I honestly love GRC (and WRX). Its definitely not perfect, I think some things like the jumps don't really add much and are just there to attract the monster truck crowd, but overall its a blast. I love the temporary parking lot circuits they make, unlike a traditional circuit, from the grandstands the fans can actually see like 90% of the circuit. Doesn't make a difference to people watching at home on TV, but when you are there in person it is awesome that the cars never go out of view. I've attended 6 GRC weekends (as well as 1 WRX weekend), everyone in attendance seems to be enjoying themselves and get pretty into the races, however they are all very casual fans that often have never even seen GRC on TV, doesn't seem like many hardcore motorsport fans attend either. And anytime i've talked to people at other races (i attend races of all forms of motorsport short track, road course, dirt tracks, NASCAR, Indy, etc...), most people still have never heard of rallycross, or at best have maybe heard of the series, but have still never watched it.
I was at Dallas, the racing was great, car counts in supercars were a little rough, though I have heard that Subaru will be back in July. If them taking off time means they will be more competitive then i'm all for it. That team was terrible last year....
I like seeing the 10 car final, however, seeing the meaningless LCQ where all cars qualify for the main event is kinda annoying. If they can't get their car counts up a bit maybe the series would be better off going to a format closer to WRX, starting less cars in the final. They nearly had a 9 car field in the final, Brian Deegans car caught on fire during warm ups and did miss the semi finals, but they managed to get the car out there for the LCQ and final.
Any idea how long Red Bull has signed on to be the title sponsor ?
I imagine they are the biggest part of the NBC TV deal the series has.
I guess if the series loses Red Bull, then the series is in big trouble, but if Red Bull stays on, the series will probably continue for a while?
Quote:
Originally Posted by USRallycross
Now I know GRC doesn't have many fans on here but I had really hoped that this would see rallycross break into the US. I am currently watching the Dallas round where there are just 10 Supercars.......Mind you this is on NBC the equivalent of BBC or ITV in the UK not on some crappy small channel and in prime sports time on a Saturday afternoon.
But with this level of entry it's not much of a show for the TV audience and it's a 90 minute show. It's not what we imagined when we came up with all this not so many years ago.
So is this the last year or can anything be done to save the series?
No point debating the real courses vs. car park courses because reality in the US is that car park courses are do-able and promoters will fund their creation. Most road courses here are as full of themselves as Mr. Palmer and won't let anyone mess up their precious grass.
With so few cars thankfully the contact has reduced a lot this year and I do think driving standards led to a lot of people pulling out. When I explored entering a two car team as a 'junior' team of the one of the established teams the budget for repairs was crazy but I knew it to be real from what we saw with the Best Buy cars - and we had little damage compared to most (David always crashed the Amex or eBay cars!)
The biggest error IMHO was pushing away the privateers like Morro and Verdier. They needed 10-14 'real' super cars and then another 10-14 'clubman' super cars. We were getting there in the first year at NJMP and then in the first full year but then people saw $ signs and required stupid manufacturer entrant fees and downhill it went.
Add to that them killing the 2WD class and what had been looking like a promising start to establish rallycross in the US lost momentum after just three years and now 5-6 years on looks like it is on its deathbed.
Even Subaru (Vermont Sportscar) are choosing to run Rally America with no TV coverage whatsoever vs. running GRC with all its TV coverage.
Others have better insights now since I stepped out of the sport but I still believe it can be something.
Thoughts?
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