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Driving standard were not at all terrible in the older days. The standard was a little different. You could easily afford a Group B car, or if you couldn't a Division 1 car, it was more affordable, meaning guys who were not necessarily amazing could drive them. So you got rich guys like Schie, Wiklund, Iversen out there with the aliens like Gollop, Schanche and Alamaki. You had amazing classes, something rallycross has not grasped for decades for some unfathomable reason!!
Modern cars are great, the drivers are too.
The tracks are garbage, I understand what IMG are doing, going to bigger areas, but there are so many odd things.
Why 2 events in Germany, why a world championship when it clearly is not one, why have different classes racing every meeting.
These are odd decisions.
The racing for me is worse now, far more contact, far more desperation. Even in the 90's this was apparent, guys like Hunsbedt, Eklund, Sallstrom bought in contact to be necessary not avoidable, and it has continued, while Hansen kept winning without burying everyone.
Hype is the ONLY reason WRX is working, same as Project Cars as a racing game, the similarities are so clear. It is Emporers new clothes, which is fine for now but look under the dress, same teams, same people really.
Hype buys PR, buys budgets.
You could spend the same budget on a lot of other sports and do the same thing is my point.
But sooner or later some are going to realise it's going away from them. BUT IMG are clever, they know there is no credible alternative and would squash a rival ERC series no doubt so have got privateers by the balls, they do less ERX rounds to make it seem viable, yet you get no coverage and no real benefit of being there other than "being there"
It is working for now, and for that it's great. But it isn't rallycross, not as I see it, and I am not at all alone.
It the Playstation, drifting, monster and Red Bull generations that love it now. So disenfranchised are they by F1, WEC, circuit racing, WRC they have discovered rallycross, and that's great. I juts wish the guardoians of our sport had not sold their soul completely. That is great, but it is not me
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