Rally spectators get the info they want

Having been to a couple of WRC events in the past, the issue of deciding which stages to see and where on those stages to go can be really tricky. I've got hundreds of megabytes of maps, stage descriptions and video accumulated for that very reason.

Rally Deutschland and this weekend's Vodafone Rally Portugal have attempted to solve that very issue. Not only do they put detailed maps and descriptions online (like a lot of other rallies), but they also post video of the spectator areas so that you can see the view that you can expect. Check out this superb stage overview which shows all the access points, and then go to this example spectator area page from the excellent Portugese spectator guide. There's a video link at the top, which shows a little SUV negotiating the stage.

It was just a bit of a shame that such a well-though-out and gorgeous rally dished up the same old snoozefest on the competitive side of things.

A racing companion

For most people (particularly men) who follow motorsport, it's a lonely pursuit. Unless they have equally enthusiastic friends who are into the sport, they're forced to find internet forums where they can have rewarding, meaningful discussions and engage in discourse about their hobby. I can imagine this could get frustrating.

Luckily for me, that's not the case. When I first met my partner K nine years ago, there was little indication that she had any interest in any sport, never mind motor racing. She didn't even have a TV, let alone cable and she'd never seen the Speedvision channel. A typical situation could have developed where one partner learns to tolerate the interests of another, but in this case something strange happened.

Straight off the bat, she developed a fondness for my cranky but lovable Alfa Romeo Milano. This was a good start. Then she began to come to races, beginning with a trip to the Wine Country Classic historic races at Sears Point. That weekend was brutally hot and could so easily have turned her off racing forever. It didn't, perhaps because historic racing presents such a friendly, low-key environment or maybe because she was able to witness first-hand my enthusiasm.

When I bought a motorcycle she was envious, having had a certain amount of experience in hanging out with the messenger biking crowd here in SF, as well as having learned to ride many years ago. It wasn't long before she was also on two wheels again. As my interest in motorcycles grew, so did my interest in motorcycle racing, so she was able to share in the process of learning about this new side of the sport.

It wasn't too hard a sell in 2002 when we went to Italy for three weeks to convince her that we needed a night in Milan (to ensure a visit to the Alfa Romeo museum the next day) and a night in Modena so we had time to visit Ferrari. She loved the Alfa facility (which felt more like a private collection) but was less excited about Ferrari, which was more of tourist trap.

Back in the US my interest in rallying began to increase, and before long I'd had a chance to go to the WRC event in Sweden which convinced me to learn how to co-drive. My first event saw K come along to work as a timing marshal. Despite the fact she stood on the side of a mountain in pouring rain for hours on end she continued to enjoy rallying. It was at this point that she revealed her mother had been a co-driver many years back. Aha! So it's in the genes! Now everything started to make sense....

Late in 2003 we both went to the WRC event in Wales. This was surely going to be the make-or-break moment. As we stood in freezing fog on the Rhondda stage on Sunday morning, with her favourite driver Carlos Sainz out of the rally two days prior, could she still muster excitement and enthusiasm? The answer came from behind a tightly-drawn hooded rain jacket... "yes!"

Pretty soon she was joining the annual pilgrimage to the July bike race at Laguna Seca, initially World Superbike, then MotoGP for the last four years, each year educating whichever newcomers had joined us that year.

It was only a matter of time before she came with me on the ultimate racing trip... a visit to the Le Mans 24 Hours. Sadly, the gods decided that since she was clearly able to cope with wet motorsport events, it would rain like the devil on Le Mans in 2007. Once again she kept her chin up, and was rewarded with a great time and apart from the first and last couple of hours, a dry race (and a dry pitwalk on the Friday, evidenced in the picture below). It was quite a step up from our annual Le Mans weekend barbecues back in San Francisco which she'd taken to leading the arrangement of.


She was even brave enough to come to see NASCAR this year. She got a very good look at Michael Waltrip:


So, where to next for my racing partner-in-crime? Well, after we take the plunge of actually becoming married, she can look forward to a little high-speed action herself, perhaps beginning with an autocross and then moving to some track days, now that we have a car worthy of such pursuits. If past experience is anything to go by, I should be ready to start buying tyres on a regular basis, as she proceeds to become equally excited by engaging in some on-track fun as I have been.

