Saw a link to this post on Facebook. Looks like a very interesting concept. Could be version of Lemons racing for rally. Basically just limiting power output the rest is open. Could be a cool way to get people into the sport and if the people on your team are not totally crazy you could make the car last quite a long time.

http://flivverrally.com/

Andrew

Once again racing to the lowest common denominator. I can't win therefore it's because the winner has more money than me. He just couldn't be faster because of more talent, bigger balls or luck.

So now we'll have Overall, Prod,Gp2 or 5, MaxAttack, Vintage, Flivver and on and on. Just like kindergarten, everyone gets an award!

I don't think this class is about more trophies. The point is that you have 4 people who are sharing the driving / co-driving crew work. So you have to learn all aspects of the sport with a lot less financial commitment. One of the big problems that rally has is the huge step in cost. This is one way to share the cost with other people interested in the sport. And if you never know you get someone started they might find they like co-driving more than driving or the like the car prep more than anything else.

Gene, I think you are missing the point and intent of this proposal. This is about trying to reduce the cost of initial participation into rally which is the major stumbling block for most people that want to get started. This proposal gets people out on stage with a smaller initial investment which should translate into them sticking with it longer.

I started to post yesterday and internet dropped.
The biggest expense of rallying is not the car. People could share cars now, yet hardly anyone does. I've made offers to people before to buy into a share of my car with no interest. People'd rather be the principal.
This kind of a plan would work well at a closed course. We have an 8 mile stage at CORE that we talked of doing a Chump Car Rally where it's endurance also and with a single stage that's run for x hours. The problem is, I don't see the point. If I'm going to organize something it'll be a regular stage rally.

Interesting,

first of all the description soulds a lot like my car. I'd laugh all the way to the bank (or bar) if someone paid me $200 for my engine. There are three more in the shed, and they were like $200 combined.


The main point sounds a lot like SHARING! Which is a nice idea, but I can see the fur flying when the car gets bashed up. I guess teams should establish if a.) driver who crashes fixes it, or b.) everybody pitches in (godless commies!) Its less cheap if you pay and never get to drive.


Is Flivverrally Finnish for "service with four monkeys fucking a football"?


In any case, viva los cheap rallycars!

I think I get it, really..another gimmick. It's an overlay on someone elses efforts. Cost saving?? Not really. You still need a current spec legal car and equipment. You are limited to 4 people and must share duties but not necesarily expenses. $ comp licenses. 4 insurance certificates. Some people can't or don't want to drive or co-drive. Some people think a wrench is made for tearing seat covers.

It will get real expensive when someones $200 junk yard engine breaks on the first transit. It'll get real expensive when you try to switch crews, seats, gear at a service and miss the control arm bolt coming loose or the bulletin about the stage starting at a different time. Lots of practical reasons why this is another idea that won't pan out. Mental masturbation. You'll grow hair on the inside of your eyelids.

MaxAttack works because it's easy, realistic, no gimmicks. Best thing about it is Burmeister and compoany. He makes the series about the entrants and not him. He doesn't crave the limelight, doesn't insinuate himself in the events organization. The contestants are the stars, not the gimmick.

Running a team on a closed course such as a Lemons event or at an ORV park is a different animal. You can see the cars, the crew in the pits has something to keep them occupied. Shared times can be 30 laps or 30 minutes or whatever. Even spectating from the pits keeps you involved. You can see your team in real time do well or screw up. You can nudge the other guy in the ribs and say "holy shit, did you see that?" Open stage rally will be totally different atmosphere, and not condusive to sharing a ride 4 ways. Not being negative here, just realistic.

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NoCoast
I started to post yesterday and internet dropped.
The biggest expense of rallying is not the car. People could share cars now, yet hardly anyone does. I've made offers to people before to buy into a share of my car with no interest. People'd rather be the principal.
This kind of a plan would work well at a closed course. We have an 8 mile stage at CORE that we talked of doing a Chump Car Rally where it's endurance also and with a single stage that's run for x hours. The problem is, I don't see the point. If I'm going to organize something it'll be a regular stage rally.

