Where can I go off at. Okay, here.

I have been really annoyed lately with rally. The continuously changing rules. The skyrocketing costs. Etc. No fucking wonder events are getting such piss poor turn out. Combine massive entry fees with huge gas costs and rising everything else and it’s going to happen. There needs to be a change to the way rally is going. Shit, in 2008, you’ll have to invest $3000 just in seats and head restraints for your car. There isn’t a single car for sale that I know of for under $15K that meets all new rules for 2007. Of course some that don’t are grandfathered in (thinking of the 1.75” main cage elements here), but so were bolt in cages for a few years. I suppose here in Colorado we are in a little better shape as we control our own build rules for the hill climb series. But we are getting more and more drivers that are building rally cars with no intention of racing a Rally America or NASA rally event. There are 12 Colorado drivers entered for Cog. There are currently about 25 active and built rally cars in Colorado. Mike Whitman with his Group A Escort Cosworth is skipping Cog due to the ridiculous helmet protector protector fuel cell bulkhead rule. Nevermind that multi-thousand dollar Group A cell you have there Mike, you need to some sheet metal over it and make sure it’s sealed. I am in search of a large capacity (like 25-30 gallon) fuel cell outer shell to put my mail 15 gallon fuel cell inside of. Then it’ll be a true Gary Busey helmet protector protector fuel cell protector. That sweet $750 helmet. Yeah, you need to spend another $900 to make it fit SFI 38.3.49.’brought to you by Schroth’.17.2008, now required by every racing body in the country, whose professional series _________ is brought to you this year by the fine people at Hans. Saving lives while emptying pocketbooks.
So, enough of the ranting. What is the solution. Club level. There will never be sustenance at this level of racing. Get rid of the Novice rules all together. Make every driver at the regional level compete in naturally aspirated group 2 cars. If you want to be big and cool, and you can finance it, be it a trust fund, a motocross superstar, or a rich business owner you can run the full National series. Then you can run turbo AWD and have an insane $200K Subaru. Make those guys pay huge entry fees. Make them subsidize the costs for the little guys. Because right now they are being catered to and rally is dying. Some will say, no, rally is thriving. But it’s not. Entry fees are at an all time high. No one can afford to tow to any event because of gas costs. The world economy thinks the US dollar is crap and thus the exchange rate is crap leading to increase costs of helmets, seats, suits, intercoms, wheels, suspension, etc.
The other solution, and one my anarcho-punk rock youth likes, is the dangerous one. Say fuck you to sanctioning bodies. We will start our own sanctioning body. We’ll base the entry fee on bhp and wheels driven. Oh, you have 300 hp and AWD. Sweet, entry fee is $3000. You have a 90 hp Civic. Okay, $200. Anyhow, that was my rant of the day. And we really won’t start our own body. Who would ever be that insane.

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Grant Hughes

NoCoast Wrote:
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> The other solution, and one my anarcho-punk rock
> youth likes, is the dangerous one. Say fuck you
> to sanctioning bodies. We will start our own
> sanctioning body.

Maybe I'm a moron or just really new to this whole scene, but I wasn't halfway through your first paragraph before I was wondering why something like this hasn't already been created. Go figure.

Create the Advanced North American Rally Club - Hell Yeah! (A.N.A.R.C.H.Y.) Limit cars to being naturally aspirated, front wheel drive 2.0L models. This would provide a wide field of rides to pick and choose from the local Craigslist page. Assuming you could source a ride for under $3k, dropping another $4-$5k on safety, suspension, and brakes wouldn't be such a bad idea. Furthermore, these cars are generally lighter and would be less expensive to drag out to events.

Then start building the series by focusing on having a larger number of simple, single day events. Even model them after autoX, but talk to sports arenas and state/county fair grounds about renting out enclosed areas to run spectator stages. People might not pay as much to watch smaller rally cars tear it up as they would the monster trucks, but certainly more than they would for demolition derby. By having spectators share in the cost of the event, entry fees could be reduced (not to mention bringing rally to the people). There could be a variety of different events to keep people interested - a spectator stage in Arizona, a shorter stage rally in New Mexico, and a hill climb in Colorado. Invade any and every autoX event and assassinate anything orange and pointy just to make a point. Every car sports a jolly roger, the skull and crossbones, to give the group renegade feel. Who cares how small or under-powered these cars might be? We'd be out there bringing rally to the people and having fun doing it. The more people are into rally, the less we each have to pay.

Then again, pay no mind to me. I tend to get excited over the silliest ideas, but they get so lonely rolling around up in the giant gourd upon my shoulders, so I have to let them out to play from time to time.

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

The insurance issue never goes away though. The problem with what I really want to do is that like a true American I live in a culture of fear. Shit, even our trip to S. America idea has no rules or organization for fear of litigation if someone decided to do it and got hurt or worse.

I don't think there is a solution.

Except for to fucking move. Mexico's rally calendar isn't bad. Rally Guadalajara has like 160-170 stage miles over 3 days for like $250 entry fee.

Italy has always been attractive to me, though maybe a bit too much tarmac.

Finland is still the ultimate.

If I was one of the three moneybags in US rally I guarantee I wouldn't be in US rally. BRC, Asia Pacific, Finland Group F, etc. There are so many better places. But I suppose then you can't feel like a superstar in your own homeland and really that's what it comes down to. And now, I'm going home to go take a nap before working on someone elses rally car while mine sits neglected.

