World Rallycross R4 - Mettet, Belgium

[Stephen H]

Originally Posted by Hickey

It's on the FIA site too. What a joke. Putting races on a Friday is a really bad precedent to start. I like that you don't have to take time off work to watch this. This is really stupid. They clearly have time torun the event over a weekend and if not, why add a bloody support race too!! Hopeless.

I just spotted this when trying to book my crossing. Sort of messes up the plans I had if I try to include the Friday. There wasn't a ticket price for the Friday, so does the weekend ticket include the Friday???

Been to Mettet for the last two years, missed the first one, but wasn't aware they have run on a Friday before? Last year the Monday after was a Belgium Holiday and there was a Belgium Round.

The last 2 years they had European Supercar as well, which isn't on this year, so a bit surprised the meeting has now spread to the friday!

[paul1982]

Originally Posted by Hickey

I'm more annoyed about the timing of it. If they'd said a month or two ago we could have gone half a day earlier. If the support class is Belgian supernational cars, I'd really like to see them!

It is the Ssangyoung cup. So nothing to miss on that

[paul1982]

Originally Posted by Stephen H

I just spotted this when trying to book my crossing. Sort of messes up the plans I had if I try to include the Friday. There wasn't a ticket price for the Friday, so does the weekend ticket include the

Been to Mettet for the last two years, missed the first one, but wasn't aware they have run on a Friday before? Last year the Monday after was a Belgium Holiday and there was a Belgium Round.

The last 2 years they had European Supercar as well, which isn't on this year, so a bit surprised the meeting has now spread to the friday!

Tickets are for the weekend. So friday aswell

[Stephen H]

Originally Posted by paul1982

Tickets are for the weekend. So friday aswell

Thanks, so is the Friday Practise and Q1 for Super1600 and Touring Cars plus WRX and RX2 Free Practise?

And it starts at 2:45pm?

[Hickey]

Just googled what theseare. They look rubbish.

Really disappointing to have stuff on Friday. Especially as it was never suggested as a pure til and the tickets say Saturday and Sunday. This is the sort of stuff that annoys me the most. Poor communication and lack of thought. .

[Stephen H]

Originally Posted by Hickey

Just googled what theseare. They look rubbish.

Really disappointing to have stuff on Friday. Especially as it was never suggested as a pure til and the tickets say Saturday and Sunday. This is the sort of stuff that annoys me the most. Poor communication and lack of thought. .

Especially as Sundays feel such short days these days, though having everything done by 3:45pm helps in catching the ferry/tunnel back.

I'm lucky that I hadn't got round to booking my crossing yet, usually I would of. Guess many of you already have

Also not really happy about the idea of missing the first 8 maybe super 1600 and touring cars races..... especially as mainly going to see the Super 1600 as my only chance this year, as they are not at Lydden.

Would of been nice if they had of emailed a timetable to those who brought tickets in advance.

[paul1982]

You can find the timetable on www.rallycross.com and than previews

[Silhuette]

Butting in from the side here, but I followed Rallycross as a kid in the 80s so when young phenomenon Bakkerud was tearing through the classes locally, I also came to follow the Euro RX of 2012 and 13. 80s were cool, but the competition not always that good. Audis, 911s and 205T16s are beasts, but how many of the field were legitimate podium candidates? Not many...

About this time, 12-13 season, Solberg joined in and immediately began trying to bring in manufacturers and top level drivers. (I remember he kept pestering Loeb and probably went around saying he should do RX for a year before he joined in.) He was by all means not the only one - but certainly is better connected than most.

And so, over the last few seasons, the sport exploded. I have seen every race for years and I don't quite understand how anyone would argue that RX was better ten years ago.

I think the greatest impact has been on the teams and racecraft. Cars and drivers have improved, but the competition and evenness of the field has never been this good.

Solberg ran away with the 14 and 15 seasons, 16 was marred by some unfortunate decisions - and Ekström is managing to pull hard fought victories this year. I think it's more fun to watch now than even in (as a Solberg fan) the glory years 14-15

In ten years time, I bet we will be referring to the WRX period as the good times...

[1975DCS]

@Silhuette, the pro's you mention are exactly the same as the con's. Level may have gone up, but club men are gone. Will Rallycross be a sport off written off rally, DTM and F1 drivers in the future? I hope not so! But I could live up with that, but it's such a shame there are now a lot of good ERX cars rotting away in a shed, because there is nowhere to go with them except a few ERX races. And we get to see less cars as we could potentially see.

[Silhuette]

Clubman scene in Scandinavian countries certainly seems healthy? Admittedly it's probably a longer step from national classes and into the WRX than earlier.

The parallel to the classic periods of DTM and F1 do concern me though.

[chunder]

The big problems with WRX and IMG are not the supercar class. far from it, that is healthy and fine.

But is it out of control money wise? Maybe.

In the older days there were less guys that could win, why? Because there was little factory assistance so no-one pushing from outside, no big sponsors demanding success.

So a Gollop or Doran or Holm could buy a car, develop it over many years and get it to be the best car or one of them.