Audi, building their brand

Last week I took part in something called the Audi Driving Experience. This was a totally free event up at Sears Point. Let me say right off that this was a clear attempt to sell some 2009 Audi A4s, but beyond that it was clearly much more, and hints at the very clever approach that Audi have in regards to building their brand.

The day began with complimentary breakfast in the main area of their purpose-built Audi Experience complex at Sears Point. We were split into two groups and each went to a classroom for a briefing on what to expect and a quick overview of the new A4. We were told that we would be "test drivers" of the new A4, a car that many car magazines have yet to drive.

Next up was an autocross. We paired up with another attendee and each of us got one lap of the course in each of four cars: a Mercedes C300, Lexus IS250F, BMW 328xi and the A4 3.2 Quattro. All four cars were four-wheel-drive, with similar engine sizes and spec levels. To be fair, the Audi was the spendiest at an MSRP of $48,000 compared with the $38k Lexus, the cheapest. Chris, my partner for the morning and I chose well by starting with the Merc before progressing to the Lexus, then Beemer then Audi. Funnily enough, that was also the ascending order of perfomance, and Audi clearly did a good job of proving that the A4 is the best. Despite its horsepower advantage over its rivals, I found that the Quattro system was the best of the 4WD drivetrains, with no annoying chatter of the outside rear wheel under hard acceleration out of corners, something that the Merc and Lexus were especially guilty of.

A couple of things to note here. Firstly the two guys running the autocross course were familiar to me: former Mitsubishi USA factory rally driver Lauchlin O'Sullivan, who lives here in San Francisco and who I know pretty well; and Ramana Lagemann, former Subaru USA factory rally driver. Secondly, it was a great reminder of just how much fun an autocross is. Both Chris and I were not afraid to really cane the nuts off the cars. Other participants were a bit more timid. I came away resolute to get my Subaru STi to an autocross soon. It will also be an ideal introduction into performance driving for my fiancee K, who is itching to get the Scoob onto a track day soon.

After the autocross it was over to the pitlane, where we set up in some more A4s. More rally drivers were in attendance here including a former Production-GT class rival, Stephan Verdier. We were led onto the track by an instructor in a TT and each got five or so laps, with the instructor leading us around by means of example and through walkie-talkies installed in each car. It worked very well and I thoroughly enjoyed my laps. The A4 was a decent car to have beneath me too: predictable, with decent grunt and a nicely setup chassis that was soft enough for road conditions but stiff enough for a few harmless laps of Sears.

What became obvious throughout the morning was that Audi are one of the most brand-aware car manufacturers out there. They know that BMW owns the "best German sport-sedan" title in the minds of the public and their inferiority complex has led them to put a lot of dollars into efforts to prove themselves sportier. This is why it's Audi who have the last eight Le Mans wins (yes, 2003 was a Bentley-badged Audi) and why they spend millions of dollars every year on initiatives like the A4 Driving Experience. I think it works. If someone were to ask me what the sportiest German car manufacturer is, ten years ago there's no doubt that BMW would be the answer. These days I'd probably be just as likely to say Audi. If I was offered either a BMW M3 or an Audi RS4, I'd probably take the Audi. It would be a tossup between an RS6 and an M5, but the fact that a car like that can come close to the amazing M5 says loads. It was an S4 that was so very nearly my next car back in March, not an M3. And BMW's reticence to leverage their F1 efforts, still hiding behind the "Sauber" moniker whilst Audi are loud and proud about their dominance at Le Mans, is helping tip the scales Audi's way too.

I've always imagined my next car would be an Audi S-something. Their investment in brand-building through sportscar racing, along with giving me the keys to a new A4 for the morning have done nothing to undermine that prediction, that's for sure.

Dakar sans duneage

Those of us who are dyed-in-the-wool fans of Dakar (and who felt truly gutted by the cancellation of this year's event) have something to cling to, as right now the Central European Rally is in full swing. Imagine all the usual Dakar cast members throwing their multi-million dollar toys around forests in Romania and Hungary for seven whole days and you'll get the idea.

