Lydden hill - Easter British Rallycross

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by geordiecriag101

Got to say as well great to see Jef Mertens walk away from his spectacular crash in his semi with no injuries.

That was a biggie - testament to the strength of the car that he was able to walk away from that.

[Hickey]

Great action pics. From the angle of those I'd say you were standing pretty close to us Bert. Those trees were a godsend in the wind today. I think I've actually sunburnt my face.

Seems a bit harsh criticising the reliability of the cars. Granted that the final was a complete shambles but the reliability in the heats was pretty good as was the semis. Couldn't work out if Doran was breaking cos of design or his extravagant sideways driving.

Some races were definitely too spread out (hot hatch and Minis come to mind) but the number of heats and quality in supernational classes, supercars heats and super1600 more than made up for it. I always expect some duff races. Considering a trip to Belgium for the return leg. Shorter to get to for us than croft !

[geordiecriag101]

Great shots there Bert, i managed to get it on video as well just a pity as it was a nice looking car as well, hopefully it be sorted n up and running again soon.

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by Hickey

Great action pics. From the angle of those I'd say you were standing pretty close to us Bert. Those trees were a godsend in the wind today. I think I've actually sunburnt my face.

I spent the morning getting wind blasted over at the exit of Chessons (and I also came home with a lovely dirt 'beard' - the amount of the loose surface that seemed to be stuck to my face was incredible!). I wandered over to the shelter of the trees for the afternoon - I was down by the marshal post after the start line.

Originally Posted by Hickey

Seems a bit harsh criticising the reliability of the cars. Granted that the final was a complete shambles but the reliability in the heats was pretty good as was the semis. Couldn't work out if Doran was breaking cos of design or his extravagant sideways driving.

Liam was certainly not taking it easy on the car, he was really chucking that thing at the corners, it looked quick whilst it was all working ok but I guess that style is just too much for the mechanicals to take.

Originally Posted by Hickey

Some races were definitely too spread out (hot hatch and Minis come to mind) but the number of heats and quality in supernational classes, supercars heats and super1600 more than made up for it. I always expect some duff races.

Agreed, the Minis and hot hatches seemed to always end up spread around the circuit and the RX150's weren't as bunched as they sometimes are.

Originally Posted by Hickey

Considering a trip to Belgium for the return leg. Shorter to get to for us than croft !

I was thinking about that - for some of the south east based competitors the Belgian championship is probably not much different cost-wise to the British championship.

Originally Posted by geordiecriag101

Great shots there Bert, i managed to get it on video as well just a pity as it was a nice looking car as well, hopefully it be sorted n up and running again soon.

Ta Have you posted the video online anywhere? It really was a very tidy car before that (as were a lot of the others to be fair). It looks like it stood up pretty well to the accident though and should go again.

[tbtstt]

It was a little disappointing to see the Supercar final won by attrition rather than pure racing, found it rather hard to keep track of who was where with so many Supercars limping round the circuit! Unusual to see so many of the front runners struck with issues.

I assume Liam did another driveshaft in heat 3? He was pretty spectacular to watch in the C4, but the car didn't seem able to cope. An uncharacteristic mistake from Godfrey but, based on the issues in the final, his title defense may not have been too badly affected. Excellent drive from Rooke, a well deserved win I would say.

As expected some really good racing from the Belgians. Such a varied mix of cars in their Super National field (especially the + entrants). Glad Mertens was able to walk away from that smash as well, the car got some serious altitude so I was surprised to see him jump out so quickly.

[Hampton Caught]

Sadly the forecast (and actual) wind put pay to the Retro Rallycross super gazebo being set up, so had nowhere to set up my rallycross model display. 😠
The flip side was being able to watch more of the on track action, of which there was much. Totally agree with the comment about Andy Grant. He looked very racey both days.
Mad Mark had an horrendous weekend, from the coaches side panel blowing out, then tyre blowing out causing Mark to 'park' the coach in a field, to being punted off into the tyres. He also looked very quick in practice, making it even more of a shame he lost his steering and went home early.
Haven't seen the full results yet - had to leave early before the finals started.

