Sub-a-rats, or whatever POS, on some dirt lot and then start bragging on forums that they won some "Rally (cough)cross" and that they're "CRS Rally (cough) cross Champignon". Its in a way the same up-hypping when people put a special empahsis on the first part of "Pro" rally.
Hypping it to sound or appear to be something that is isn't to gullible public.
>
> It's also a LOT easier to find a field somewhere
> in the country that someone will let you use to
> pound the shit out of a car in than it is to try
> to convince local municipal, county, and state
> governments to repeal the decades-old statutes
> specifically forbidding any type of motor racing
> on public roads.
>
>
> so, go find an '88 Buick Electra Estate (for
> free), put on some 30-year-old bias-ply truck
> recaps (for free), and pound the shit out of the
> car for the cost of 25 bucks entry fee, a few
> quarts of oil, and ten gallons of gas.

Sur, why not, they COULD be lots of fun, but I just spoke with a friend who was saying "I went to 3, but they disn't seem worthwhile, they were too small and was in 1st and maybe 2nd, meh"
>
> It's obviously not stage rally, but it IS seat
> time flogging a vehicle to (and beyond) its
> breaking point, and grinning ear to ear the entire
> time. To me, motorsports are for fun, not profit.
> It sometimes takes a lot of work and cash to
> prepare a vehicle for that fun, but in the end,
> for most it is only a hobby, not a vocation.

Yep and that's why i roll my eyes back into my skull when i see dirt Auto-crossers using words like "racing career" in conjunction with playing dirt cone squish, or even Stage rally.
>
> I think that at times it may very well be an
> elitist attitude that makes for the lack of
> involvement in the sport. Saying that some
> versions of motorsport (rallyx, autox, tarmac road
> racing, for example) are 'lame' or 'not worth the
> effort',

Not saying that the format of something like dirt auto-x is lame, even if the execution of the PNW events has been topo slow, we're saying people doing the playing in the field thing or straight auto-ex or tarmac, when they inflate shit and get all puffy chest and try and bluff folks that it's something bigger and (gasp) meaningful, then we call that hype and hype-er lame, and rightfully so I believe.



and conveying that attitude to the people
> who have only those versions in their area may
> well just make them say, "Screw those rally guys.
> It might be fun, but I don't want to hang out with
> a bunch of assholes over the weekend."

Well as well what do you think guys who have been bullshitted a bunch of hooey think when some schmuck has told them all about their Racing, when they see a bunch of slow, farting elephant cars roll off the gas miles from a corner and crawl up to a turn then crawl out? I'll tell you cause I've heard it from guys I've drug out to the woods "Man there's some lame ass shit going on here! I could beat most of those cars in my stock xxxxx"
>

And they conclude that rally drivers are a buncha BS artistes.



Hey your box is packed with all the new stuff and the old stuff 100 LBS!!!!!

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Rally-x is fun and OK to do. No one is against it except that most want you to understand that just coz you well doesnt mean you ll be a good rally driver. Like Mark pointed it does teach you some (maybe 5-10%) However I will present another dimension to this topic; I have learned more from video games like Colin McRae 4 or 2005 than at rally-x (Jens is probably gonna hammer me for this one!). First time on notes at my first ever rally i did not skip any except one note (was following treeline & others tracks) which more than half of the field missed at BRS.
I can assure you that at that single event i did so far i learned more than any amount of game or rally x can possibly teach you eventhough we were slow as shit.

---

rally gods would turn in their graves if they ever knew Lada's were now part of EU rallying!!!

now THAT'S some good discussion!

'hate' really was too strong of a word to use, my mistake. And truthfully, I think I only ever met maybe three rallyists who were fartnozzles, and that could've just been bad rutabagas in the pasty.

I don't really see rallyX as the culmination of anything, but rather just a controlled environment that lets you begin to develop a feel for things to come, as well as a hell of a fun time.

Sort of like how some high schools will have a small driving course for the students, so they can find out what it's like to step on the brakes and the gas, and make the car stop and turn, so they don't jump in, redline it, dump the clutch, drive through the kitchen and kill their mom who was in the middle of making supper.