I've been talking to a lot of local friends about starting a monthly folk-race on a 1.5 mile portion of our course here at Area 51.5. Start 6 cars at once for 3 laps, max car value with safety around $2500. I've had a good response from a few of the local offroad guys, but I get nothing from the Rally folks.

Hello everyone. I've been lurking here for a while, and would like to offer an alternate perspective. I'm 25, I work as a Mechanical Engineer, and I'm very interested in getting into Rally. I found out about Flivverrally a few weeks ago and am inquiring. Running my own car right now isn't really feasible, since I have other things I'm saving for (like a house).

I COULD afford it, but it would basically be taking a very large chunk of my savings, plus a lot of my disposable income each paycheck. Then I'd have to find someone who would only want to co-drive, and find people willing to help support/service to ease the burden on the two of us at the actual events. It takes a lot out of pocket just to get started, and I can't afford that and everything else I want to do right now.

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heymagic
I think I get it, really..another gimmick. It's an overlay on someone elses efforts. Cost saving?? Not really. You still need a current spec legal car and equipment. You are limited to 4 people and must share duties but not necesarily expenses. $ comp licenses. 4 insurance certificates.

I can however, afford to put 2-3k into a team budget. With a 4 person team, that's an 8-12k budget to get into rallying. Plus it means the work gets shared between 4 people, instead of 1 maybe 2, and relying on non-invested friends to help.

Used, log-booked car's run on here or specialstage for 2-5k all day. Figure maybe another 1k for any updates or fixes it might need and that still leaves at least 2k for all the other gear. If you go in ahead of time knowing what you want to spend, and what you need,that's a pretty easy budget to keep to.

Also, you're not "limited" to 4 people. You can have as many support people as possible. You're just limited to 4 drivers.

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Some people can't or don't want to drive or co-drive. Some people think a wrench is made for tearing seat covers.

You make it sound like they're randomly pairing you up with people. I have friends who are interested, all who know their way around a car, and all who are interested in this, knowing full well they will be expected to do everything (prep, drive, co-drive, service). I'm not going up to a stranger and asking if they want to join my rally team.

It's a good way for us all, who have never driven Rally before, to get experience with ALL the aspects of rally, instead of just 1. If someone ONLY wants to drive, or ONLY wants to co-drive, they aren't going to be on my team.

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It will get real expensive when someones $200 junk yard engine breaks on the first transit. It'll get real expensive when you try to switch crews, seats, gear at a service and miss the control arm bolt coming loose or the bulletin about the stage starting at a different time. Lots of practical reasons why this is another idea that won't pan out. Mental masturbation. You'll grow hair on the inside of your eyelids.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't Rally with an engine I hadn't thoroughly inspected. Again, you have at least 4 people to share the work, if not more. No different from any other rally team. Aren't there guys who just show up with a driver, co-driver, and car? How do they do it? Your success all depends on how prepared you are. It has nothing to do with the rules of this class.

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Running a team on a closed course such as a Lemons event or at an ORV park is a different animal. You can see the cars, the crew in the pits has something to keep them occupied. Shared times can be 30 laps or 30 minutes or whatever. Even spectating from the pits keeps you involved. You can see your team in real time do well or screw up. You can nudge the other guy in the ribs and say "holy shit, did you see that?" Open stage rally will be totally different atmosphere, and not condusive to sharing a ride 4 ways. Not being negative here, just realistic.

Lemon's is different, but it's also much less of an investment than Flivverrally will be. I don't think you're going to convince Joe Shmoe to go rallying with these rules, but it may tip people who are seriously interested, but can't be forking over 8k just to get started right now.

A lot of people spend more than 2-3k to prep an auto-cross car. They go to the event for 8 hours, and get maybe 6 minuets of track time. If, for that same money, I can run 1/4 of a rally, I think it's a worthwhile investment. Yeah, there's always the risk of your friend stuffing the car, but it's a risk you take knowingly.

