Oooo! The next "this will save rally" is almost here!

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GravelSpeed

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john vanlandingham

This many years thread is a long poke at the tendency of everybody to believe some miracle single thing is out there which will alter the steady 25 year decline into utter irrelevance and even deeper obscurity that US rally--and to a degree Canajian rally also has been in.. When I started in 30 years ago there were 8-9 events in WA per year...Oregon had 1....Ohio had a series I dunno 6-8...Entry lists had high 30s to mid 40s and out East where 70% of US population is saw sometime 65 entries---entries which cost late entry $55...
There were a big variety of cars, a variety of people.
it was good cheap fun...and longer SS distances usually ...
A real challenge.

I don't believe there is any single miracle thing out there. It takes a lot of little things going correctly, in the same direction, to have success. Entries go up and go down. There are so many variables as to why this is. The reasons people have for entering the sport are myriad but there are so many other sports that are infinitely more expensive than rally, so the evidence doesn't suggest it is purely an economics problem for why people aren't staying.

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john vanlandingham
And one strand is "WOW Golly Jeeze 'we" are so fast now".

And I say, backed by data collected here a long while ago and recently that no 'we" aren't any faster in aggregate than long ago...and the cost and effort to apprear up-to-date and 'with it' maybe one big factor in Andre's sobering statistic---of all drivers entering an event between 2000 and 2014 or whatever it was 43% have done 3 rallies and disappeared...27% one event and poof!

I think the fastest guys in the US would represent the country well in any other national championship. Rally is so relatively small here that the gauge of "fast" is skewed, but that doesn't mean that people can't rise to the occasion. Anyone in racing knows that there's nothing like a faster competitor to make you faster, in any discipline. You can cherry pick national championships like Finland or Australia, but I think our quickest guys, after a period of adjustment, are capable of getting on the pace in equal equipment.

Maybe Will identifies himself as Finnish? Just because the passport is blue and says USA, doesn't mean you can't identify as Finnish. Countryism is a thing and it needs to stop, tonite.
Not serious

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john vanlandingham

Go stage by stage at that site....Not just this event--scary fast asfalt but others
Check Crazy Leo's results..

Will is not Leo or Chris Duplessis. Whatever others have achieved or not achieved does not reflect on what Will can achieve. Will is already ahead of the game with the people he has around him to manage his program and put him in touch with the right people to go quicker. Will is fortunate to have the budget to put that together but it will help him immensely. Time will tell, but he has a platform to go forward from.

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john vanlandingham

Stage times.....

On that stage of 46 km he was off the pace by 1.7 seconds a km. Certainly off the pace, but is that insurmountable, should he put his rally dreams in the trash can over it? I don't think so.

Serious question: how quick were you in the very beginning when you moved to Sweden to race motocross? Did you get quicker racing against fast guys?

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john vanlandingham
19m30 behind the leader overall at that point and and 16m11s behind the next guy is not something to be proud of.....considering they were in the exact same car, same tires same evertything.

And your cheering is what baffles me and I think somehow contributes to this fantasy land we have here which I think potential newcomers can see and smell..
Nobody likes bullshit...

My encouragement of what he is doing is quite simple; he's doing it, he's not not miles and miles off the pace, he has a good team and he just finished his first event without crashing out in 4th and he has posted top 5 stage times within the DFT. I think, all things considered, that's not bad. Time will tell if he can go quicker and rise to the occasion but it's far too early to write him or "murica" off with the cynicism and mockery you have already employed.

Wow, don‘t know how to respond to a post overflowing with so many assertions that fly in the face of easy to find and check and confirm realities.
This alone:

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I think the fastest guys in the US would represent the country well in any other national championship. Rally is so relatively small here that the gauge of "fast" is skewed, but that doesn't mean that people can't rise to the occasion. Anyone in racing knows that there's nothing like a faster competitor to make you faster, in any discipline. You can cherry pick national championships like Finland or Australia, but I think our quickest guys, after a period of adjustment, are capable of getting on the pace in equal equipment.

is so --and I am trying to be as polite in the interest of dialogue and helping you----outrageously hilariously wrong that I am mostly curious how you could imagine such a crazy thing..
To say that implies that you follow the drivers in other areas..and I as yet haven't met any body else here that really digs...its too hard all those furrin languages...

