WTF
Posted by SteveL
SteveL Steve Leitch Mega Moderator Location: Ocean Shores, Washington Join Date: 01/25/2009 Posts: 280 Rally Car: Can't decide which to use... |
john vanlandingham John Vanlandingham Godlike Moderator Location: Ford Asylum, Sleezattle, WA Join Date: 12/20/2005 Age: Fossilized Posts: 14,152 Rally Car: Saab 96 V4 |
Welll for one thing, since the place became infested with wannabe "one day I wanna rally race my Forester maybe" types and then a small clique of guys with deep deep experience --one with 4 real events, another with maybe 5 driving and another with a few but spread over 10 years and 50% DNF rate--from driving over his head and crashing----I got sick of trying and intentionally backed waaay off, mainly to see if those cunts were here solely for trolling..And the clique from Cnada 's most hated city disappeared...Correlation...causation? Didn't seem they had any more wisdom to argue about. And simultaneous with that was the rise of BaseFook as the main way of fucking off at work and other more hip ways since all rally guys are so right with the latest trends and latest gadgets.. The consumer mentality triumphed, and this place was not intended to be part of the Consumer Mentality so stagnation followed.. Now on BaseFook you get 160 posts on how cool is the handbrake lever for only $210.....and how we should "support those in the community"----selling 5X overpriced bullshit.... But they seem happy spending their money for shiny things..and doing 2 rallies per year for a couple or 4 years.. 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. |
john vanlandingham John Vanlandingham Godlike Moderator Location: Ford Asylum, Sleezattle, WA Join Date: 12/20/2005 Age: Fossilized Posts: 14,152 Rally Car: Saab 96 V4 |
Steve, as an example, within minutes of posting a comment about new stupid ideas thought up by some retards for expensive turbo pop off valves, one of the Calgary Clique shows up for a long detailed counter-say...
Not around for ages, (2 months) and within minutes of a comment, he's back blah blahing and justifying and his normal carefully selected phrasings... Bullshit. 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. Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2018 01:50AM by john vanlandingham. |
Not Trolling Keith Morison Elite Moderator Location: Calgary, AB Join Date: 09/15/2015 Age: Ancient Posts: 340 |
Sheer coincidence...
First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001) Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0) Driver (8), Co-Driver (47), Drivers (19) Clerk (29), Steward (1), Official (17), Volunteer (5) WRC Spectator (1), WRC Photographer (6), WRC Observer (4) Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11) Last Updated, May30, 2022 |
Not Trolling Keith Morison Elite Moderator Location: Calgary, AB Join Date: 09/15/2015 Age: Ancient Posts: 340 |
Facebook has taken a toll on many/most good web forums out there. It is easier, and likely has a broader 'reach' but at the cost of the information being relatively shallow, poorly presented, and difficult to both follow and retrieve at a later time. But ease of use and the ubiquitousness of the next MySpace is simply too attractive to the youngins today. (This is far from the only forum that is suffering.)
Of course posting shit, as seen here https://www.rallyanarchy.com/phorum/read.php?1,117250,117322#msg-117322, isn’t helping the forum’s cause that much. Add to that the trend for some to embrace and evangelize ill-informed rants and ignore the facts of a situation when presented - ‘cause I guess that just ain’t outrageous enough – and the waning of the forum’s popularity becomes less surprising. And... its a real shame. This place had some great discussions and good information that could be found between the piles. First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001) Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0) Driver (8), Co-Driver (47), Drivers (19) Clerk (29), Steward (1), Official (17), Volunteer (5) WRC Spectator (1), WRC Photographer (6), WRC Observer (4) Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11) Last Updated, May30, 2022 |
Pete Pete Remner Mega Moderator Location: Cleveland, Ohio Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 2,022 |
75% of stage rally in the US, so a properly represented microcosm. BTW - One of my friends texted me one of your rants against Torx or XZN or something. I had a hearty laugh. I loooove Torx and/or XZN, way more than Allen or those lowbrow EXTERNAL hex fasteners (yuugh! Who'd use one of those on purpose?) Pete Remner Cleveland, Ohio 1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing) 1978 Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver. Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2019 08:57PM by Pete. |
SteveL Steve Leitch Mega Moderator Location: Ocean Shores, Washington Join Date: 01/25/2009 Posts: 280 Rally Car: Can't decide which to use... |
There lays the problem. The wannabees that have no clue what they're reading, but it's the best thing they've heard about, so it must be truth. No son, you're an idiot, it's bullshit.