This is the great way to ruin a friendship.
What happens when the guy on the team that wrecked the car decides he's over it. He's not going to help or pay to fix shit. With four people, shit like this will happen. Say it's four guys, one of which knocks up his girlfriend, who just so happens to be a total cunt, she thinks he needs to stop playing with cars and be a better man. Suddenly he wants his share of the investment back. Or he decides he's going to sell his 1/4 to some total chump douchebag that contacted him on craigslist and suddenly it's even worse.

If you want to rally cheap, just rally cheap. It's easily done and doesn't require giving up things like home ownership, which is overrated by the way. If you want to involve others, involve one other person and take turns driving, but be very explicit about responsibilities and who pays for what if something breaks.

Well put.

I will say that the cost vs seat time will be small with 4 drivers. Average on stage time in the US is like 1.5-2.0 hours. It costs me about $1200 for a regional weekend, closer to $2000 for a bigger event like Idaho or Oregon Trail. $500 for 30 minutes of go fast time, it would be hard to get any skill set built up.


If you do it right though, you could use the car for crapcan racing too.

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NoCoast
This is the great way to ruin a friendship.

So can a lot of things. But basically your saying don't trust the people closest to you. No one should ever build a team with their friends, or start a business, or do anything but hang out and drink on Friday night.

I did think of a lot of the scenario's you described however. Part of forming a team is determining the rules governing it. Before any money is laid own, we'd have to get together a discuss how situations will be handled. What happens if someone wants out, if the car gets stuffed, etc. etc.

I know people who have successfully run Lemon's teams. It's a similar concept just with a slightly lower buy-in. I know people who successfully run One-lap car's. They were all just a group of friends when they started. It can be done.

Just because something has potential to fail, doesn't mean it will, and doesn't mean you shouldn't try. If this brings more people to Rally, and expands the sport, is that a bad thing? And if it doesn't work out, well, at least they tried. No one's come up with a better idea yet.

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$500 for 30 minutes of go fast time, it would be hard to get any skill set built up.

The way I see it, some stage time is better than no stage time. And right now I'm not getting any.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2010 06:57PM by Muskrat.

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Muskrat
Hello everyone. I've been lurking here for a while, and would like to offer an alternate perspective. I'm 25, I work as a Mechanical Engineer, and I'm very interested in getting into Rally. I found out about Flivverrally a few weeks ago and am inquiring. Running my own car right now isn't really feasible, since I have other things I'm saving for (like a house).

I COULD afford it, but it would basically be taking a very large chunk of my savings, plus a lot of my disposable income each paycheck. Then I'd have to find someone who would only want to co-drive, and find people willing to help support/service to ease the burden on the two of us at the actual events. It takes a lot out of pocket just to get started, and I can't afford that and everything else I want to do right now.

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heymagic
I think I get it, really..another gimmick. It's an overlay on someone elses efforts. Cost saving?? Not really. You still need a current spec legal car and equipment. You are limited to 4 people and must share duties but not necesarily expenses. $ comp licenses. 4 insurance certificates.

I can however, afford to put 2-3k into a team budget. With a 4 person team, that's an 8-12k budget to get into rallying. Plus it means the work gets shared between 4 people, instead of 1 maybe 2, and relying on non-invested friends to help.

Used, log-booked car's run on here or specialstage for 2-5k all day. Figure maybe another 1k for any updates or fixes it might need and that still leaves at least 2k for all the other gear. If you go in ahead of time knowing what you want to spend, and what you need,that's a pretty easy budget to keep to.

Also, you're not "limited" to 4 people. You can have as many support people as possible. You're just limited to 4 drivers.

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Some people can't or don't want to drive or co-drive. Some people think a wrench is made for tearing seat covers.

You make it sound like they're randomly pairing you up with people. I have friends who are interested, all who know their way around a car, and all who are interested in this, knowing full well they will be expected to do everything (prep, drive, co-drive, service). I'm not going up to a stranger and asking if they want to join my rally team.

It's a good way for us all, who have never driven Rally before, to get experience with ALL the aspects of rally, instead of just 1. If someone ONLY wants to drive, or ONLY wants to co-drive, they aren't going to be on my team.

