Winter Rallycross?

[rallycrosscraig]

Bring back some televised Rallycross in the mud and snow.

When my dad was competing in Castrol Rallycross in the 70's there was plenty of events in winter - and it looked great on TV cars struggling against the conditions.

[The Dozer]

You should come to Mondello Park on a beautifull november day and you can have snow,rain,glorious sunshine all on the day if your lucky

[The Count]

Originally Posted by rallycrosscraig

Bring back some televised Rallycross in the mud and snow.

When my dad was competing in Castrol Rallycross in the 70's there was plenty of events in winter - and it looked great on TV cars struggling against the conditions.

Not quite as simple as that I'm afraid!

TV costs if you could get anyone to film it and find a suitable slot, budgets spent, circuit allocations to find etc

I often look back with rose tinted glasses and remember the halcyon days of live rallycross on TV at Croft, Cadwell and Lydden on World of Sport and Grandstand, but alas times move on and never to be repeated, sadly.

[Mad Mark Watson]

Originally Posted by The Dozer

You should come to Mondello Park on a beautifull november day and you can have snow,rain,glorious sunshine all on the day if your lucky

ferries have doubled in price though been quoted £500 return for holyhead dublin van and trailer

[The Count]

Originally Posted by Mad Mark Watson

ferries have doubled in price though been quoted £500 return for holyhead dublin van and trailer

Try eith Billy Nutt at Nutt Travel or Craig Thorley at JustFerries, both motorsport competitors who might be able to offer deals on ferry travel

[leonidas]

Actually rallycross is cheap to cover on TV compared to most outdoor sports. The problem is that the sport doesn't have a serious public profile or any glamorous Wimbledon/Grand National type events to showcase it.

About the only thing you might have a chance with would be a Top Gear / 'Celebrity Strictly Rallycross' sort of thing... and from there you might make progress...

BBC Sport is in trouble - its lost all its horseracing and even darts and snooker are going elsewhere. Its winter schedule is very thin. But you've got to have something worth selling to them first.

[dougcross70's]

The golden days of Rallycross on Mainstream TV are now long gone, the days of flying Hillman Imps and jumping minis are the golden days of the sport. A couple of years ago I wrote to one or two sport programme controllers for the various channels and one comment that came back from a controller of sport who worked on the ITV World of Sport Rallycross rounds was "sorry but Rallycross is stuck in the mud as far as TV coverage is concerned and will always be so" that was pre diggy and Sky days but the lack of interest by TV sports planners is one problem. Another problem is most broadcasters no longer have own OB fleet to experiment with Rallycross and give it full blown coverage as per 1966-1972 mega coverage, they all now hire TV OB gear which is not cheap and only rolls out for F1, Touring Cars or Super Bikes, so sticking point there as well. The sport needs personalities, see the way the Bradley Wiggins effect has lifted cycling and TV cycle racing coverage to a bigger tv audience, Rallycross needs a wigo or two. Now if Prince William rolled onto the grid in the Suzuki Swifts then you would have full OB kit and be on the box live every weekend, but that my friends is pure pipe dream as is winter afternoon Rallycross back on the box, it costs too much compared to an old TV movie which is what the planners want to show (see Beeb Sport and ITV Sport on a Saturday afternoon, there isn't any) Rallycross on TV on Saturday afternoon who knows perhaps no sport Beeb might rediscover us, we all live in hope but not too much hope I think..

[The Count]

Originally Posted by dougcross70's

Rallycross on TV on Saturday afternoon who knows perhaps no sport Beeb might rediscover us, we all live in hope but not too much hope I think..

You're right, Doug, it's not going to happen - or at least not just YET. The sport as a spectacle has all the required TV attributes but suffers due to a number of factors.

There has been precious little continuity, constantly changing structuring and non-existant marketing, enthusiastic organisers who are mainly competitors, all of which confuses me as a motorsport professional, so god knows what it does to a prospective Head of Sport or general man in the street.

For example, what's the difference between Division 1 or SuperCar, SuperModified or SuperNational, Stock Hatch or Hot Hatch, Division 1A or S1600 and where does a Touring Car class fit in? ERC, BRC, GRC, XGames, Open (no longer I admit), Clubmans etc.

A question I get often asked is why are no 6R4s or other Group A/B cars allowed in modern rallycross, yet Ford Escorts and a 20 year old Peugeot 306 are?

As for marketing, it needs a professional promoter who will look at the structure, rework the basics and wrest control from the various factions that organise it so there can be a plan forward. IMG appear to be making all the right noises but seem to be hissing a lot of influential people off in the process, but I don't see how there can be a bloodless coup.