That era is now gone, it went away a bit in the 90's when big money came in and big sponsors and manufacturers like Citroen and Ford, but it did not last long and really the cars were still largely as they are now, built locally with input and finance from afar.

The problems you have now are national. Benelux is nowhere near as good as it was a few years ago, UK is still split, and there are no really strong regional series other than those that have always been that way France and Scandinavia.

Moving the sport away from its homes has not helped. We were starting to get smatterings of Eastern Europeans in supercar, and they had lots of races to attend in ERC. That is largely gone. S1600 is now a pay drive class for a few cars and teams and huge budgets as you race there to move onto other things. And RWD is basically a Norwegian championship.

That is not what we had in the 90's or 80's where you had at least 2 very well supported classes. 1600 is fine, but there are a few good teams, the rest make the numbers up literally with no chance of success. This is always the way obviously with motorsport, but it seems less stable that's all.

[1975DCS]

Originally Posted by Silhuette

Clubman scene in Scandinavian countries certainly seems healthy? Admittedly it's probably a longer step from national classes and into the WRX than earlier.

The parallel to the classic periods of DTM and F1 do concern me though.

Yes, Scandinavian countries and France are still well supported, but even the local hero's there doesn't stand a chance... Normally you could see guys doing some European rounds, but now lots of racers, cars and drivers are gone. Such a shame there are a lot of ex top cars like the Focus and Fiesta that could enter a lower level ERX but are now rot their days in a shed...

[crossfades]

The Supercars and Lites are at its top in Sweden and Norway in terms of numbers since they cooperate a bit now. However, Swedish support classes are struggling with numbers at RallyX.

In the past the top support class, supernationell or supernational, drivers had to qualify to race because there were so many. Now though there isn't even half as many as back then and there is maybe only 10 cars doing the entire season. It is almost unbelievable how fast the number of cars has decreased.

[Silhuette]

Mettet Q1 results:

Results of Practice:
1) Solberg 39,396
2) Ekström +0,055
3) T. Hansen +0,059
4) Timerzyanov +0,119
5) Eriksson +0,259
6) Kristoffersson +0,346

Really close so far.

[Silhuette]

Fun to see some new names among the fastest in practice!

Results of Practice:
1) Kristoffersson 39,135
2) Eriksson +0,323
3) Ekstrom +0,365
4) Solberg+0,378
5) Gronholm+0,410

[Silhuette]

Here I am again, blogging away.

Like we've seen before, the Polos are dominating practice and qualis. Hopefully, the racecraft will last through to the finals..!

Q2 results:
1) Kristoffersson
2) Solberg
3) Loeb
4) Block
5) Nitiss

Standings after Q2:
=1) Solberg - 95
=1) Kristoffersson - 95
3) Loeb - 80
4) Bakkerud - 77
5) Eriksson - 75

[pettersolberg29]

Got to pray the VWs manage to avoid bad luck tomorrow - if they continue as they are then this should be a 1-2 easy!

[Silhuette]

Yes, looks like they haven't quite figured out how to launch them yet. Fingers crossed!

[ebby]

Just on way back from Mettet feeling poorer in the pocket (€65) for Sunday only but richer for the atmosphere and experience. The chainsaw legend in the crowd was there again to get things going, the only thing retro was the music over the PA system and the on track action and quality great again. Big shout to Dan Rooke on the podium in RX2 and valliant effort by Guy Wilks. Getting into the top 12 in WorldRX seems harder every event now.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Hickey]

That is disgustingly expensive , especially as they were selling weekend tickets for less. Makes no sense!

It was a great weekend. Lots of action. Good racing and a quality field of cars. Rooke was fantastic all weekend . Nice to have a quality, young, respectable Brit to support. hope he doesn't get penalised for the move on Olofson. Olofson clearly had a puncture, tried to defend his line, quite aggressively, and Rooke was already there (but only just there, I'm not sure how much of your car needs to be alongside the other, Rooke had maybe a wheel!!).

Wilks had a decent day today. One spin and slow last lap in Q2 prevented any chance of semi final. He'd have made it otherwise. He doesn't have the pace to be able to bounce back from a poor heat by scoring a top 5 time. Needs to be consistent. Great driver though.

I'm not sure I'd describe a man with a chainless chainsaw as a legend but it beats the hell out of an air horn!

[1975DCS]

Those Peugeots have a very strange angle of the front shocks and springs: facing rearward

[mivec]

Originally Posted by 1975DCS

Those Peugeots have a very strange angle of the front shocks and springs: facing rearward

Think al teams have this at the moment, positive caster.
Same on the rear.

[1975DCS]

Originally Posted by mivec

Think al teams have this at the moment, positive caster.

Same on the rear.

Well, it is actually negative caster! I was actually quite surprised as the WRC Fiesta's have about the opposite. If you look at the damaged 208 on the footage you can see it.

[tbtstt]

Been fighting with Flickr for the last 24 hours, but finally managed to get some pictures from Mettet uploaded. Few of my faves...









...and a few more here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/229616...57682233594080

If anyone is interested!

[Silhuette]

Oh man, that first Hansen shot is unbelievable!