So what's going on with the RA negotiations?

Any flies on the wall here?

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain

Well, they will probably wait until 2013 to write off the loss or sell at a loss as the reduction in income will be more beneficial in 2013 after potential tax increases.

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Grant Hughes

What? What did I miss?

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

Quote
fiasco
What? What did I miss?

Either a lot or nothing. <one of those two.

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Matt Smith

Racing in glorious black and red

My daily life is a Saab story (sold!)

I'll repost what I posted on the other site...

Quote
myself
I'm sure the Fogg's look at Rally America and said, "they are doing a shit job at promoting and broadcasting the sport. We'll come in, buy a bunch of fancy cameras and equipment and use our media experience to produce live coverage and the world will rejoice and Rally America will blow up and become super profitable thanks to all the sponsor dollars." Then they discovered that live video in remote areas is difficult, no one is sitting in front of or going to sit in front of their computer all day Saturday and Sunday waiting and hoping that it might come online, and that just because you have live video doesn't mean sponsors give a shit. The only way to be profitable is to charge more for sanctioning and insurance and the rest of the "services" that Rally America provides. What's really going to suck is if the organizers are stong armed or foolish enough to pay sanction and insurance fees that cause a raise the entry fee ABOVE what the market will take and they all end up losing a shit ton of money in 2013.

Everything else I know is heresay so to say so you could say that I am rumor-mongering but in my experience, just like stereotypes, most rumors have a pretty solid basis in fact unless they are made up rumors.
But here's a general overview of the rumor mill.

Ken Block is gonna come back in 2013 and totally dominate in a $450,000 car against privateers rallying on credit cards. He's going to "give back" to the sport by giving everyone coupons for 50% off overpriced chinese made shoes that look like they're designed by a 14 year old Japanese teenager. Oh, he'll also buy at least one beer for someone at each awards party he attends, but don't expect him to attend many...
Rally America lost money again in 2012.
Events started taking their own entry payments because Rally America was NOT reimbursing events in a timely manner for the entries they were processing. I first heard about this after Oregon Trail, who I have subsequently heard were fully paid. I know Olympus did all their own payment processing. I do not know if STPR or NEFR or any other events were not reimbursed but I have heard rumors that some events were not fully reimbursed.
The sanctioning and insurance fees and "support" fees from Rally America have skyrocketed and may be as high as 40-50k per event which is apparently double or near enough to double what it was last year.

The organizers counter-offered (hence the RA negotiations mentioned above).
Olympus is moving back to April. It's unclear if LSPR's addition means back to a 7 event series or sticking with a six event series.
Rally America lost around $100k in 2012 and failed to pay a similar amount in financial obligations.
They looked at the revenues and said, "what will it require in revenue to be profitable if we only are involved with and focus exclusively on our primary product, the six-seven event national championship? The only guaranteed revenues are license fees and from the fees charged to these events so what do these fees "need" to be in order to cover all our expenses?"

The question the organizers are now faced with is if the market will support a doubling of entry fees if necessary. How would their event survive or not survive if they were to leave RA's national championship and branch out on their own. Case history available in the form of Ojibwe, LSPR, and Rally Colorado, all three cover the full spectrum of possiblities too. Likely they have united and are trying to negotiate the survival of the Rally America National Championship.

The Fogg boy's are already bored with filming rallying and it wasn't the glamorous thing that would finally get them into the VIP section at the X Games afterparties so Dad has to decide if he wants to lose money for another year or get out. He is seeking a buyer and trying to hold out until 2013 before declaring it a complete loss.

The Rally America staff have been mostly reduced to part time and are working primarily from their own homes and local Starbucks cafes. The Rally America truck is parked at an undisclosed location of a RA official's family member's farm after the RA official got in trouble with and fined his HOA for having it in his driveway.

No one ever paid the final bill for the $20k slow mo camera they bought midway through last year. They also kinda did the same thing to another company for about the same amount.

The WRC is coming to observe Olympus in 2013 because they desperately want a US event so they can entice Ford back into the WRC.

Rally America almost had a multi-year commitment from Suzuki and had hedged all their bets on the SX4 and a new championship based on the Production 4WD class which was like Open Light butt fucked by Production but Suzuki was willing to pay big bucks to have the class, enough for TV and cheap entries for all. Turned out it was all a farce and Suzuki pulled the plug, not just on RA, but on all of America.

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Grant Hughes

Quote
NoCoast
The WRC is coming to observe Olympus in 2013 because they desperately want a US event so they can entice Ford back into the WRC.

And what are they going to do for the other two days of the event?