BSB, BTCC, SBK, MotoGP, NASCAR, IRL, F1 - you name them - all have professional promoters with a sport structured to the future, where teams (not drivers/riders) are integral to the future and the oxygen of exposure by TV is what fuels budgets. The sooner rallycross accepts that is the way forward and moves on, then the sooner it will become a mainstream sport (look at what Sky have done with Speedway for example).

[chunder]

Sky might have done something with speedway that you like, but ask the people that run th tracks, SKY ahve all the power and have blackmailed the promoters into believeing in better!

The crowds at meetings are awful, its up to stock cars to make them money which we usually do!

Grand Prix speedway is fine, but at club level it is not any more healthy than it was.

TV is not the holy grail, it is important yes, but not vital. If you get the sport sorted out tv will come anyway, as grids will be bigger, sponsors will want to get involved etc etc.

You cant compare rallycross to BTCC, BSB or anyhting like that as they are properly professional with corporate sponsors and manufacturers involved.

The best way to get them involved with rallycross would be to ally our classes with WRC, and even then there is only a distant involvement, people liek Schanche and Iversen were often used by Ford to test parts for ther WRC program, and I am sure Citroen have done this too, maybe even Hyundai for the future?

You just have to accept that nationaly all motorsport is struggling, its way too expensive to compete but there are reasons for that too. So be happy that you have a sport, enjoy it or watch something else. there are growth areas like autograss, drag racing, drifting, time attack, some short oval ares and historics, but a lot of motorsport is really struggling, rallycross in particular.

There are ideas out there, for me a budget 4wd class, a far better policed stockhatch category and something akin to bilcross from sweden where you can compete in a very basic but tough car. Sadly this will never happe on MSA tracks, so lets find a way of getting it to work away from MSA, short ovals does, so lets try?

[ArnageWRC]

Ah, the golden days of Saturday afternoon Sports TV – both ITV & BBC dedicating their schedules to sport – and not just the popular sports. Then later just the BBC with Grandstand – as is the Beeb’s remit – not chasing ratings, but providing coverage of a number of minority sports. Think of just the Motorsport they covered; BTCC, F3, Scrambling(MotoX) RallyCross, F1, Rallying, etc Also, remember Sportsnight and Sport on Friday.
So what went wrong? Now they cover some of the F1 season, and half heartedly cover MotoGP. They only want the ‘BIG’ events – so there’s no chance of any other Motorsport getting on.

[flagwaver]

A structure that people can understand and a decent size entry will help and a few
characters might also help.

[leonidas]

Two classes for TV meetings. Group A (supercar) and Group N (production 4wd). Problem solved. All others classes as untelevised support.

An affordable 4wd class would be a good way to boost numbers and provide something that looks good for a watching TV audience. You are never going to get 30 Supercars but you could get 30 production based Evos and Scoobies. Earlier version donor cars are available for bargain basement money these days. Seed the heats for good racing. Meaningful penalities for causing unnecessary wrecks.

[chunder]

Its easy when you say it but getting people to agree is the issue, especialy when you have just had a period of two differnt groupds trying to run a sport that didnt enough people in it for one!

I know I am singing the same old song, but the Stott era really didnt do a lot for rallycross, it did some good things like tv and stuff but the split never did much else.

[rallycrossnl]

With less and less income through advertising on telly, about the only way to get yourself broadcasted is by buying TV time, hire a tv-crew and mediaproduction company.
Forget about your beautiful smile and 'pretty please's', it isn't enough anymore.

[dougcross70's]

Croft Rallycross Grand Prix coverage on Channel 4 Weds 14 November Morning 3.20am so unless your a night owl set your recorder up to take it then or an hour later on 4+1

[canal92]

Hi Rallycrosscraig found this forum whilst trying to search the web for any result of the November 1972 Castrol Rallycross at Cadwell Park as I have the Group one First place trophy won by Colin Wild from Fish Merchant from Hale Cheshire.
Roger Clark, Roy Fidler. Barry William. Gerry Marshall. Chris Sclater, to name but a few My 71yr old brain cell struggle a little to remember names ironically the Group one Final was on TV never seen a repeat
I have the trophy as a thanks from Colin to me for 10yrs happy service 1970-1980 I was a full time Psychiatric and General Nurse my mechanical knowledge was home grown but I was lucky it paid off, Forward planning I thought November rain is likely and we would get a windscreen full of claggy mud So I made a high power screen wash system from a 1.5G/min water pump to a manifold with 10 lengths brake pipe with flattened ends spread across the screen to a flasher switch so if required flick the switch and high power screen was and a 6gallon water container strapped to the front roll cage upright
and off the line sure enough screen full of mud flick switch instant screen clean and Colin could see a opening and from then on Avon Tyres throw their fair share of mud on to all those that followed,

the other lucy point Colin crashed in practice bending Steering arm so that the offside toed-out about 2" I had to attempt to straighten the bar almost horse-shoed with sledge hammer ended 1/2" out but colin coped with that