There's no doubt in my mind that doing 75+ in the dark for 10+ miles with trees and ditches on both sides of sharp turns while it's snowing, with a broken wiper smearing mud across the window and a poor schmuck sitting next to you hoping you can see around it is completely different than barely using 2nd gear in an automatic honda accord while driving around a semi-paved parking lot in a course configuration tighter than most autoX'es, wishing that there had been more than five inches of snowfall in the last two months.

Plus there are the notes to deal with, and another seven stages to go, and things to fix at service. I think it'll be pretty darned overwhelming when (not if) I actually get there.

I think I'm now just nattering to stay awake, and I don't know enough to shut up. Strange, because that usually involves some sort of beer, and I've not had that tonight at all, unfortunately.

--sarge

---

---** To be in compliance with the Anarchy **---
Jorden R. Kleier
Baraboo, Wisconsin, USA
1990 Mazdog Protege 4WD
1973

turoc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>.......I will present another
> dimension to this topic; I have learned more from
> video games like Colin McRae 4 or 2005 than at
> rally-x (Jens is probably gonna hammer me for this
> one!).


I'm not going to slam you about that!!! I've never tried a rally
video game. If the game is well designed there might be significant
value to it just as there is with flight simulators. For that mattter,
I would like to try a rally video game for fun since I can't really rally
right now.

My past comments about rally video games are related to those who,
play video games, tear around in civilian traffic with their Subarus,
and therefore think they are rallyists.

Jens Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not going to slam you about that!!! I've
> never tried a rally
> video game. If the game is well designed there
> might be significant
> value to it just as there is with flight
> simulators. For that mattter,
> I would like to try a rally video game for fun
> since I can't really rally
> right now.
>
> My past comments about rally video games are
> related to those who,
> play video games, tear around in civilian traffic
> with their Subarus,
> and therefore think they are rallyists.
>
>

Those people are called poseurs. I know that I am not a true rallyista until I've at least started a stage somewhere. Until then, I consider myself a recovering keyboard rallyist. I feel that, independent of local/regional clubs, and short of dragging friends, one at a time, hours across the state to stand on the side of a road in order to expose them to real rally cars screaming past full tilt (hopefully a good number of the competitors are feeling brazen that day), rallyx provides the next best opportunity to spark the interest in rally.

There will always be those people who talk about their little corner of the world as being the best, in fact, we certainly do a lot of that with regards to stage rally, but I like to think that there are enough individuals with their feet firmly on the ground who participate in rallyx that those individuals who express interest in true stage rally have options with regards to obtaining legitimate information on taking those next steps.

---

Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

rallyista? Sort of like half driver/codriver half barista? Coffee on the go?


Erm, in all seriousness, If you all want to start a club, why doesnt some one buck up and pick a day of the month and time to meet, and pick some where for each state. Then everyone can go meet there.

If you found your OWN club, keep it going for awhile, get a bunch of memebers, and then present it to NASA or RA, they make take interest in it. If you have 20 or so unattached[to nasa or rally america] rally supporters, thats potentially 20 membership fees. And thats in one state. If ALL the little "rally club" club branches made dossiers or something and then all turned them into one big NATIONAL dossier [the trick here would be to have a lot pf people who are interested in rally who ARENT already NASA or RA members] 47ish [maybe not everystate could do this. Do they rally in Hawaii? What if they fall of an island! haha] X 20ish [people, give or take] is a lot. A lot X membership fee's make sanctioning bodies happy. *cough* how do they pay insurance? *cough* This may mean lower entrance fees. Maybe.

---

Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

Don't hold you breath for lower insurance fees via big membership numbers.

History tells a different story.

---

JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

oh, i dont know. I'm new to all of this. I just thought it might help. Allthough, I guess with anything, if it makes sense, its probably not right, haha!

---

Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

Hey Lurch, yup, that's me!

So, I REALLY liked your post just now...

And like I mentioned over on SpecialStage, I"m not saying rallyX is the 'best' way or only way. Its just 'one way'.