The fastest guy in his cost as no object car was just trounched by a young kid in the last NZRC round in Otago---in a 1600cc Appendix K Historic old RWD car with leaf springs in the back-- on fast and flowing roads where loads of HP and being in a car you've been playing in for several years OUGHT to be an advantage...
Logically if the fastest guy is routinely beat by 40 year old RWD cars or 30 year old Golves---as he was in his last WRC outing in Sweden----2 clubbies in mid 80s Golves and 1 in a RWD Volvo were beating his SS times..logically guys slower by major amounts would get beaten by larger margins..
If fact the one thing that is clear is when the so called TOP, pointy headed guys in North America have ventured elsewhere , when there are lots of guys in similar cars, they do nothing..
Not Pat R, not Block, not Pastrami, not whassis name who did Finland in the Fiesta, not Leo, and definately not this guy Hudson...
Once they are not in much better equipment that the class, they do do-do.

But this is not to tear them down..They are irrelevant to the US and Canajian scene--notice that the trends continue and events come off even if there is no Block, Pastrami, Leo, PatR, or Hudson?
You seem to have something invested in cheering him....fine.

and in before "It's his money he can spend it any way he wants"
Of course it is..If he wants to cough up the GBP115,000 for the 5 events and the car and the GBP12,500 damage deposit---which together is USD200,000 and on top of that transport and food and all the frequent damage--say a nice round Quarter million dollars to go play around at the back of the pack with a few strangers, for 5 events its OK if you think its "cool" or whatever..he's "ahead of the game" (seriously have you been watching the same results I have?) Whatever...

I think its silly..And flat obscene...
But if he wants to piss away a quarter million for 5 events, makes no difference to anything...


And just a note..Use your imagination----you don't think I want to cheer on guys daring to do things a bit out of reach? What do you suppose this place was invented to help people do?
Should be the flipping motto here:

pour encourager les autres

Apologies a Voltaire que dit "Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres "

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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.

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hoche
LONG STORY

Well that sucks all around.

rumors of a PNW Rally Sprint being organized for December in Washington might save rally

Thanks goodness US soccer teams didn't have such a cheering section.

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RichardM

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Richard Miller
Thanks goodness US soccer teams didn't have such a cheering section.

What good to anybody or all is accomplished by 'cheering"?

What good is accomplished by "cheering" a 4th place 19 whole minutes behind the 3rd place guy, 23 minutes behind the class leader?

Is this just the same as getting a gold-star just for participating?

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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.

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Richard Miller
Thanks goodness US soccer teams didn't have such a cheering section.

Like the commercial of all the fans saying, "I believe that we will win" vs. our coach saying there was no way that we could win. One sold false hope and millions in merchandise, the other faced reality and a long term plan to improve making choices that pissed off the money hounds (leaving Donovan) in preference for experience for our youth.

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Grant Hughes

Of course you're right john. US rally sucks and will never improve.

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RichardM

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Richard Miller
Of course you're right john. US rally sucks and will never improve.

So screw the rest of the world and let's go have some fun playing in the woods with cars.

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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

One of the problems with planning any successful, growing event is understanding who the customer is and what they want. While this sounds obvious, a lot of what I see with faltering events has been a case of organisers pushing their own vision without knowing if that is what the participants want.

I haven't seen enough in the rally world to know if that is the case, but I have seen it in Golf/Slo-Pitch/beach volleyball/etc. tourneys, curling bonspeils, and even some hiking groups my wife was involved in. ('It' being an organizer who does things their way despite lower entries year over year or a vocally upset community.)