A young woman walked into me today as I stepped out of the greasiest old(built in 1930) shop because she didn't see me. She was busy bookfacing as I mentioned that the zombie apocalypse was upon us. She looked at me with a confused Pay-n-Pac stare, she had no idea what I was saying...
More intelligent discussion was posted here than anywhere else, you want quality info, you wont find it on bookface, or fookbase, or I'm a rally god and I know everything so you should spend $5K on Ohlins...For your Mk2 Golf... SteveL This is the point in the killing spree when you really should turn the gun on yourself |
Not Trolling Keith Morison Elite Moderator Location: Calgary, AB Join Date: 09/15/2015 Age: Ancient Posts: 340 |
You ain't wrong brotha! TESTIFY!! Up here we're starting to see a decline in entries, and while the root cause isn't clear we are also seeing more and more open awd cars being hauled in enclosed trailers and sporting sequential gearboxes and sitting on Reiger or Exe-tc suspenders... and I can't help but think that is part of it. First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001) Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0) Driver (8), Co-Driver (47), Drivers (19) Clerk (29), Steward (1), Official (17), Volunteer (5) WRC Spectator (1), WRC Photographer (6), WRC Observer (4) Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11) Last Updated, May30, 2022 |
Fulcrum Brad Senior Moderator Location: Woodstock Join Date: 01/03/2019 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 6 Rally Car: In progress |
From an outsider's perspective, I think CARS is their own worst enemy. Here's a few of my observations: 1a) Want to find competitor filmed stage videos of recent events? Either I'm looking in the wrong places or section 3.11 of the CARS GCR removes the legal ability of a competitor to upload in car footage, even though it was filmed by said competitor. 1b) CRC TV videos are well produced, but they seem to limit focus to the top 5 open AWD vehicles and the top 2 or 3 of the open 2WD. Granted they're only 25 minutes long so some cutting has to happen in order to fit that time window. Did I also mention that the commentator, though being very professional, is also very dry. 2) Rule changes that appear to be intended to reduce the costs of fielding a top producing vehicle yet wind up increasing costs because competitors are competitors and top level guys will find the next best thing to spend their money on. Rather than mandating restrictors and pop-off valves, how about a simple hard-cap on power and torque and let the competing teams decide how to achieve that end. It goes without saying that this could help reduce accusations of sole sourcing that have been thrown around lately. 3) Figure out a way to include trucks other than Mazda and Ford Rangers. Why should my truck be ruled out just because it's displacement is greater than 4000cc (this is the only rule that is stopping it)? Sure these trucks might run 400-500HP, but they're also 7000lbs+. 4) Unlike other motorsport disciplines, if you're not involved in the rally scene than there is a good chance that you may not have heard of rally before. CARS, along with local clubs, need to get out amongst the general public to introduce the sport to new people. New people means more rides and more rides mean more entries. Up until 2016, I was under the impression that Canadian rally was dead outside of TSD events. 5) The trailer "issue". I'm not sure if it was a CARS rule or a Tall Pines rule, but only enclosed trailers, and not flat decks, were allowed in the service park. I know I'm new here, but these are a few things that I have noticed. |
Not Trolling Keith Morison Elite Moderator Location: Calgary, AB Join Date: 09/15/2015 Age: Ancient Posts: 340 |
Make sure you reach out to your region director and/or the Competitor Rep and/or President. They are ALL open to hearing feedback. I thought I'd add the rule itself for clarity. They are talking about Commercial rights, which would typically be third party licensing or use in advertising or broadcast programming. A driver posting their in-car online would definitely not run afoul of this, in fact CARS sells packages of stage-side footage shot by the TV Production crew - who are quite literally some of the best in the world at this - basically for the cost of editing out the clips and assembling them. This was with the idea that teams could build their own promotional videos using that footage. In short, this isn't the restriction you think it is. A decade ago you'd basically have to crash in front of a camera to get any 2wd car on the show, so things are kind of getting better. The sad reality is that over the entire championship, P4wd and P2wd are poorly subscribed classes which means the stories to be told are few and far