If Stage Rally is pro-baseball, then fine, RallyX can be T-ball...but you have to start with SOME form of the basics, and rallyX can be ONE form of starting with the basics.

If the first time I ever attempted a scandinavian flick was on a stage rally road going 60mph, I'd already be dead.

anyway, the whole point of the thread was a 'rally club'...and I'm like, hey, I'm part of a club with members that one day, want to be stage rally guys...so lets not find a way to get together, drink beers IN PERSON, chat, ask questions, and then maybe if you stage rally guys are really nice, will tell us HOW TO GET MORE EXPERIENCE BEYOND BABY RALLYCROSS COURSES. <----THIS is the issue I'm having....because right now, other than +$4,000 at Tim O'Neils, I'm a little stuck.

I agree 100% that driving around Antioch Fairgrounds in 1st and 2nd gear is NOTHING like 75mph at night in the snow surrounded by trees. Duh. I'm pretty sure I didn't write that anywhere.

I helped organize the Dirty Impreza meet down at Gorman, and everything was GREAT. got to go a little faster, exposed corners....I went from gravel, to pavement, to wet pavement....tagged a tree and learned a lesson

In the next 18 months, as I try to make the leap between my rallyX experience and real stage rally, it would be nice to make a club or something SEMI-formal that others can follow...because even if I'm successful and make the jump and become a good/bad/whatever stage rally guy, what's the point if the next guy has all the same challenges and has to do it all over again? that's the pattern I see (maybe I'm blind, I"m just saying its what I see) and that's what I'm trying to change. Honestly, I would think someone with my level of energy, interest, and commitment would get a lot more support and direction of the people with all the experience and knowledge but don't have the energy. Cause I totally get it, you've been doing this forever, you have your own lives, and you don't always have time to answer every stupid noob question (trust me, I get sick of seeing some of the same old quesitons on the suby forum I'm on too).

But when you're sport is hurting....on the brink of dying off completely, and a guy walks into the room, raises his hand and says, 'hey, I want to do what you're doing, so far I've only been doing RALLYX, what else should I do, how can I help?' I mean seriously, who do I have to blow around here?

Confidence....man, that's another great post. I'm going to have to steal that. Its all about having the balls to commit and just fly around the corner. Absolutely, 100%. Some of that can't even be learned, some of that is just crazy. I'm a good enough skier to go off....a 20, sometimes 30 foot cliff. the guys that do the giant gap jumps and 100foot cliffs....technically they're not all that better, they just have the giant balls to commit.

John V...you can make fun of my 'career' all you want, and spit on my CRS RallyX 3rd place finish. But the reality of that career is what I make of it. Since I decided to commit to this rally thing, I've acted in a professional and courteous manner in all aspects (with that last thread in SS being my only slip up, haha). Because of that, I've developed professional relationship with other individuals AND business owners/vendors. As a result, I've cut my costs significantly through the sponsorships I've gained. Sponsors that have committed to helping me get my car on the stages in 09. the less it costs to get up and running, the more I have for travel and getting to more events.

The strategy I've developed is MY strategy, and it will work for me, and it what I'm comfortable with and gives me a lot of time between now and then to get better BEYOND rallyX. HOWEVER, it would be great if there was a club that I could be a part of that was helping me, pulling me up (as my rallyX buddies push me from below)? And then others could learn from my mistakes/successes and more easily make their OWN strategy?

I DON'T know what that solution is, that's why I'm posting on here, SS, and I can tell you right now, all the wanna-be stage rally guys on DirtyImpreza are watching that thread intently to see where all this goes. BTW, that's a national forum, so your opinions/thoughts/etc are all being broadcast to a LOT of potential stage rally competitors.

http://www.dirtyimpreza.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2534


OH LURCH....man, I would love to tag along on one of your 'training weekends', what exactly do you do and where? I'd be willing to travel to your location and rent whatever I need to if it means faster driving, 1 on 1 instruction and just a lot more experience.

^^see what I mean? If this is what I have to do, then I'll do it, but I don't know what I don't know....you know?

---

Jon Burke - KI6LSW
Blog: http://psgrallywrx.blogspot.com/