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Old 26 May 2020, 10:29 (Ref:3978362)   #10
BertMk2
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Originally Posted by hoffman66 View Post
Palmer detests people going on his grass so the stages are often designed with heavy chicane and even sometimes barriers to make a mistake damage your car, you have to run spares and can;t run on flat tyres,
The chicanes are largely there to keep speeds down - our car maxes out in 6th gear in a couple of places at Brands, without the chicanes we'd be bouncing off the limiter halfway down the straights! When there have been track days for rally cars chicanes have been installed for the same reasons. It's part of the reason we've only been to Rallyday at Castle Combe once - the circuit is too quick for rally cars, we're in 6th and on the limiter most of the way around. Some MOD venues also issue "keep off the grass" instructions - Marham for one they were very keen on reminding us not to cut corners.

Barriers only damage cars if you hit them - obvious but true, forest events have trees all over the place but they're only a problem if you hit them. No difference really - there are things not to hit on every rally, dodging them is half the fun!

Not being allowed to run on flat tyres is also not specific to circuits - there are other venues where we've been told to change the wheel if we get a flat. That's more annoying than the chicanes as you can still shift at a fair old speed on 3 tyres and a rim (going through "The Snake" at Longcross with no front left tyre was an eye opener!). I can understand the reasons though - and the chances of getting a puncture on a circuit event are considerably less than other venues (we've never had a tyre let go on a circuit event - usually lost 1 per event at Longcross).

Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffman66 View Post
I was simply frustrated in the end watching the same layouts over and over again, and just endless acceleration runs for the drivers from corner to chicane.

It is all we have and for me it saw out the years after the spectator ban on single venues but I feel looking at entries this year a lot of the drivers have had enough and would rather do more road based events as that is real rallying, not this contrived Palmer sprint stuff.

That is the future I hope.
I can understand from a spectators point of view it could get repetitive if the spectator areas are limited - the only place I found that to be a problem was at Rockingham (but then that applied to circuit racing there too).

The circuit rallies are good fun and allow the service crew to see the action - often they don't get to see any of it (they have no choice but to believe our tales of exactly how that dent got there ) and they're easy for family and friends to come along and watch us throw the car about. They're also a good way to get people into the sport - there are a few circuit racers that have come and had a go for example. That can only be good for the sport - they're also cheaper than a multi-venue event so are valuable from a clubman point of view.

Closed road events are a different beast - and I'm certainly with you in hoping that we see more of them in the future but I wouldn't say they were 'better' than the circuit events - they're just 'different'. There's a place for all of the event types - hopefully we'll see rallying grow again
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