I've been remiss in talking about this event, simply because a) I forgot about it; and b) they (the organizers) didn't seem to do very much to make sure that racing nuts like me don't forget about it.

All is not lost! I have gotten my hands on the Eurosport coverage of the first four stages and plan on writing about it as soon I've watched them all.

Just to whet your appetite, I've seen two photos, one of a VW Touraeg race vehicle about 15 feet in the air coming off a jump and the other of a Mitsubishi Pajero and another Touraeg duelling side by side on a stage. This bodes rather well, even if an inspection of the route maps indicates a lot of liaison for very little actual racing.

RIP Ouninpohja

The world's fastest rally stage, Rally Finland's Ouninpohja, has been axed for being too fast. The maximum recommended average speed on a gravel stage is 130km/h, or 81mph.

Back in 2004, Petter Solberg blitzed the 33.01km stage in 15 minutes, 19 seconds. There's amazing video of this on Youtube (and on my hard drive LOL!). The average speed of this run came out to 129.39km/h which was too close to the maximum speed for the FIA's comfort. For 2005 and 2006, the stage was split into two, resulting in stages with 129.54km/h and 128.10km/h average speeds. Once again, Ouninpohja was too fast.

For 2007, the organizers put the stage back together, this time with three chicanes installed to dramatically affect the times. The result: Marcus Gronholm comes within 0.5 seconds of Solberg's incredible 2004 time, meaning he was effectively going MUCH faster through the bulk of the stage.

It had become clear to the organizers that although they could keep Ouninpohja within the maximum average speed numerically (just), it wasn't in the spirit of the rule, and crews, spectators and marshalls were being put at greater risk.

Which is all a great shame, because as I've mentioned on this blog before, Rally Finland and its "queen stage" are a perfect example of the true essence of stage rallying. To lose part of that is a loss for rallying the world over.

Dakar is not dead

The ASO, organizers of the Dakar Rally, are certainly up against it. Although the event is terrific and well-loved by the motorsport community, mainstream media tends to focus on the more negative aspects of the rally, including competitor deaths, civilian injuries and deaths, kidnappings and terrorist threats.

This year it all proved too much after alleged Al Qaeda operatives threatened the race directly. Whether there was any substance to the threats was deemed irrelevent by organizers who felt they had no choice but to cancel the whole thing.

Should a similar threat occur next year, we can only imagine the outcome will be the same. So what next for the Dakar Rally? Surely it's too big a risk to run the race through these areas of unrest?

Many have suggested an alternative part of the world for the rally, Patagonia being one suggestion and the Asian steppes another. It's hard to say if the event would retain the same spirit if it moved out of Africa. Most people would agree that the real character of the event emerges in the middle of the event with a series of marathon stages crossing thousands of miles of dunes. A rally raid without this iconic group of stages would surely never feel like a "real" Dakar. After all, the last time the race deviated from its basic Morocco-Senegal path was when it crossed the top of north Africa and ended in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, and the plentiful dune stages helped the event retain its character, despite a vastly different final few days.

Perhaps a raid that includes the heavily-duned Gobi or Taklamakan Deserts in China might be the answer? Dunes are also very prevalent in the Arabian Desert which is the second-largest non-polar desert in the world.

For me, however, the issue needs to be addressed from the perspective of finding the best way to continue to run the event in Africa. If we assume that for now Algeria and Mauritania are off-limits, many other options exist. The event has run through Libya in the past, so it should be feasible to start in Europe, spend a day on a boat to Tunisia, then run through Tunisia, Libya, Niger, Mali and into Senegal. Those last three listed countries are all moderate, reasonably stable states and offer plenty of terrain that is so synonymous with the Dakar Rally.

Another option that comes to mind is doing it in southern Africa, taking in the dune areas of Namibia, after travelling through Zambia and Tanzania before ending in Cape Town.

Whatever the ASO comes up with I hope that the Dakar Rally is able to continue and do so without losing the character and challenge that makes it such an important and special race.

