Did any of you catch the news that Rally America split in two? A new non-profit called "American Rally Association" is taking over 4 of the 8 Rally America events next season. Is this the savior stage rally in this country needs, or is this an Indy/CART breakup that will set stage rally back another 15 years?
Ugh.
Is it really possible to set stage rally back in the US?
In reply to EvanB:
Beat me to the punch. I'll add my .02 shortly. This can't be bad for rally in the USA, only Subaru's involvement and RA ownership.
Here's my issue with a "for profit" sanctioning body in the case of RA, or the majority of club racing groups. If you want the best level of competition at your events, the best way to ensure that to be possible is to lower the cost to compete within the series. Which means that income needs to come from sponsorships and or media rights. Ideally coming from media rights or production and distribution as sponsors are often strongly tied in to parts or equipment used within the sport and therefore in sanctioning body gaining sponsorship dollars from such businesses, the cost are still directly passed along to the competitors via higher cost of goods and consumables needed to compete with the series.
Current RA ownership came in taughting their media production and distribution channels for electronic media. Show me where they've made a good faith effort regarding media development to increase the value of the series, which would also be in their best financial interest. FY racing, Ryan Symancek, Matt Brandenburg and others have done far more on their own to increase media production and distribution for consumption. During the time that current ownership has managed the series the cost and access to filming equipment, including formerly exotic equipment as quadrotors, has plummeted. The ability to stream and host video can now be done via mobile devices, though I admit not often in areas where rallies are held. Helicopter rentals are no longer required for aerial stage footage. Matthew Johnston could setup and produce a hell of a media package that could make rally relevant based on audience numbers outside of the current volunteer and competitor base. Making sponsorship partnerships viable for companies not involved in rally related parts and or services. Current ownership of RA is either indifferent or ignorant to this and they shouldn't be given a pass for either cause regarding their inaction.
Well while we're at it, let's add to it that NASA through NRS has also jumped into Canada and is sanctioning the Quebec Regional series.
Rallying in US/Canada just got a whole lot more confusing in the last couple of weeks! Nothing like 4 sanctioning bodies fighting over a miniscule sport.
To run every rally in US/Canada, one would need 4 licenses for driver, co-driver, and in some cases service crew. Logbooks? Who knows?
What a E36 M3show! 
Make it more entertaining. Televise. Promote! Use REAL cars! Not tube frame fake crap. Let them go wild with mods. Group b, we cry! Group b!
America needs its version of the baja 1000. Make a stage rally that spans 1000 miles of America. Do it in one stint. Make it something that spans a lot of states! Group b! Group b! (Ok, I'll calm down)
Trackmouse wrote: Make it more entertaining. Televise. Promote! Use REAL cars! Not tube frame fake crap. Let them go wild with mods. Group b, we cry! Group b! America needs its version of the baja 1000. Make a stage rally that spans 1000 miles of America. Do it in one stint. Make it something that spans a lot of states! Group b! Group b! (Ok, I'll calm down)
Stage rally does use real cars. Baja 1000 is mainly tube frame vehicles...
EvanB wrote:Trackmouse wrote: Make it more entertaining. Televise. Promote! Use REAL cars! Not tube frame fake crap. Let them go wild with mods. Group b, we cry! Group b! America needs its version of the baja 1000. Make a stage rally that spans 1000 miles of America. Do it in one stint. Make it something that spans a lot of states! Group b! Group b! (Ok, I'll calm down)Stage rally does use real cars. Baja 1000 is mainly tube frame vehicles...
Baja 1000 has some classes with lightly modded production cars (SCORE class 11 AKA "those nuts doing it in VW Beetles" most prominently)....WRC cars are about as far as you can get from a "real car" without doing away with the factory chassis and engine block 
However a Group B car was at least as far from a production car as a modern WRC car. Don't forget they were "homologation specials" (with a wink and a nudge) and some of them were practically custom race cars, like that ill-fated one with the spindly magnesium tube frame.
WRC cars don't run in US stage rally.
All cars in North American stage rally are real production cars compared to a couple classes in Baja/Desert racing.
