caught the highlights from the last WRC round (Rally de France) on TV last night. At the finishing ceremony when the winners pots were handed out Im not joking there as considerably less people there than there were at the finish ceremony for Solway Historic last year. One is a World Championship round of Stage Rallying the other a clubman historic road rally held in NW Cumbria.... And having seen the footage I can see why no one was interested in the supposed top echelon of the sport. Yes theyre going very quickly but whats the point if every car takes similar lines and sounds like Jabba the Huts farts? The governing bodies will point many a finger at economics, cultural changes, the internet, The loch ness monster in fact anything rather than themselves as to the reason for ongoing demise of certain areas of rallying but the fact is at a lower level Road/Targa/Stage rallying is doing extremely well with entries full and new blood coming to the sport. There seems to be some sort of inverse square law that the higher up the event in terms of championship etc the less varied the driving, the less exciting the cars and in general the spectacle at all. By the time I was even born the sport had moved on from rear wheel drive and screaming normally aspirated engines. But when I think of what I define as the pinnacle spectacle of the sport its something (not necessarily an escort and not necessarily rear wheel drive!) going sideways with its bum on the deck, its nose in the air and howling a distinctive noise of its engine layout through the forests or on the rural roads. I dont know what the answer is but Im pretty sure trying to massively restrict what can come out to play at all levels especially at higher up isnt helping.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 10:32:10 +0000
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