Race of Champions honors Colin McRae

We sat down to watch the Race of Champions last night, and there was no doubt that the spirit of the late Colin McRae was everywhere. All the drivers wore the Saltire on their arm and Colin's 1995 championship-winning Impreza was on display in the middle of the track for the second half of the event, driven there by his younger brother, Alistair.

It's going on 3 months now since Colin died, and I'm sure that like many people I still find it hard to believe that it ever happened. I think celebrity deaths tend to elicit a lot of initial shock that fades away rapidly, but in the case of McRae I get the impression that the motorsport community is still in the first stage of the Kubler-Ross "Five Stages of Grief" model, denial.

The Race of Champions did their bit to help the grieving process last night. Grab a tissue and check out this incredibly moving footage of the tribute:

Loeb vs. Gronholm - mistakes

After two incredibly dull tarmac rallies, this weekend's WRC event in Japan was full of drama. As it has been throughout the season, Marcus Gronholm has made mistakes when we expected them, and Seb Loeb has made them when we haven't.

Things started as we've come to expect them: a fast young Finn took early control with the terrific Jari-Matti Latvala putting in some storming early times (albeit on roads that had been swept by the championship leaders in gradually improving weather conditions). Marcus soon moved to the front, with team-mate Mikko Hirvonen lurking in contention. It all went pear-shaped on SS4, the short Rikubetsu spectator stage, when Gronholm went wide on a corner and slid down a bank. What could have been an irritating time delay turned into disaster when it was deemed that the roll cage was too badly damaged to continue. This struck me as bad luck, since the off wasn't that dramatic. Hirvonen now led, with Loeb coming from behind fast. Meanwhile Gronholm was looking at turning a 4-point lead into a 4- or 6-point deficit.

Day two looked to be the day that Seb would either cruise to consolidate an easy second, or chip away at Hirvonen and eventually take the lead. Neither happened. Loeb's ultra-efficient co-driver Daniel Elena (who some of my rally friends called T4, the latest version of the Terminator due to his robot-like skills) called a "plus-plus" instead of a "minus-minus" on one corner, sending Loeb flying off the road and out of the rally. Everything was now even again. Behind Hirvonen, some unusual names were sneaking into the top eight, as Subaru managed to lose all three cars, making way for the likes of Henning Solberg, Luis-Perez Companc, and World's Worst Son Matthew Wilson, who makes a fool of his Dad every time he gets into his WRC car. This time however he was at the sharp end.

So as it stands right now here's how things look. Let's presume Seb and Marcus finish one-two in the remaining two rallies.

1. If Seb wins both with Marcus second, they will be tied on 120 points. Seb would win the title based on the "rallies won" tie-breaker (Seb would be at 9, Marcus at 4)

2. If Seb wins one and Marcus wins one, Marcus wins the title, 122 points to 118.

3. If Marcus wins both, it'll be an easy 124 to 116 victory for him.

What is actually likely to happen is that Loeb will win in Ireland, making Rally GB a must win for both drivers. Although Marcus ran a rally in Ireland earlier this year in which he came second, Loeb has done two Irish events, both of which he won. The stages share much in common with the first day of Rally Deutschland - narrow, wooded and fast. And we all know how well Seb does in those conditions.

So we can fairly confidently expect an incredible showdown in the Welsh forests, scene of so many epic championship-deciding thrillers. I was there in 2003 when it was Solberg vs. Loeb, but in that situation Loeb had been told to hold station in second to guarantee the manufacturer's title, thereby losing the driver's crown. It was still incredibly exciting stuff in the damp, fog and rain on classic stages with names like Brechfa, Resolfen and Rhondda...

The meaning of legend

Indulge me for a moment as I lay out an analogy for you. As an active, professionally-trained musician I've learned over the years that success in music is not proportional to your musicianship. I worked for a year or so as a tour manager for a major-label punk-rock band. I was a much more skilled musician than any of the guys in that band, but they were the ones with the record deal, not me. As the tour rolled on , it became apparent why this was. Every night, they stepped out onto the stage and put on a great show, with fun banter, lots of jumping around, all the right rock 'n' roll moves, carefully-timed f-bombs and an air of unpredictability that keeps the crowd excited.