I should clarify. I meant "baja 1000" as in "making the race an iconic one". The cars would be different from baja 1000.
I dream of a long ass stage rally (or just one really long stage)
I know pikes peak is like this... But meh. It doesn't span two states.
A challenge with the long events is securing the venue and ensuring it is safe. The longer and more spread out the event gets, the more roads need to be closed, more property owners/government agencies need to be dealt with, and the more reliable (volunteer) marshals you need.
I also get nostalgic for the old days, but the reality of the modern world makes it challenging to put on stage events. I have only been a small part of hosting some local events, and the logistics can be mind boggling. Using state or federal lands comes with a whole bunch of politics. Using solely private land can be tough also, and often depends on finding a fan of the sport in a position of influence at a ranch or logging company with enough suitable roads...not easy. Then you start thinking about details like each hiking trail or dirt bike/jeep trail that could lead someone onto the stage, emergency crew access, spectator access, and if you aren't overflowing with extra stage crews/radio operators/sweep crews, you have to factor in the logistics of physically moving a crew from an earlier stage across remote areas to a later stage on time.
Back to the original topic...it will be interesting to see how the split shapes up.
ae86andkp61 wrote: A challenge with the long events is securing the venue and ensuring it is safe. The longer and more spread out the event gets, the more roads need to be closed, more property owners/government agencies need to be dealt with, and the more reliable (volunteer) marshals you need. I also get nostalgic for the old days, but the reality of the modern world makes it challenging to put on stage events. I have only been a small part of hosting some local events, and the logistics can be mind boggling. Using state or federal lands comes with a whole bunch of politics. Using solely private land can be tough also, and often depends on finding a fan of the sport in a position of influence at a ranch or logging company with enough suitable roads...not easy. Then you start thinking about details like each hiking trail or dirt bike/jeep trail that could lead someone onto the stage, emergency crew access, spectator access, and if you aren't overflowing with extra stage crews/radio operators/sweep crews, you have to factor in the logistics of physically moving a crew from an earlier stage across remote areas to a later stage on time.
For the Rally of the Tall Pines outside of Bancroft ON, we use about 250 volunteers to run a day-long rally and we both 1)Re-use roads and 2) Volunteers have multiple assignments.
I can't imagine the # of volunteers required to run a rally that would be a long-distance endurance event.
GameboyRMH wrote:EvanB wrote:Baja 1000 has some classes with lightly modded production cars (SCORE class 11 AKA "those nuts doing it in VW Beetles" most prominently)....WRC cars are about as far as you can get from a "real car" without doing away with the factory chassis and engine blockTrackmouse wrote: Make it more entertaining. Televise. Promote! Use REAL cars! Not tube frame fake crap. Let them go wild with mods. Group b, we cry! Group b! America needs its version of the baja 1000. Make a stage rally that spans 1000 miles of America. Do it in one stint. Make it something that spans a lot of states! Group b! Group b! (Ok, I'll calm down)Stage rally does use real cars. Baja 1000 is mainly tube frame vehicles...
Modern WRC cars are not legal for any class in North America, either.
We can have much bigger engines in Open but no sequential transmissions.
Well then how does baja do it? Montana would be perfect. No one lives there And they will take any exposure they can get.
As someone who has organized a small stage rally, first under SCCA then under RA there are some things to ponder:
The Rally community is full of very independent people and this includes organizers. So the fact that some of the organizers spilt off on their own doesn't shock me nor would I compare it to CART/IRL. Most organizers go with the association that gives them the most control over their event. We had no issues with either SCCA or RA. In fact while RA was sanctioning our stage rally, SCCA was sanctioning our rallycross.
The California Rally Series runs events sanctioned by both NASA & RA and these events are part of one championship.
I was involved with rally for about 10 years; one thing a came to terms with after about 3 years is that it's a niche sport. I make the statement "why isn't rally popular in the USA? Because it's not". I've loved rally since the 70's, along with motorcycle flat track, trials and things like Pikes Peak. Notice a theme here.