between. Could it be better... sure, but right now it is about careful allocation of limited resources while still telling a good story. Not an easy balance. I'd love to hear more about a simple hard-cap on power and torque. Lets say you limit open awd to 300whp/400ft lbs. - How do you enforce that at an event? - Is the power at sea level, or at the event's altitude? (and then at the highest elevation of the event, the lowest elevation, or at service park) - How do you prevent a dieselgate situation where the car is tested on one map and is on stage with another map? We had Group 5 for a decade or more that would have allowed 5l engines (more if pushrod, I think) and we had few takers. RallyWest hung on to Group5 for several years after it was taken out of the national rule set, mostly because a bunch of merkurs and volvos were 'just about ready for the stages'... that never came out. Unless you want to win a national championship with the truck, again talk with your events and region about ways to be included. Agreed, more promotion is important - but really falls down to the 'local' level if it is going to be done well. Not only will the club be the first and biggest benefactor of increased participation, but they also have the closest ties to the local 'scene.' Typically, the problem is finding volunteers who can take on promotional efforts, and/or being cautious of creating more attention than can be handled by the event's infrastructure. Every event will have its own way to handle service parks, and usually it is about balancing the amount of space needed with the space available. When I'm organising, I tend to give a standard service spot size (20x40') and don't really care what you put in there, but it often comes down to choosing your truck or your trailer as both would be a tight fit. (800 sqft is more accurate, as we have an interlocking 'L" shape we use for teams with longer enclosed trailers that allows them 40' of space for the trailer and a 20x20 space to service from... when service park space is tight.) Like pines, we also charge for oversize spots, so if you want 60x20' space to service a single car, it'll cost you. Some good thoughts! First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001) Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0) Driver (8), Co-Driver (47), Drivers (19) Clerk (29), Steward (1), Official (17), Volunteer (5) WRC Spectator (1), WRC Photographer (6), WRC Observer (4) Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11) Last Updated, May30, 2022 |
ElectroTech Steve Wheeler Mod Moderator Location: Fork Lake, Alberta Join Date: 06/09/2015 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 336 Rally Car: 1992 Golf |
Keith it’s plain and simple, between the guys you say are pricing themselves out of the sport and the ones you are actively pricing out of the sport I can’t see why you don’t see the root cause. Cut the entry fees in half and let RallySafe be a checkbox with a defined price on the entry. You did send me the cost breakdown of one of the premier events and the fucking banquet alone would make Trudeau blush. Christ man if you can’t see it for what it is then no wonder you cannot seem to correlate the actions you and yours are taking to push low/no budget people away and doing nothing at all to discourage the crazy spending you see young guys who are obviously financing everything they do to their cars. It sickens me as a person building a car to have seen prices increase as much as they have and for what? This bullshit figure for the county road maintenance due to a Rally just exemplifies how city folks don’t know fuck all about the actual costs of things, when you pay for every little aspect of your lives without ever saying Jesus man, this ain’t rocket appliances.... Power means nothing if you cannot control it! |
Not Trolling Keith Morison Elite Moderator Location: Calgary, AB Join Date: 09/15/2015 Age: Ancient Posts: 340 |
Well, I'm not saying anyone is pricing themselves out of the sport. They guys spending coin on Reiger or EXE-tc, sequentials, and enclosed trailers aren't complaining, and they are showing up at events. The problem is that when people come and look at the sport they figure they have to drop that sort of coin just to get started... and run away scared. We tried that at Kananaskis a couple years ago, and promoted it aggressively, and the entry was actually lower than the years either side of it. I fully agree. Banquet costs are significant, but are really one of the few ways we show appreciation to our volunteers. As either the organiser or as a competitor I rarely eat at banquets, but the 'culture' right now is that banquets are a part of what we do. The biggest increases I've seen have come from volunteer associated costs. RMR and Big White have HUGE bills for volunteer