When I came off the road I realized I'd learned a lot, and it changed how I approached my music. The realization that the craft of music was a two-way street that involved more than just the band was a big step.

Colin McRae understood these fundamental principles. He came to understand that once you get to a certain level in motorsport you're not just in it for yourself anymore, and that even if you're not the one with the most innate talent you can still be a legend. This understanding lead him to work with Codemasters on the terrific Colin McRae Rally series of video games, that brought his name to an audience previously unfamiliar with rallying. It also manifested itself in his driving style, which was always exciting to watch, even as other drivers were using a newer, tidier approach that worked better with the modern generation of WRC cars and was clearly faster. His no-holds-barred attitude meant that rally fans always knew he was trying hard, one of the reasons he had a greater tendency to crash. This was a large part of the appeal of Colin. People love someone who never gives up, who always tries hard against apparently insurmountable odds and who would rather fail spectacularly than give up.

But most importantly, Colin's intuitive feel for dealing with people is what will live on in the hearts of everyone who ever knew him or followed his career through the media. His communication style, like his rallying, was open and honest. Colin would rather tell the truth, even if it was an unpleasant truth, than cover things up. I remember watching an interview with him after a rally in New Zealand, where a pace note issue had caused a crash: he was asked what had happened and he replied wryly "maybe you should ask the Welsh wizard", indicating his displeasure with co-driver Nicky Grist. That kind of openness is rare in professional sport, and with Colin it worked both ways. He was clearly a big fan of Travis Pastrana when he came over to compete against the freestyle motocrosser in the X-Games rally last year, and he showed it. He refused to act the "big shot" when he was up against the top American rallyists, and anyone who competed against him in either of the X-Games he took part in had nothing but good things to say about him, how he was always gracious and accomodating.

I know I just said "most importantly" at the start of the previous paragraph, but there is actually something else even more important: the fact that Colin was a husband, father and son. As tough as it is for the rallying community and for the world of sport in general to accept Colin's death, our pain is nothing compared to that of his wife Alison, his daughter Hollie and his parents Jimmy and Margaret, all of whom are facing the double tragedy of also losing Colin's son Johnny.

If there is a heaven, let's hope it's one big superspecial stage. If it is, Colin is either winning or crashing...

Colin McRae, 1968-2007

What a tragic day for motorsport Saturday turned out to be. I'm too sad about this to write anything at the moment except my send my deepest condolences to the McRae family. There's plenty of tributes on the web. I'll write more later.

Edge of the seat

Although I abandoned "weekend review" posts last year, it seems only right that I should reflect on a cracking weekend's racing in the ALMS and WRC. Having a three-day weekend to enjoy it also helped, especially with the lovely weather we've had here in San Francisco (finally...)

Marcus Gronholm and Seb Loeb delivered a complete nail-biter of a rally in New Zealand, featuring the closest finish ever in the history of the World Rally Championship, a scant 0.3 seconds. This is not how rallies are supposed to work. Generally you expect the bloke in second place to back off in the last few stages once it's clear he's not going to catch the leader. Not yesterday...

Marcus started the day about one second behind the Frenchman, and the lead see-sawed until the final stage. Seb went in 0.7 seconds behind, claimed back 0.4 seconds and ended up just missing out on the victory. It now leaves him one rally win (10 points) behind Gronholm. The balance of power is finely poised. The next two events are tarmac rallies that typically favour Seb: Catalunya and Corsica. After that is Rally Japan, which could go either way. The penultimate round is in Ireland. Although the surface is tarmac, and in theory should be best suited to Loeb, both drivers have done exploratory rallies in the Emerald Isle, making for a much more even playing field. The final rally will be in Wales, with the slippery gravel that might just be more Gronholm's cup of tea. The key for both of them will be to keep it on the road. If Marcus has a DNF with a corresponding win for Seb, they'll be even on points. If the opposite occurs, Seb might just have to kiss the championship goodbye.

Although the setting couldn't have been more different, the American Le Mans race in Detroit was very nearly as exciting as the WRC in New Zealand.