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It will get real expensive when someones $200 junk yard engine breaks on the first transit. It'll get real expensive when you try to switch crews, seats, gear at a service and miss the control arm bolt coming loose or the bulletin about the stage starting at a different time. Lots of practical reasons why this is another idea that won't pan out. Mental masturbation. You'll grow hair on the inside of your eyelids.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't Rally with an engine I hadn't thoroughly inspected. Again, you have at least 4 people to share the work, if not more. No different from any other rally team. Aren't there guys who just show up with a driver, co-driver, and car? How do they do it? Your success all depends on how prepared you are. It has nothing to do with the rules of this class.

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Running a team on a closed course such as a Lemons event or at an ORV park is a different animal. You can see the cars, the crew in the pits has something to keep them occupied. Shared times can be 30 laps or 30 minutes or whatever. Even spectating from the pits keeps you involved. You can see your team in real time do well or screw up. You can nudge the other guy in the ribs and say "holy shit, did you see that?" Open stage rally will be totally different atmosphere, and not condusive to sharing a ride 4 ways. Not being negative here, just realistic.

Lemon's is different, but it's also much less of an investment than Flivverrally will be. I don't think you're going to convince Joe Shmoe to go rallying with these rules, but it may tip people who are seriously interested, but can't be forking over 8k just to get started right now.

A lot of people spend more than 2-3k to prep an auto-cross car. They go to the event for 8 hours, and get maybe 6 minuets of track time. If, for that same money, I can run 1/4 of a rally, I think it's a worthwhile investment. Yeah, there's always the risk of your friend stuffing the car, but it's a risk you take knowingly.

Well first off, being you're college educated, read the forum rules. Put your name and location in.

2nd, you can rally with a team and short budget now. You can share a car if needed and share duties if needed. While it isn't normal I'd bet any organizer would allow it. All four people will need a license and all safety equipment, shared or otherwise.

There is a potential $200 engine claim and the creators indicate they want junkyard engines. So you are welcome to tear it down and inspect or rebuild. Most good gasket sets alone will run the claim price. You can put in a $10k race motor if you like, just be willing to kiss it goodbye for $200. Who do you think is going to get claimed?? The fast guy or the last guy, I wonder...better yet who is going to pull the engine? With what and when? Does the claim include induction, alternator, oil pan, flywheel and clutch?

So forget I said $200 blows up on the transit out, say the tranny goes or diff or anything else. I've seen it way more than one time over the years. Everyone loses their money, and no real fun. While you can possibly find 4 people who will willingly and honestly share all duties, it is very rare and won't last. It will as Grant mentioned ruin a good friendship.

Most cheap rally cars are beyond tired. They are just worn out. There is a reason they are sold for the price of the cage alone. Seats can be tweaked and beat. Belts expired. Rusted panels, flexy unibodies, irreplaceable windshield. Sadly rally is not a cheap sport, shared or otherwise. Entry fees range from $400 on a low to over $1000. Tires will run hundreds or more per event. The harder you drive the more you spend.

I never suggested random teams, you are reading way between the lines on that one...you get 4 friends with cash together. Not everyone will be able to drive well or co-drive. Co-driving is harder than driving actually. People get deathly car sick. I don't but not sure I would co-drive for money even.That was all I meant. People may have the desire to participate financially but not compete.

Getting 2 people to agree is hard enough , getting 4 or more pretty tough. Who gets the title? Who gets the insurance bill? Who gets to store it? It's really a cluster waiting to happen. But it can happen and without gimmicks.

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Well first off, being you're college educated, read the forum rules. Put your name and location in.

Didn't see the thread up there. I basically registered to respond in here, as it was relevant to what I'm planning. Will do though.

So what your saying is, I could do what they're doing anyway, I'd just need to negotiate everything myself?

So, what you're saying is there is no cheap way to rally, so if I can't afford to do it all myself, I shouldn't?

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I never suggested random teams, you are reading way between the lines on that one...

Sorry, didn't mean to say you did, it was an exaggeration. Careful team-mate selection is necessary, yes. And we'll all be completely new to it. Everyone will get to learn. You're saying we shouldn't because "so-and-so" might not be a good driver, or co-driver? How do you know unless you try? How do you get better except by doing it? You're taking 4 people who wouldn't normally be involved, and getting them involved. How is that bad? It's not about being competitive. It's about having fun and learning.