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Grant Hughes

As I can only speak as an outsider to the rally scene- but over the last few years of watching and learning, I can agree with everything said ... and its these posts that make me wonder if I'm getting into this a little too late

or maybe I'll just keep on my current track (2wd, 2liter) and hope the scence comes back to meet me in the end

but something has got me thinking - what about monster truck events? They are al over the country with tons of dirt. Anyone ever thought to have a SS type rallyX event during one of those? could be a nice way of introducing large numbers of spectators to a rally type setting .. a la X games

But again that still does nothing for stage rally

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-Jason



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2006 08:37PM by mack73.

Sure is f-ing expensive! I've only been able to do one rally this year. And I'm going to have to scrape bottom and call on some favors so I can even run my hom event in a month!

My personal solution:
I downloaded a 10 cd how to learn german cd set.
Go back to school fall 2008 for 2 more years to get my bachelors.
Get a frikken job that pays decent, in germany.
Rally a ton!
Die.

Yeah I hear you Grant, I feel the same way, especially for a long-haul car build it's difficult having a continuously moving target. I remember how I was ridiculed on SS for not "getting it" when the fuel cell bulkhead rule came around, gosh I guess I'm not the only one. Between all the usual heaps of bullshit from the SCCA/NASA/etc "experts" and the threats against my family on this board I needed to step away for a while and focus on other things. Whatever, if it's just me doing figure 8's in a gravel parking lot with some cones I'll be happy enough for now. Hope the club scene is better in Canada.

Skye

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www.rallyrace.net

Exactly why I prefer rallycross...:

- No rollcage requirement
- No sillysuit requirement
- No FUCKING HANS requirement
- $35 entry fees
- Spectate, work, and run - all in the same day
- Only a 4 hour drive to event, so it's an all-in-one-day thing
- At least one event per month, sometimes two or three, instead of that many local-ish events per year
- Restrictors? What restrictors?
- HP doesn't matter anyway, 150 is as good as 400, you will NOT put it to the ground
- That means you're always sliding and stuff even on the "straights"
- The closest thing to a "Rules Nazi" is the guy telling you that you can't have beer until AFTER the awards ceremony

Downside: Only 5-10 "stage miles" per event.


I might be persuaded to want to run C1 events... if they existed... and there were enough of them to form a SERIES instead of once-a-year. Otherwise, the INVESTMENT in all of that safety gear is ridiculous. Five, six thousand bucks to run one or two events a year, and it needs required periodic replacement? Just because? NO WAY.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

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

Good points Pete... what's a C1 event?

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www.rallyrace.net

Coefficient 1. A wee rally, over 10 miles but under 30, minimum two stages.

Not some huge multi-day monstrosity requiring avalanches of work and money to accomplish. Hell, I've done TSDs much longer than that.

One other thing I forgot about the RallyX's... it's funny to watch the no-weight 2WD things annihilate the hell out of the big heavy things with the AWD and the turbo torque and such.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2006 08:42PM by Pete.

And I thought you meant going off as in going off the road on a stage.

You really don't want me to start on this. Sometimes I feel like I am rowing against the current trying to rally herer in the US. I swear it was easier to establish things in the old country, where Ductape was precious commodity, tyewraps were saved and reused and people rallied on reskinned smow tyres.

Here we have everything + too many insurance assholes and lawyers.

Nevertheless you will not see me quit any time soon.

---

Cheers
M.Samli
Phoenix AZ
Gaylant VR4
EVO III GSR (Stolen)


Rallies are no place for traitors

sagsert Wrote:
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> Nevertheless you will not see me quit any time
> soon.

Me neither. I just get annoyed and frustrated. I'm sure 40 hours a week, full time grad school, and teaching a class don't help either. BY the end of the week I am beat and frustrated and easily annoyed. Nothing a day of laying in bed with a hot half asian, followed by a little drinking, followed by some rally testing (PS bad tires = good/scary spins), followed by some fashion show, and getting to play with a sweet new HD video camera really helped me feel better.

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Grant Hughes

NoCoast Wrote:
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> a hot half asian,

Is the other half cold or something?

I don't intend to give up either. Even if all I can afford to do is go out to the desert and chase the kiddies on their ATVs with the Galant. I'm doing this.

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

No, I think the other half is Spanish or something, and just as hot.

Here's how safe I am. So we were testing on this new course that has a huge amount of elevation change. There was this sweet crest that went into a super steep downhill, then back up even steeper, then an over crest, slightly off camber sweeping right. So Mark had a high speed spin at the off camber and slid sideways well off the road. So about ten minutes later we're filming that corner. I went and stood in the track where his wheel had stopped when he went off earlier in the day. The coolest part of the whole day though was that for both rally testing and going to watch the aforementioned hot half asian modeling I was filming everything in wonderful HD quality video with Mitch's new Sony HDR-FX1 high definition camcorder. The camera is awesome.

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Grant Hughes

NoCoast Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No, I think the other half is Spanish or
> something, and just as hot.
> going to watch the
> aforementioned hot half asian modeling I was
> filming everything in wonderful HD quality video
> with Mitch's new Sony HDR-FX1 high definition
> camcorder. The camera is awesome.
>
> Grant Hughes
> www.nocoastmotorsports.net


Grant, you fuckin lout, put videos up or we'll all smack you!





> Denver, CO

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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.

Mitch failed to listen to the point I made about the fact that he needs $850 in software and some upgrades to his computer to be able to edit it. Or by a $5G Mac Pro.

My computer could do it with about $200 in upgrades, but, there's a Tig welder coming next week and I have a whaletail and genuine arches just waiting for me to get a ride down to pick them up, so things like computer desks and upgrades and new clothes and a calculator have to wait.

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Grant Hughes