As much as I dislike seeing Audi win, due to their massive domination in Le Mans racing, I'm not too happy seeing them endure such a long losing streak (now 8 straight races). Part of it is down to the fact they've had some bad luck, but the bigger issue is that according to the rules, they shouldn't be losing. LMP2 cars, like the Penske Porsches that are so successful right now, are not supposed to win. They can be expected to challenge very occasionally on tight, slow tracks, but according to the ACO's rule book, LMP1 cars should rarely lose, especially when they are as highly-developed as the Audi R10.

Porsche were too frightened of Audi to enter LMP1. This was a bad decision for the fans who wanted to see a straight fight. To see Porsche win with an LMP2 car is like watching a badly-behaved kid get rewarded for beating up a classmate.

However, it has made for some great racing, in a season where it was expected that Audi would win everything! In Detroit on Saturday, where it was expected the Porsches would take advantage of the tight street layout, Audi looked to be taking a surprise win. However, with two laps to go, Romain Dumas in the Porsche managed to make a pass on Emanuele Pirro's Audi, and held on for the win. Pirro will have to take the blame after carelessly leaving the door open at one of the few points on the circuit where a pass was theoretically possible. Any of Pirro's three team-mates would probably not have made that same mistake.

All good fun stuff to watch....

Put that thing away

I'm amazed there aren't more rally drivers wandering around with terrible speech impediments. Hardly a single WRC broadcast goes by without at least one shot of a driver with his tongue sticking out like a five-year-old trying to draw the space shuttle. All it takes is one unseen rock in the road to clamp those knashers down on the guy's poor tongue, and then he's having problems saying words that begin with "th" for the rest of his life.

The presence of champion tongue-wrangler Francois Duval at last week's Rally Deutschland was a bold reminder of this oddest of racing habits. Toni Gardemeister is another with a badly-controlled tongue, and Petter Solberg (better known for a simple "mouth-wide-open" expression) has been known to do it too.

The question for me is whether this is a uniquely rally-centric habit? Or is it just more obvious due to the preponderance of open-face helmets? Perhaps Lewis Hamilton is waggling his tongue like any other 18-year-old schoolboy does in his dreams - it's just we can't see it. Or maybe even the great Valentino Rossi engages in Duval-style tongue-robics. We'll never know.

Interview with X Games entrant Pat Moro

Hot on the heels of my post about how my friend and former team-mate Pat Moro was invited to the X Games Rally, a video production company has sent me video of an interview feature they did with Pat at the event. They're called Presspass Productions and the video is embedded below. Check out their YouTube page which has interviews with other X Games competitors, along with a host of other sport-related content. Thanks to Alex from Presspass for this.

X Games entry

I'm extremely excited that one of the rally drivers I used to co-drive for, Ohio's Pat Moro, will be racing in this weekend's X Games. The event will basically be like a WRC super-special, in and around the Home Depot Center in LA and this year will feature a massive motocross-style jump. The top drivers in the country will be there, including Subaru USA team-mates Travis Pastrana and Ken Block and SYMS team drivers Andrew Pinker and Tanner Foust and they will all be joined again by former WRC champ Colin McRae.

To gain entry to the competition drivers needed to have scored well in the Rally America national championship, and most of the drivers appear at or near the top of the current championship standings. Organizers kept two final spots open that were considered "at-large" spots, and the choice of who was going to be picked was up to their discretion.

The announcement was made a week ago. One spot went to top US road-racer and occasional NASCAR driver Boris Said, who is heavily involved with the Sobe No Fear brand that sponsored Colin McRae's X Games Subaru last year (I followed Boris' progress earlier this year in NASCAR as I tried to learn more about it). The other place was given to current Rally America Production GT class leader Pat Moro.