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Getting 2 people to agree is hard enough , getting 4 or more pretty tough.

Yes, people have never been able to make decisions as a group. Democracy never worked...oh wait. We're 4 like-minded individuals. I think we'll be able to agree on something, and at the very least find a good compromise.

But really, I'm not going to try to convince you of anything anymore. You've written it off, and quite honestly, it's not marketed towards you. You're already Rallying.

Nothing you've said shows me that I can get into Rally without a huge investment. Your only real argument seems to be, "Well, you can't trust your friends."

All I'll say is this: There may be some questions (which believe me, I'm asking). There may be some hurdles to overcome for the organizers and for individual teams. But at the end of the day, they are trying to expand and promote the sport of Rally. What are you doing to do that?

Instead of picking holes in it, why do you offer constructive criticism. Why don't you take all these horrible things you see happening, make a list, and send them to the organizers saying, "Hey, did you think of this?" Find out more, instead of writing it off at face value.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2010 07:58PM by Muskrat.

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NoCoast
This is the great way to ruin a friendship.

__________________, if you had put your real name and real location we could adress you like another person, I feel too odd to call you 'Muskrat"
So until you finish the registration process let's just agree to ___________, OK?

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Muskrat
So can a lot of things. But basically your saying don't trust the people closest to you. No one should ever build a team with their friends, or start a business, or do anything but hang out and drink on Friday night.

And of course never talk aboout politics or religion or work or family issues or....

I agree_______________, but right now I'm sitting with a dented up bank account about $2000 short of what it is supposed to be because i trusted guys I had done business with before who haven't paid for their suspension which was UPSed on 7 September--and for headers shipped 4 August...
Neither are responding to emails or phone calls....
Maybe for you $2000 is just walking around money but when i have out thousands of dollars on various projects, any delay in payment causes big problems...

And I agree that you can formulate any endeavor in a variety of ways... most things aren' "either this....or that..." One the one hand.....

More like:.

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I did think of a lot of the scenario's you described however. Part of forming a team is determining the rules governing it. Before any money is laid own, we'd have to get together a discuss how situations will be handled. What happens if someone wants out, if the car gets stuffed, etc. etc.

I am the no! Agitator for open representative governance of this sport you'll find, and do belive that reasonable men can work out plans and agree....

But! Who makes the decisions on expenditures for the critical stuff: suspension, brakes, steering, gearing etc.?

And further, who decides what needs expending funds on?

A lotta guys are silly materialists when it comes to tires and want to always waste piles on NEW tires: while I wing it with good second hand GOOD tires.

What about a million set up decisions and choice where there's alternatives and alternate views?

What role does specialisation play in the Rall-ac-cracy?

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I know people who have successfully run Lemon's teams. It's a similar concept just with a slightly lower buy-in. I know people who successfully run One-lap car's. They were all just a group of friends when they started. It can be done.

I agree, it can be done, but I kinda know that all the boys are saying that all the logistical and human resource discussions and eventual decisions diverts limited TIMWE away from the massive amount of mind destroying, no fun, drudgery essential to build even a smart car choice like an Xratty or Volvo turbo, and way worse if somebody buys some warmed over Golf or old Subie.

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Just because something has potential to fail, doesn't mean it will, and doesn't mean you shouldn't try. If this brings more people to Rally, and expands the sport, is that a bad thing? And if it doesn't work out, well, at least they tried. No one's come up with a better idea yet.

Everything fails anyway, just how fast and dramatically. And then you die.
It will but its sorta like the Communist vs Capitalist argument "Communism (not really--a thug-o-crcy with ain't foolin nobody window dressing of Red Banners) failed!
Yeah? How many time has Capitalism failed 7-9 times in the 19th century, 609 times in the 20th? Once already in the 21st Century?

Everything fails, the crime is in setting low aims.
Go for it.
And go follow our rules and fill in name and location.

Now, do you think a 4 door volvo 240 or a 2 door Volvo 240 would be the ideal choice?