Oh boy these women. At least they have good taste. He's a good guy as are we.

 

i think it's because Loeb is an ex-gymnast with a french accent. you're right though, at least they have good taste. it'd be a lot harder to accept the same sort of feelings towards Dale Earnhardt Junior...

 

(hahhahaha) you got that right.

 

RALLY MEXICO:
Damn just looked the place up on the map, WTF is there in the center of mexico? could have had it run along the coast and 400 miles north. oh well, I guess I wont be going

 

i haven't checked a map, but i'm guessing that there are pretty good reasons for the rally being run in central mexico. running it in the north, or near Baja would have been nice for all of us here in the US, but it would place it in a position to maybe compete with the Baja 500 races. i'm also guessing that they needed someplace very central and relatively safe for the service parks.

 

I was just reading a shot article about the death if Mark Lovell and they were talking about the safety of rally in the SCCA pro rally -vs- WRC rules. It looks like next year the WRC will be making major money cut backs here and there and one of the most important areas they'll be cutting is in the pace note studies. right now the teams go over each corse at there own pace and write out detailed notes about the route and what they'll be dealing with. next year there study time will be cut in half. Making it far more dangerous for the teams.

 

it's still better than the SCCA which generates pace notes using a computer application and hands out the same notes to each team.

i'm not so sure it'll reduce the safety of the events, the WRC drivers are intelligent fellows. admittedly, their job is to go as fast over the special stages as possible while finishing the rally. if they think that their notes aren't detailed enough to drive 110%, they'll back it off.

 

With the announcements of financial hardships, resulting cutbacks and a lull in factory involvement - would anybody like to take a stab at the "health" of my favorite form of motorsports: FIA WRC?

I got into the game late (just started watching since I purchased my Subaru last year) and I would hate to see this visceral thrash through the wild we call WRC fall by the wayside so soon after I finally appreciated it...

Hopefully I'm not pulling a "Chicken Little" here. "The sky is falling..."
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If i understand you correctly, you thnks this is the end of WRC. What are you talking about? Almost every sport or business in the world is trying to find ways of making cut-backs. It really doesn't mean a thing (unless you're Toyota, who i still can't believe they pulled out 2 years ago). Besides the sponsers i don't know how the WRC generates money. I guess it's in auto sales.

 

the WRC is based on the philosophy of "race on sunday, sell on monday." in this case, it's more "race friday, saturday and sunday and then sell them on monday." the other way that WRC generates money, is through the sales of broadcast rights, much like F1.

pretty much every form of motor racing is trying to find some way of cutting costs these days. there are new rules going into place in F1, where the teams have budgets larger than most nation-states, that are aimed at reducing the costs of racing. WRC is no differant, and i don't think that the reduced recce time will hurt the level of competition.

i really think that the rule changes were made to cut costs in some areas, so that the teams could run two more rallies (Japan and Mexico) on a budget almost identical to their current one.

the WRC is most definitely not dying right now.

 

I was just over in the Northwest forum scanning around and they had alittle thread about RALLY on SPEED channel. They claim that there isn't enough fans of the sport to keep airing them. They would like everyone who enjoys the sport to please write SPEED to ask for them to keep it.

I really hope this isn't true. They probably need more slots fr nascar

 

there was another thread on this board about the issue -- i personally sent them a letter. nascar...

 

I'm going to e-mail thm today about it.

 

*phew*

I have sent e-mails to Speed re: the SCCA Pro Rally and WRC programs being my favorite on TV. I told them their coverage (and the ads from Subaru) in part at least, influenced my decision to pick up my WRX when I did, which is true.

I just don't understand how NASCAR has such a stranglehold on our viewing public with money getting thrown at it from every corner of the union while Americans can't be STRAPPED to a chair to watch F1 or WRC.

I am glad that the FIA is taking steps to make the series more available to manufacturers. With Toyota and Mitsubishi bowing out (if even only temporarily) and Hyundai participating with a limited budget that keeps them from really even being "players" in the game in the recent past it would appear to a WRC n00b such as myself that these are not the heyday years of the sport at first glance.

I'm glad I'm mistaken.
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Originally posted by IS2Scooby
I have sent e-mails to Speed re: the SCCA Pro Rally and WRC programs being my favorite on TV. I told them their coverage (and the ads from Subaru) in part at least, influenced my decision to pick up my WRX when I did, which is true.
Excellent strategy - appeal to Speed's marketing side.

I just don't understand how NASCAR has such a stranglehold on our viewing public with money getting thrown at it from every corner of the union while Americans can't be STRAPPED to a chair to watch F1 or WRC.
Lowest common denominator theory. Appeals to the type of person who watches NASCAR to see cars go into the wall and thinks the half-dozen rolling restarts are a continuation of the same race. I don't think there's anything too strange about the person who watches NASCAR, CART, IRL, and F1, but it's unfathomable to me how someone can watch NASCAR and only NASCAR.

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