A bit of background is necessary here: Pat is an experienced off-road motorcycle racer, who has done very well in GNCC enduro racing, and more recently in Supermoto. He turned to rallying in 2003 with a PGT-spec Subaru WRX that had a salvage title after being driven into a lake by the previous owner. Pat and his buddies rebuilt the car and he started racing some local SCCA rallies. I first raced with him at the opening event of the 2004 season at Sno*Drift in Michigan. I immediately found him to be fast and fearless, but it was also clear he needed a lot more experience (he overused the handbrake and got easily spooked by spectator areas for example). I'd been co-driving a lot and helped him learn how to think more strategically, use stage notes and worry less about the mechanical aspects of the car in order to focus on his driving. I ran with him again at Susquehannock Trail in Pennsylvania where we crashed heavily into a tree when he didn't pay attention to a "caution" call I made. After the car was repaired we did the Ojibwe Forests event in Minnesota. It was there that I started to see some positive changes in his style and approach. Later that season he took my advice about separating himself from car maintenance by bringing in a rally prep outfit to look after the car.

Due to my commitments in the music business I stopped rallying soon afterwards but followed Pat's progress. He didn't run much in 2005 and had a stop-start season in 2006 punctuated by crashes and DNFs. In 2007 he has run a perfect campaign. He's the first to admit that he's not the fastest guy out there, usually outpaced by PGT wildman Matthew Johnson, but Matt has had a few crashes (the most recent one has probably totaled his bright orange WRX) whilst Pat has put in consistent points finishes. As a result he leads PGT, and is actually tenth in the overall points standings. The only person above him in the points who didn't get invited to the X Games is Matt, who would probably not have been able to attend due to the state of his car.

As you can see, Pat's progression as a driver, his commitment to the sport and his 2007 season performance clearly indicate that he's worthy of the final X Games invite. Sadly, it seems as though some people in the American rally community disagree. In fact, the amount of complaining amongst US-based rallyists about the X Games is staggering. Here is an opportunity for the sport to have network TV coverage featuring the top drivers and best-prepped cars. It is true that it is not a "real" rally, but that doesn't actually matter. If it brings people to the sport that's a positive thing. If some of those people don't stick around because they don't like the actual format that's fine too. A percentage of these X Games-sourced new fans will continue to follow rallying. Exposure to multi-million dollar extreme sports sponsors is also not a bad thing!

I've always found rallyists to be a friendly, open group of people. Here in the US however there is always a cadre of them who insist on bitching and moaning about everything. Not a good thing for potential competitors, spectators and sponsors to see when they head to the main online discussion forum for American rallying, SpecialStage.com. Let's hope that the spectacle this Sunday lunchtime will be sufficiently impressive to allow newcomers to the sport to overlook the whining old guard and instead embrace its potentially bright future.

Things looking up in the WRC

People really knock the World Rally Championship at the moment, but here we are halfway through the season, one day before Rally Finland, and we've got a lot to look forward to.

Despite the seeming invincibility of Sebastien Loeb, it is Marcus Gronholm who heads into the second half of the year with a nine-point lead. Poor performances by Loeb in Norway and Italy are to blame, despite outwinning Marcus by four to three. Seb does best when controlling from the front, but will the need to beat Marcus (rather than simply keep pace to score points) force him to make more uncharacteristic errors? Behind them Mikko Hirvonen continues to demonstrate that he's likely to be top dog once Marcus and Seb retire from the sport.

So we've got this tantalizing battle to look forward to, which is great, but there are indications that Subaru is on the brink of returning to form (how many times have we said that though?) Petter Solberg commented lately that they think they've uncovered the cause of all their poor performances. Chasing that very ghost took all of 2006, and has taken much of 2007. In the meantime Petter has been forced to overdrive, causing many more accidents that would normally be expected from the talented, hyperactive Norwegian. If it's true that Subaru are back on form, I wouldn't be surprised to see Solberg challenging Hirvonen in the championship before long.

The championship has also been bolstered by the addition of third cars for Ford and Subaru, in the hands of Khalid Al-Qassami and Xavier Pons respectively. Al-Qassami bring huge sponsorship money from Abu Dhabi, as well as some Middle East Rally Championship success (perhaps useful for next year's Jordanian Rally). He will run four events in 2007, then ten in 2008. Pons, who was so poor at Kronos Citroen last year that he was effectively replaced by Dani Sordo seems an odd choice for Subaru. However, I imagine that he also brings financial backing, giving the team the ability to run three cars and increase their data gathering and effective test mileage by 50%. The arrival of these two entries now gives us 14 WRC cars from the six manufacturer teams. These are bolstered by numerous private entries from hotshoes like Urmo Aava, Guy Wilks, and the ridiculously quick 17-year old Andreas Mikkelson, who's been turning heads in the Irish Tarmac Championship.