(While I don't doubt the WRC wanting a US event, and hoping to entice Ford back, I'd have to imagine someone over there took a look and said "nobody over there is putting on an event long enough to be an ERC event, let alone a WRC event..."

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KF7RWG
http://www.utahrallygroup.com

How come NRS can run in the green and RA cant?

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First rally 2013
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Total rally cars repaired from offs 4
Total years racing exp other then rally 19 yrs
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Quote
Reamer
How come NRS can run in the green and RA cant?

Anders didn't blow his wad on $20k cameras? Maybe they can all switch to NRS, everyone wins. One rule book, one license! Obviosuly not easy, but in all reality the organizer are the ones that run and put on the rally. They could cut out the middle man (RA). Or maybe block will buy RA and actually promote rally... ha.

Quote
Reamer
How come NRS can run in the green and RA cant?

Paid employees is likely the biggest difference. Plus the RA support vehicles that have to be driven around the United States (by paid staff members) and the fuel and maintenance of those vehicles. What would a managerial position such as JB's require in your opinion? I can't imagine it being less than $50-75k. How many other staff are there? Mary Shiloff, Mike Hurst, Bob Nielsen, Paul Giblin, and Ananda Siverts off the top of my head.
They have two revenue streams. Event fees and license fees that have to cover all of that.

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Grant Hughes

So, Anders is going to buy RA for ten dollars?

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

One Big Union.
One Big Strike


This is what we should all be humming

long haired preachers, come out every night.
try to tell you what's wrong and what's right.
but when asked 'bout somethin' to eat,
ah, they will answer in voices so sweet!

Oh, you will eat (you will eat), by and by (by and by)
in that glorious land in the sky! (way up high!)
work and pray (work and pray), live on hay (live on hay),
you'll get pie in the sky when you die!
THAT'S A LIE!

and the starvation army the play,
and they shout and they clap and they pray.
when they've got all your coins on the drum,
and they will tell you when you're on the bum.

You will eat(Youooh ah lee), by and by, (by and by)
in that glorious land in the sky! (way up high!)
work and pray (work and pray), live on hay (live on hay),
you'll get pie in the sky when you die!
THAT'S A LIE!

holy rollers and jumpers come out,
and they roll and they jump and they shout.
give your money to jesus they say,
and you'll eat on that glorious day!

You will eat (you will eat), by and by (by and by),
in that glorius land in the sky! (way up high!)
work and pray (work and pray), live on hay (live on hay),
you'll get pie in the sky when you die!
THAT'S A LIE!

workin' folks of all countries unite,
side by side, we for freedom shall fight.
when tis world and it's wealth we have gained,
to the rafters we'll sing this refrain.

You will eat(You will eat), by and by (by and by),
when you've learned how to cook and how to fry.
chop some wood! (chop some wood), do ya good! (do ya good),
and you'l eat in that sweet by and by!
THAT'S NO LIE!

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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.

Quote
NoCoast
The WRC is coming to observe Olympus in 2013 because they desperately want a US event so they can entice Ford back into the WRC.

I think I've seen this movie before. Does this mean WRC Olympus in 2014 and WRC banned for 2015 in favor of, I don't know, hybrids with roll cages?

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

There's this great quote by HL Mencken;

" Of all the classes of men, I dislike most those who make their livings by talking—actors, clergymen, politicians, pedagogues, and so on. All of them participate in the shallow false pretenses of the actor who is their archetype. It is almost impossible to imagine a talker who sticks to the facts. Carried away by the sound of his own voice and the applause of the groundlings, he makes inevitably the jump from logic to mere rhetoric.

Henry Louis Mencken '

The organizers & sanctioning body folks aren't spilling the beans for a damn good reason. They don't wish to trumpet rhetoric, and thus be labeled in the same manner as those most vile of men.

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It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
William Ralph Inge

TANSTAAFL

Funny that Menken made his living by talking.

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain

PS> This was an important part of my post.

"Everything else I know is heresay so to say so you could say that I am rumor-mongering but in my experience, just like stereotypes, most rumors have a pretty solid basis in fact unless they are made up rumors."

There are some factual parts of my post, some exaggerated or potentially inflated things, and maybe one or two that I just made up altogether. The Suzuki one was definitely made up and based on the news I just heard recently that Suzuki was closing shop in the US and maybe I was trying to make an analogy between Suzuki and Rally America? Or maybe I was just having fun and getting carried away with story telling?

Myself? I hope they get their shit together and everything works out and none of this matters in the long run and just was fun drama for those of us without cable. Now I'm going to flip this Johnny Jones record and relax on the sofa with a glass of malbec.

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Grant Hughes