Even European style rallycross hasn't risen to the level of other forms of motorsports. In general for reasons to many to list rally just doesn't resonate with Americans.
I don't expect this to have a great impact one way or another or the other; organizers will still put on great events regardless of what sanctioning body name is on the insurance paperwork.
There are about a dozen EXTENSIVE discussion threads in the various rally facebook groups that have been going on today, so here's the gist that I gathered from it. Take this all with a grain of salt as I am hardly a rally veteran so this is mostly what I've read secondhand from people who have been doing it for a long time and/or are active in the rally scene nationally.
RA is on the way out. The Foggs have been losing money, basically, and the overall rally community hates them and feels that they were just in it to turn profit and didn't care about rally (well, not everyone but a lot of people seem to feel that way). USRA tried to take over events last year but it didn't work because RA had non-compete agreements with most of the rallies it sanctioned, and USRA folded before it even got off the ground. RA is still publicly not saying anything about going away, but then again they have 4 more events this year so can't exactly kill interest in those before they happen, with money on the line. I would expect that RA will be a non-entity next year, though.
Those agreements expire for the 2017 season. So ARA, which is Tim O'Neill from Team O'Neill Rally School and some other guys formed a new sanctioning body and already inked agreements with 4 of the 8 events that RA sanctioned for 2016, for 2017. The general expectation is that they will sign up with the other four as well, and RA will cease to exist entirely. Apparently one upside is that they fees that ARA charges as a nonprofit to the rally organizers will likely be less than what RA charged, which should help both the organizers and competitors financially. We will see, I guess.
ARA will apparently run similar series/classes/etc to RA, but as a non-profit and also with apparently significant inputs by ALL ARA members regarding rules and such. RA was basically a dictatorship and did not answer to the competitors at all, from what I gather (and did not communicate well with competitors either, in my own limited personal experience)
Other rumor is that Subaru and Ford (both of which supposedly disliked dealing with the Foggs) are on board with ARA (Ford sponsors O'Neill Rally School aready and SUbaru would be foolish to drop out of the rally scene), so that would be good to have two major manufacturers supporting. Some rumor that Subaru and/or Ford are also saying they'll cover any legal issues that RA may try to levy against ARA, but I have no actual facts whether that is the case or what these legal issues could be, so that might just be a rumor.
Meanwhile:
NASA Rally Sport will basically continue as-is in the US, and also expand to sanction some Canadian events as previously noted above. NRS is more grassroots and only regional rallies, essentially. So while there is overlap, NRS is not really a direct competitor to RA/ARA from what I can tell, since the latter are hosting national series and NRS does not.
Also, SCCA is back in the game with rallysprints (basically shorter stage rallies) since last year. Some may recall that they took over Wellsboro Winter Rally last year from Rally America (which we competed in and which ran very well, I thought, other than lousy non-winter conditions). SCCA apparently has a pretty good lineup of rallysprints expected for later this year and next year.
Cliffs: RA will probably go away totally. ARA will take over most of their events, if not all of them, but presumably with more competitor input into how things are run nationally. NRS will not really change other than adding some Canadian events. SCCA will keep on with rallysprint but not expected to do full stage-rally.
Also remember, these are just sanctioing bodies to provide licensing, logbooking, and insurance. Each rally are locally-run so STPR or ESPR or Magnum Opus will basically be exactly the same other than having a different sanctioning body.
All in all, I don't expect any huge changes from the regional competitor point of view at least. We still plan to run primarily NASA events and some SCCA rallysprints, but this does give us hope that our "local" event STPR could be more affordable for us next year under ARA sanction (that's a hope, at least, with no basis in actual fact at this point).
Overall, if everything pans out as expected most people seem to think this will all be a plus for the competitors in terms of their input into rally rules, etc, and perhaps financially. Less about whether this will "make rally more popular" or result in better media (RA changed like $3k per event for photographer licenses from what I've heard, which really pissed people off apparently).
In any case, lots of discussion on the facebook North American Rally (Discussion Group) if anyone wants to see the massive soap opera which is rally lol
You'll need to log in to post.
