GRC Charlotte coverage on ESPN 2/3 tonight, May 26, 2012

Just noticed that the first event of Global Rallycross Championship will air on ESPN 2 and 3 tonight. Check your local listings for exact times of course. Having just met him this last week, and that he's piloting a Ford, I'll be rooting for Tanner. But once again, I'm just glad to have any sort of rally related coverage on mainstream media.

It was kind of tough to watch that knowing what rallycross should look like...... The final was a bit exciting.

I didn't get to watch the final my dvr only got the first hour

I enjoyed watching it, even if it's not as brutal as true euro style rallycross. But I gotta admit that I love the cars... even the fact that there were Saabs still in the mix.

The prelims were a bit hard to watch, often just 1 car on camera and nothing else being told. The finale was a riot, glad Tanner was in a position to avoid the mayhem mostly. Without the mixed surface the whole thing becomes a poorly driven road race more or less. Cars need to take off on wet or dirt, too much starting line grief. Stands were empty. That has to make a long day following a Nationwide race or whatever they tagged onto. TV coverage a big plus tho, different announcers would be nice.

Totally agree about the announcers. And yeah, it was after the Nationwide race, which saw Pastrana as much sideways as straightways. And then it being his first GRC race in the new Dodge Dart, and having very little wheel time in it beforehand... not one of Travis Pastrana's better days.

Travis was having a day no doubt. The team had another driver set the car up and then put Travis in it. There is a gihugical learning curve setting one of those cars up, knowing what is right or needs changing and relaying that info in a useable fashion to the crew.

The new Dart looked good. They will need to start using 1.75 CDS for the tie rods and control arms , traditional rally car, race car stuff ain't gonna hold up to the contact.

Some thoughts:

* Why do they persist with the stupid joker/shortcut lap? It's boring enough to watch as it is, what I want to see is wheel to wheel racing not cars doing parade laps.

* The cars are too fragile. This is rallycross (allegedly), you have to expect some contact. If all your wheels fall off every time another car gets near you it's not going to be much of a race. Mind you there were some hard hits but there were some bumps where things really shouldn't have broken. For example the first time Pastrana's Dodge broke a steering arm bolt it wasn't even from contact. If you go back and look at the replays the front of the car never even touched, just the rear. If there hadn't been another car there it would have broken anyway.

*If you want to win you have to have a Ford. At times the other cars looked embarrassingly off the pace, other times I was surprised how well they were keeping up (the SAABs & the Dodge.)

* Gotta feel for the privateer Subaru guys, it's just hopeless.

* No more 2wd? That sucks. Might have been an actual race there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2012 11:41PM by Doivi Clarkinen.

I dont' know if they just don't air the 2wd stuff, or if it's been eliminated, but of course the big money, big sponsor cars get the mainstream media coverage. But I enjoy watching the independent 2wd teams have at it as much as watching the awd guys.

I doubt we'll see any 2wd action, the AWD stuff is hard to watch. And then there is this....
Tire regulations shall be
superseded as follows:
(i) Cooper Tires shall be the official specification tire of
the 2012 GRC. No other tire brands shall be
permitted in competition.
(ii) Entrants with pre-existing tire supplier deals may run
the identification of a competitive tire brand on their
race car and other team equipment and/or apparel for
the balance of the 2012 GRC season, and use a
black-wall version of the Cooper Tire in competition.
(iii) The specified tire for 2012 GRC Competition is the
Cooper Rallycross 225/640-17, compound A-53.
(iv) Each entrant shall be allowed up to three (3) tire sets
(12 tires in all) for each GRC event of which at least
one (1) set must be new.
(v) Damaged tires may not be replaced.

I heard the tire package (bought from them ) was kinda pricey.


With the obvious and overwhelming advantage the Fords have I can't see the series lasting too long. Gotta be a way to make it more interesting, reversing the field on a coin toss would help.

They say the joker lap is there because passing is too difficult....of course to pass the cars must be close to each other.

Even on a .77 miles course the cars were too strung out to be interesting to watch after about 30 seconds.

I agree with Dave on the lack of durabilty on the cars. We'll need to see some bumpin and rubbin to make it a good show, or way more cars or even cars or sumthin

Just looked at "final".

Re the whole thing:
Shirley you cannot be serious.

There's more racing and more action in this..better track by far too
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?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always">

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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.

This is one of those things that makes me want to move to Scandanhoovia. It has the beater aspects of your circle track enduro cars, has different surfaces, left and right turns, and elevation changes, as well as the cost controls lend it to LeMony cars.

The dollar to smile ratio looks pretty damn good!

---

Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

Quote
fiasco
This is one of those things that makes me want to move to Scandanhoovia. It has the beater aspects of your circle track enduro cars, has different surfaces, left and right turns, and elevation changes, as well as the cost controls lend it to LeMony cars.

The dollar to smile ratio looks pretty damn good!

Ya know, I was just thinking looking thru vidz going back to the 70s of rallycross and even Folk race and whatever the damn Finns call it...

How is it that 40 years goes and they keep the same basic format? Curvy, some slow some fast, some asphalt maybe, sideways on the dirt, or snow....elevation , tricky curves cresting or falling away, demanding SOME skill.

It is what it is..

Rally-cross comes here and instantly geniuses change most every aspect of what somehow the dumb Euros haven't changed and it becomes a piddly simplistic phoney ass thing with a garden hose running water and some phony ramp...

Sorta like moto-cross was once a stylized cross country race with everything you'd encounter if you drove across a county somewhere, an event for men with 3 heats of 30 min+ 2 laps for A guys and 3 x 20min + 2 laps for B drivers on tracks taking 2m30s to 3m a lap---then it came to America and in a few years its 2 x 10 minutes for C drivers---then it goes into stadiums with 39 second laps with man made bumps and made made berms and showboating is the main attraction---and that descends to X-treme Moto Ex with one trick lasting 3 seconds ---but they still have knobbies and rock guards against the roost so it must be moto-cross.

But in Consumer Capitalist America this parking lot shenanigans a massive success.

I think I saw 50 maybe 60 people in the stands.

---

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.

Quote
john vanlandingham

There's more racing and more action in this..better track by far too

Also, way more spectators. But how come


this guy was doing the announcing?

I watched it w/ my dad, & he confused the multi colored seating for actual spectators.

Hubinette in the second heat made it some what interesting for me. I was surprised how those Saab's scooted, and those things are relatively OLD.

The Purple & Matte black Fiestas were terrible, did they win some kind of contest or something, how were they signed off to drive those cars

The dodge dart surprised me with how good it was, does anyone know who prepped this car?

I wish SRT-USA would just come on with it, and bring/build something that will keep together & be fast enough to compete with the fiesta's, them crying at 100 acre wood that Block brought a wrc car falls on deaf ears w/ their budget and overall preparedness. Warmed over group n cars won't cut it if an m-sport car decide's to show up.