[geordiecriag101]

Hey Bert, i'm still busy sorting out the crap vid's from the good ones, not my best efforts plus found out that my mic stopped working so sound not that good, but should have it up on Youtube by the morrow, ill post link as normal.

[Hampton Caught]

The full report from Lydden is available here: http://www.rallycrossbrx.com/news/br...l-event-report

Delighted to see Stuart Emery's result in the Supernationals. He'd had a terrible time both days, effectively shaking down the car in public, as did many others, of course. Really felt for Stuart and his infatiguable team coming to terms with all manner of electrical, timing, over-heating and gear selection issues plus a puncture in a heat race as well. Great to see Stu overcome the problems and finally move on from the past year of so-so reliability and results and make a start on his bid to regain the championship.

Should make for an interesting Supernational season ahead, especially once Todd Crooks has a complete and uprated car, Tony Lynch gets to grips with the rapid, ex Gareth Wood Ford Ka, Paige Bellerby continues to grow in confidence with the Lotus Elise and Paul Maybourne develops his tidy-looking Clio. Roll on 2016!!!!

Cheers, Steve

[geordiecriag101]

Sorted at last, heres my vid from Monday's action at Lydden.

The finals start from the 39min mark and Jef Mertens crash is at the 36min mark, as always all comments welcome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erNw6cYgygU

[leonidas]

After years of following the sport I am struggling to stay interested in British rallycross and I don't think I am the only one after this meeting. For me there are far too many classes and too many strung out races with little competitive action.

How hard would it be to:

1. Run three main classes - 4wd, 2wd supermod, 2wd stock
2. Seed the qualifying heats
3. Go back to the old format of D>C>B>A finals

There may also be a case for a points system that penalises non finishers more heavily. This might place greater emphasis on reliability, keep more cars on track and stop the banger racing we sometimes see.

[Hickey]

From what I could gather, the qualifying heats were seeded for this event accordingly to the results of the previous heats. Without bigger classes though, seeding is irrelevant (I.e only one race per many classes). I'd agree with a sensible amalgamation of the 2wd category and turn of a, b and c finals. The numbers of entrants aren't terrible, (80 or so Brits), but the class structure makes it seem thinner.

[chunder]

Sadly leo

Your voice will be unheard in here.

A few of these folks would pay 50 quid to watch rallycross in a car park!!

Seriously, introducing a WRX style system to a national series is pointless, all people want to see is full grids, and decent cars, I think some of this does happen, but like you I lost interest in British rallycross a while back, I was down in Kent that weekend and no real desire to go there, only a few years ago I would have been there like a shot.

Running these modern WRX cars on a budget does NOT work, they break down incessantly and without works backup it is getting trickier to run them.

Especially when some of them were horrendously unreliable when they were in WRX!

[ClintonRX]

Out of curiosity could anyone please tell me what the cost of admission for an adult on the gate was on the Monday? I believe it was £20 on-line before the event. Thanks

[Hampton Caught]

Originally Posted by ClintonRX

Out of curiosity could anyone please tell me what the cost of admission for an adult on the gate was on the Monday? I believe it was £20 on-line before the event. Thanks

I believe it was in the region of £15 on the gate. Wasn't the £20 or so for both days in advance when bought online?
Hope that helps.
Cheers, Steve

[Hickey]

It was 20 quid on the gate on Monday. Which was pretty good value for what turned out to be about 55 races.

[tbtstt]

Round 2 TV program is now up on You Tube:

https://youtu.be/AQ1MghV_zgo

Much more coverage of the supporting classes which is a step in the right direction.

Also, and much later then planned (I blame Dirt Rally), a few pictures from round 2...









...few more here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/229616...57664569361974

If anyone is interested!

[winnie]

Totally agree with you Chunder.

Modern rallycross isn't a patch on what is was a few years ago - in fact i'll go as far as to say it's total crap!!

The only hint of light is the retro rallycross, which will eventually take off. What a lovely place to compete in an old BDG Mk3 like Mr Morgan's - well done Ray.