Someone told me that Canadian events systematically ask for participant feedback... is that the case in the US?

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wvonkessler

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Richard Miller
Of course you're right john. US rally sucks and will never improve.

So screw the rest of the world and let's go have some fun playing in the woods with cars.

You know THAT is the point that I was primarily making...perhaps a tad too allusively...

There was once a well know saying "All Power to the Soviets" which we can adopted a little modified as "All power to the local events"

I have never suggested we have anything to learn from anything about the WRC.. (or FIA) except for how fixation with TV and the presumed millions from sponsors is illusory and as we see the last 15-18 years, ruinous....

That's why I don't understand why a guy would piss away a quarter-million dollars doing 5 events in a class/cup with 10-12 guys, all of whom are really mostly playing (posing?).

So yeah let' have some fun playing in the woods-------but not forget that the fun that lasts, and that we will remember in 20 years hence might with a fair certainty be the fun that we have when we challenge ourselves and stretch our talents to levels we didn't beforehand think we could do....

I often reference Grupp H and F-cup events and drivers as a model for us to aim for--and mention in contrast the events and performaces we all know too well, but it is to encoyrage, to set a target to aim for, not to scold..
I wish for harder fights, faster cars better prepared so 'we" are stretched, challenged....and I think of these words--at a situation that looked overwhelming but was seen thru---and here we are just about 600 years later--and some of us still remember them:

Some guy named Harry:

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.


Yep something like that :
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap
whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Isn't that a bit more of a feeling one could see oneself aspiring to, than a Gold Star for Participation?
I'm willing to bet we would feel something closer to that more after fighting 60 in one class than beating just 3 or 4.

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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.

convincing the catholic church that saints crispin and crispinian should be now be considered the patron saints of rally, not just cobbling, could save rally. if not, at least their new saint cards with blue subies in the background would kick ass. burn a candle to that!

oh, and, charge of the light brigade rally?

quoting shakespeare gets me wound up john!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2015 07:25PM by Paul Buck.

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ElectroTech
This crazy idea that a cage costs $3.5-5k+ to build is the number one thing holding the sport back. The problem is that with lack of growth comes lack of experience and foresight, there's 10 identical cars with 10 different cages, always fully custom, if those 10 cars had the same cage costs would plummet. The technology is out there, CNC bending machines, spatial scanners and software to make it so a cage can be fabbed, car scanned and the machine spits out the tubing ready to go (headers have been built this way for a long time) for the next dozen.

Where to start...
We are finishing our maybe 15th cage since we started doing rally cages back ~2010. We've done all but maybe one or two new builds in a very active region. We do the exact same cage (minor tweeks to improve over time), use an old beat up Bridgeport CNC mill as a plasma for cage feet, and we still sometimes question doing cage. If anyone was getting paid minimum wage we would still lose money on cages.

The TECHNOLOGY is out there! I mean a used Faro arm setup is only $5k, the software for design is available illegally or for like $3k, the CNC bender is only like 12k, CNC notcher only like 6-8k, plasma table for another 10k. So for only like $40k I could setup my shop to pump out Subaru cages and sell at least like 10 a year and almost pay the annual insurance premium, not to mention the rent, utilities, labor, etc. And people would STILL bitch about the cage kits being to expensive and the reason why they can't rally. You can't rally because you live in a 3 bedroom apartment with 280 cable channels in 7.1.4 surround sound on your 73" Mitsubishi plasma with your girlfriend who drives a 2014 Jeep AND adores her 3 qt Kitchenaid mixer and your cat and two dogs that are all epileptic but the Holistic Select food with a daily dose of raw food helps with, your apartment is nice because it's close to work that you can ride your $3000 road bike to but you sometimes still drive the 14 STI because it's such a pleasure to drive.