accommodations. In fact, this year's Big White ran a schedule that was designed specifically to use fewer volunteers and we turned away several people who wanted to come out. (Even so, Big White's volunteer costs worked out to being around $700 per entry this year with Rocky being about $540 per entry.) I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I've never budgeted for 'road maintenance' for any of the events, in part because in true socialist fashion, the region has built a 'road damage fund' to guard against any unexpected road repair costs an event might face. That said, in the 18 years I've been involved, I don't think we've ever had to pay for any road damage at all. However, Tall Pines regularly faces road repair fees in the high 4 figures. Big White budgets for snow clearing, which we don't always see a bill for but we budget what we've been billed in the past. (which is a fraction of the hours spent.) Last year we contracted a guy to clear ~10km of road for an additional stage and that cost us as much as Big White clearing 40km of road for us. We've had years where we've only cleared a few km of road for Big White, other years we've cleared 60 km of road. In the end, I stress about the cost of events and you might not think so but I do everything I think I reasonably can to keep costs down. (understand that I'm one person on a committee, don't have final say on everything, and am ultimately accountable to the organising club and its members.) Contrary to what some might think, I'm not making money by putting on events or through using RallySafe... in fact they both cost me a bit out of pocket. I'm always open to frank discussions about event costs and finances, as long as the discussion is fact based and civil. First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001) Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0) Driver (8), Co-Driver (47), Drivers (19) Clerk (29), Steward (1), Official (17), Volunteer (5) WRC Spectator (1), WRC Photographer (6), WRC Observer (4) Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11) Last Updated, May30, 2022 |
ElectroTech Steve Wheeler Mod Moderator Location: Fork Lake, Alberta Join Date: 06/09/2015 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 336 Rally Car: 1992 Golf |
Thanks for the excellent responses.
If BW iand RMR costing that much for volunteers it seems that even though they are the premier events that it is unsustainable. What is driving that cost? Kelowna is a fair size city, seems that some volunteer based organization should be jumping at the chance to get a sizeable donation, and in time move from just covering the auxiliary roles to taking on primary responsibilities as they get experience. As for Kananaskis I believe at the time a lot of that was chalked up to timing and the stars aligning against it. Perhaps what really needs to happen is a pragmatic view on where the competitor base is and what needs to happen to better regionalize/shrink/split or whatever so that there are more events closer together. Depends on what the end goal has been and perhaps it needs to be addressed on a fundamental level. There’s so many lurkers, with cars that have been on stage, or are really close, if you had 6 events within 3hrs of Calgary/Edmonton I think there would be an influx. It’s hard enough to plan a family trip to the Okanagan for a week, let alone fuck off there, spend $5k for a weekend, Jesus you realize what $5k buys for a weekend in Vegas?? So I see kind of a thing there where the Okanagan has damn near enough of its own teams, and Alberta kind of the same, but stringing it out like it is strains resources on all fronts, competitor and volunteer. We need a prairie rally, red deer area, med hat, etc, hell Ive identified roads up here that could support at minimum a kick ass Rally Sprint, and within the snowmobile, ATV and hunting clubs, along with sports leagues, volunteer fire departments etc there are a lot of volunteer resources that could be approached. Changed jobs, I’m out of Camp and have a 4day work week now, hoping to help out more, maybe not directly but if there’s a lead to chase or roads to identify or some resource needed we need to get on it. If we get every team that is near, has been or is stage ready and give them 5-6 events within a mountain range or 2 this thing might grow some legs. Need to have the ratio of travel and transit to stage miles a lot higher, 10:1 is just too high, 5:1 would get some meerkats poking their heads up..... Power means nothing if you cannot control it! |
Not Trolling Keith Morison Elite Moderator Location: Calgary, AB Join Date: 09/15/2015 Age: Ancient Posts: 340 |