[chunder]

I wouldn't say older stuff was that amazing.

What they did manage to do in the early 00's was get a formula that alot of people wanted to race in and that was Stock Hatch.

It might not have been always amazing to watch, but some of the grids were insane, 30 od cars in once class.

Supercar has always been similar numbers, and something needs doing with Modified, I think a return to a capacity split is a better system than anything goes really, get rid of S1600 and anything else and juts have a 1600 modified section, a budget 4wd section, a modern version of Minicrowss or 1400 cup as both those were cheap, easy to get into, fun and provided argy bargy good racing.

[Hampton Caught]

Steve,

Many thanks for posting the photos here and on flickr. Terrific shots, nicely captured some of the flavour of the meeting there. Great stuff.

Hope to bump into you at a meeting some time this season!!

Cheers, Steve

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by Hampton Caught

Many thanks for posting the photos here and on flickr. Terrific shots, nicely captured some of the flavour of the meeting there. Great stuff.

Hope to bump into you at a meeting some time this season!!

Cheers Steve! I often start the day with the intention of swinging by the Retro Rallycross stand, but once the racing starts I always forget!

Will make more of an effort at the World round, I assume there will be a Retro rallycross presence given the Group B demo?

[Hampton Caught]

Hi Steve,

Yes, there will most certainly be a Retro Rallycross presence but at this stage, am not sure how or where. Once I know, I'll post on here. The past two years, I've displayed my models in the VIP marquee, not sure what the plan is for 2016 yet.

Cheers, Steve

[chasing cars]

Its been a while since I posted but thought Id give an opinion on British rallycoss. Firstly I enjoyed Easter Monday but not as much as I would have once done.
Firstly great entry of supercars but reliability is still a big issue and where the meetings use to build up to a big finale now the early heats are the strongest, by the finals its whats left and therefore a big anti-climax.

Secondly too many classes of dull to watch front wheel drive cars. Now if the racing was close then it wouldn't be an issue, but with the cars getting split by the joker and it would also appear a big difference in performance even in the Suzukis watching them is to be honest rather boring. I don't like to compare to the "good old days" but in this case I will! The Nova challenge back in the day was a one make front wheel drive formula which if you watched 1 car on its own was no more exciting than now but the racing was so close and full of action no one moaned, would it have been the same if there had been a joker? I see the purpose of the joker at some tracks and even maybe at Lydden for the supercars but not for other formula. Surely 1 make and similar formulas should be all about close racing in a pack like in other race series.

Final comment is about the retros, I see very little to encourage me that its really going to take off, if anything its gone backwards on numbers. Ive heard a lot of stuff on here and at the tracks in the past about more cars coming but they don't seem to be materialising. I hope Im wrong on this as I was really enthusiastic about this class in the early days.

[Hickey]

I'd say that the whole thing could be improved by just lumping all 2wd drive cars into one class then A to F finals and give awards per class (like they do in btrda), with heats ranked by lap time (to be fair, they did do this). You'd have about 50 cars in that category and theoretically the supermods would still all be together at the top with a few S1600s. I agree that we have top many classes and that's a shame with good entries (about 80 at Lydden) - should have been enough for a cracking event.

There were still good races and offered categories doesn't actually solve the problems of dull races (which you have to expect will happen, happens in all ssports). But hopefully mixing up the classes would make it better

Retros have really struggled. Occasional battle when it's wet but in the dry they are still strung out and dull.

[chunder]

Sadly Hick, you hit the nail on the head with your brackets comment (like they do in BTRDA)

In God's name why are there two series? If heads wre rolled and not knocked together by someone with some balls we might get somewhere.

Retro could tkae off but as the poster says, it has reached a stalemate, too mnay of the races are basically demos, and it either wants to be that or a proper formula. At the moment it is neither and most fans once they have seen the cars a few times just move on and would rather watch something else.

It is tough, no doubt. But 1400 Cup, Stock Hatch, Minicross, Nova's were all superb little formula's that got so many people involved.

We need something similar, not the nonsense that pervades at the moment.