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Grant Hughes

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NoCoast

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ElectroTech
This crazy idea that a cage costs $3.5-5k+ to build is the number one thing holding the sport back. The problem is that with lack of growth comes lack of experience and foresight, there's 10 identical cars with 10 different cages, always fully custom, if those 10 cars had the same cage costs would plummet. The technology is out there, CNC bending machines, spatial scanners and software to make it so a cage can be fabbed, car scanned and the machine spits out the tubing ready to go (headers have been built this way for a long time) for the next dozen.

Where to start...
We are finishing our maybe 15th cage since we started doing rally cages back ~2010. We've done all but maybe one or two new builds in a very active region. We do the exact same cage (minor tweeks to improve over time), use an old beat up Bridgeport CNC mill as a plasma for cage feet, and we still sometimes question doing cage. If anyone was getting paid minimum wage we would still lose money on cages.

The TECHNOLOGY is out there! I mean a used Faro arm setup is only $5k, the software for design is available illegally or for like $3k, the CNC bender is only like 12k, CNC notcher only like 6-8k, plasma table for another 10k. So for only like $40k I could setup my shop to pump out Subaru cages and sell at least like 10 a year and almost pay the annual insurance premium, not to mention the rent, utilities, labor, etc. And people would STILL bitch about the cage kits being to expensive and the reason why they can't rally. You can't rally because you live in a 3 bedroom apartment with 280 cable channels in 7.1.4 surround sound on your 73" Mitsubishi plasma with your girlfriend who drives a 2014 Jeep AND adores her 3 qt Kitchenaid mixer and your cat and two dogs that are all epileptic but the Holistic Select food with a daily dose of raw food helps with, your apartment is nice because it's close to work that you can ride your $3000 road bike to but you sometimes still drive the 14 STI because it's such a pleasure to drive.

Ha ya got me all figured out. $40k is not bad at all, now if you only wouldn't expect it to pay for itself in a year.

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Power means nothing if you cannot control it!

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ElectroTech
Ha ya got me all figured out. $40k is not bad at all, now if you only wouldn't expect it to pay for itself in a year.

Maybe you aren't paying attention. Grant is saying that with the projected demand, at the costs you're talking about, it wouldn't pay for itself in one hundred years.

If you believe that it's simple and straightforward, I will place an order now. I'll purchase the eleventh cage you build, at $2000, with the stipulation that you use all the technology listed above. Additionally, I will need to write the check to some kind of legal business, the kind that pays taxes, and has insurance. This offer is good for 365 days from today.

Putting your money where your mouth is will save rally. I wish you well in your new business venture.

Anders

Edit: Naturally the cage will have to be fully compliant with existing rule sets.

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2015 10:36PM by Anders Green.

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Anders Green

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ElectroTech
Ha ya got me all figured out. $40k is not bad at all, now if you only wouldn't expect it to pay for itself in a year.

Maybe you aren't paying attention. Grant is saying that with the projected demand, at the costs you're talking about, it wouldn't pay for itself in one hundred years.

If you believe that it's simple and straightforward, I will place an order now. I'll purchase the eleventh cage you build, at $2000, with the stipulation that you use all the technology listed above. Additionally, I will need to write the check to some kind of legal business, the kind that pays taxes, and has insurance. This offer is good for 365 days from today.

Putting your money where your mouth is will save rally. I wish you well in your new business venture.



Anders

Edit: Naturally the cage will have to be fully compliant with existing rule sets.

Have you factored in all the other stuff that that equipment can do? How much more shop time you would free up? Maybe it wouldn't take 3-4months plus to get a cage built. But meanwhile the equipment is capable of making all kinds of other stuff, light bars, subframes, trailer accessories, bumpers etc. Then maybe instead of re-selling the same stuff everyone else does you have something to offer, instead of diluting a small market and complaining that you aren't getting much business. If you want to compete in this era you best not try and make a living reselling on the Internet, deliver built goods to the market, embrace the technology available and invest in your business.

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Power means nothing if you cannot control it!