I know.
The British Championship (the international one - not the ANCRO national series I was referring to) hasn't really been the same since the early '90s, when it was still a stepping-stone up to world events for drivers like Colin McRae and Richard Burns. IMO the problem really is that World Rally Cars don't really make sense for amateur drivers because they're too expensive, too temperamental and too limited in numbers because manufacturers only have to produce 20 "kits" per year, so unless you have the works teams participating - and why should they? - there's not going to be much competition.
I used to have a lot of respect for Dave Richards, especially since he co-drive my all-time sporting hero Ari Vatanen to the 1981 World Championship, but these days I just see him as a megalomaniac. He's determined to mould the WRC to suit his commercial aims (since he has the TV rights
) and to hell with anyone who complains that the sport is losing its character and its appeal. The WRC is just turning into an off-road version of F1.And as for all this shit about allowing retirements back in, well ...
... as far as I'm concerned, if you retire you're out. Don't see why that's such a problem - except for someone desperate to keep as many top cars in as possible to keep the TV crews happy. Just as bad - no, worse actually - is this crap about recce'ing on the same day - making pace notes in the morning and driving the stages in the afternoon, rather than having the recce and the rally separate. What, tf, is the point of that? I know the crews have whined about the loss of their "gravel cars" - but it's only 14 years ince the RAC Rally (now Rally GB) allowed any pace notes at all! Before that it was a "blind" rally. I know they say it's dangerous without gravel cars, but tbh wihtout any pace notes at all the speeds are lower anyway, and I certainly don't remember any nasty accidents on the RAC attributable to lack of pace notes. There were more offs, but because cars were going more slowly anyway they tended to be less serious. I'd rather see recces banned altogether on some events than this tinkering with the structure of the sport. And, of course, the WRC is turning into a carbon copy of F1 with its hospitality trailers and slick media presentation - the days when the World Champion's car was serviced in a muddy farmyard in the dead of night are long gone, along with the days when the RAC Rally was not just a round of the World Championship but also the big end of season bash for British rally drivers from national champion in his Cosworth to a clubbie in a Lada.Tbh this sort of thing is why I like watching national rallying. It's free of all the politics and the media hype: it's just sport for the sake of it, and it's still got the sort of friendly, amateur ethos that world rallying lost a decade ago. You can still get involved in the organisational side of the sport - they're desperate for marshals on most events - for nothing, get close to the competitors, chat to the drivers, and there's a wonderful buzz to be had from standing by a rally car with its crew in harness with crash helmets on and the driver building up the revs, stopwatch in hand, counting down the last five seconds over the windscreen and then leaping back to avoid the shower of gravel as you shout "Go!" It's the one thing that makes me want to possess a car - so I could get out in the forests and do it more often. It's always nice when a driver or co-driver says, "thanks a lot. We've had a great day and we couldn't do it without you people [marshals]." Professional sport of all sorts leaves me fairly uninterested when compared to something you can get involved in.
Ouch!
He's ace he is.