Happy to have good discussions. Without finding sponsorship, something has to change for sure. More local volunteers would help RMR, and is something we're working on, but that also takes some investment in recruitment and the Columbia Valley isn't that densely populated. For both events, the majority of volunteer expense is accomodations, lunches, and meals. None of the volunteers get gas money or any expenses related to getting TO the events. But where does the sizeable donation come from? In Big White's case, we basically need the volunteers to stay on the hill Saturday night as a minimum because of the time they are done and the time we need them again the next morning... so the accommodations cost wouldn't go away without forcing a two-hour commute on the volunteers. There was some of that, but we also heard that the 'one day' event, with recce before the stages, put people off. In fact, more of that than the other. (And before anyone suggests it, a blind event just isn't in the cards here.) That sort of reflection and outreach is always important, and we're probably overdue for that. But, before you advocate more events with a smaller reach for competitors... start looking for organisers and 'senior' volunteers. Ontario is starting up a rallysprint series of 3 events this year, and it looks like it is getting some traction. Maybe we need that stepping stone, but I've always thought that a test day has so many advantages over sprints that I've always put my energy into making those happen. You won't win a cheap piece of plastic and wood, but we've seen people get 100km+ of stage mileage in one day while also testing set-ups, co-drivers, lines, etc. Watching people learn as they swap notes, co-drivers, take other drivers out to get feedback, and so-on is a lot of fun. Calgary puts on three test days a year at a minimum. As I said above, the feedback we got from the 'one day' Kananaskis was generally 'if I'm packing up the car and going to an event, I'd just as soon do that for two days once, than one day twice. That was from across the spectrum, not just one end. If we need that, then we need someone to make that happen. Talk to ERC and see if they're interested. See last sentence above. You'd think so, but Baie is about 45:1 from Calgary and most people love going to that event when they can. (It's a long haul even for the 'local' teams.) Events like Perce Neige, Defi, or any of the Ontario Championship events are struggling and they are all 3 hrs-ish from major centres. CXE the same, with their events below 3:1 as a rule. (but 200km of stage, and spec tires/fuel) I'm not saying that more events, closer isn't a good answer... I'm just skeptical. First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001) Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0) Driver (8), Co-Driver (47), Drivers (19) Clerk (29), Steward (1), Official (17), Volunteer (5) WRC Spectator (1), WRC Photographer (6), WRC Observer (4) Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11) Last Updated, May30, 2022 |
ElectroTech Steve Wheeler Mod Moderator Location: Fork Lake, Alberta Join Date: 06/09/2015 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 336 Rally Car: 1992 Golf |
So what existing volunteer groups have been approached in the Columbia Valley? As for a donation, I’d say 1/3 or hat is currently spent on a accommodations would have most organizations jumping at the chance, considering that many of their fundraisers bring in maybe $1000 at a time, bottle drives, dances, bake sales and the likes.
I’d agree, most people like to make a weekend out of things. Travel Friday, home Sunday night type of thing. Not overlapping with other events in the PNW for those that don’t mind yuuuge drives. Seems CSCC and ERC don’t really march to the same drum, I know their are lots of members of ERC involved in stage Rally but it doesn’t appear to be a big thing on the organizations part. As for analyzing what’s going on in Ontario, they voted for Mr.Socks so who fucking cares. Chasing affordability and overcoming the “big show” mentality need to be at the forefront, hard to get a bunch of sponsorship with the size of the fields and I think it comes down to travel, if not the fact that someone in Edmonton, who is slightly interested in stage Rally, might wander on to the CARS site and see a few events, spread right across the country, and even the “local” ones being 13h away might not go any deeper. I know John harps on the over the sea scene, and whilst maybe some of the perceptions of the why are suspect, the plain idea behind their tiny regions, and packed entry lists is clear to me. Look at the SSRA, a few years ago it was almost done, and here they are now with $50k payouts on the weekends, but those guys don’t have to drive 13hrs, not even close and if you want to spend money, lol, try building a 700hp snowmobile. Power means nothing if you cannot control it! |
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