Another thing to look forward to in this year's WRC is the debut of Rally Ireland. I've been following Irish rallying this year, particularly the two events that featured Gronholm and Loeb, and those two drivers were given a damn good run for their money by the absolute headcase domestic drivers. The roads are very narrow but very quick, and the Irish drivers know how to go fast on them. What's more, Irish rallies regularly feature more WRC-spec cars than WRC events, so there's no shortage of competitive entries. I honestly expect locals like Eugene Donnelly to challenge for the podium when the WRC arrives on the Emerald Isle in November.

Finally, a new manufacturer will arrive this year, with Suzuki planning on running their WRC car for the first time in Corsica. I'm sure it will be slow and unreliable, but it's nice to see a completely new entrant. In 2008 they'll run a full season, and its possible we'll also see the return of Mitsubishi at that point too.

I think Mark Twain once said "the rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated...."

Animal invasion at the WRC

Did anyone else catch this on Day 2 of the WRC Acropolis Rally? Very bizarre - a German Shephard just saunters through the Subaru service area...

TV coverage - the good, the bad and the downright ugly

TV coverage can make or break a motorsport championship. I watched the second round of the Australian Rally Championship last night, which is produced by the same folks who do the WRC coverage, with the same style of graphics, same music, same editing style and an overall similar feel. The goal is clear: regardless of what happens in the rally, MAKE IT COMPELLING...

They have succeeded. Despite an absence of flame-spitting WRC cars, replaced instead by tamer Super 2000 and Group N machinery, and even with a runaway leader, I was very entertained. Quick edits, smart, diverse camerawork and an excitable commentator all helped, and the show was put together in a manner that allowed me to keep track of what was going on.

In contrast, MotorsTV's coverage of the Le Mans Series race at Valencia was a disaster. Many on the sportscar racing forums are decrying the lack of spectator-friendliness of this series, and a piss-poor TV package is not helping. Unlike the ALMS, which provides excellent trackside commentary, internet radio, position indicator lights on the cars and numerous live-timing scoreboards at the track and online, it seems as though the LMS exists just for the competitors, and the TV coverage is one more example of this.

The MotorsTV highlights show had a wonderful opportunity to pack 6 hours of action into a tight 90-minute presentation. Instead, they took three segments of the race, stuck them together and called it a day. Tough luck to the viewer if something happened in the time between those segments. For an endurance event, it is vital that the viewer or spectator know what's going on, because it is often hard to see unless you follow closely over a long period of time. This is impossible if one moment you're watching action from lap 70, then a second later, it's lap 170.

As much as I like Mark Cole, an extremely knowledgeable commentator, he needs to be teamed with an entertaining co-commentator. He needs to function more as the expert, and sit next to someone like Martin Haven or John Hindhaugh, who can provide some excitement. Even his normal partner of Carlton Kirby is a little better. But when it's just Mark and David Leslie, or even worse, the pillocks they dug up for this weekend's event, it makes a potentially interesting event rather dull.

The top racing championships have it right - MotoGP for example does a great job, with good graphics, excellent camerawork and a solid commentary team. But the Aussie Rally folks prove that you don't need to be a major worldwide championship to have a great broadcast package. In fact, for smaller championships it might actually be even MORE important to have exciting, compelling TV shows.

Weekend Menu - Week 17

Some bizarre crossover events this weekend, along with a few championships that begin their year:

• Spanish CEV - Albacete, Spain (first round of the top Spanish motorcycle championship)
• World Superbike / Supersport / Superstock - Assen, Netherlands
• A1GP - Brands Hatch, England (final race of the season)
• Quit Forest Rally - Busselton, Australia (Australian Rally Championship)
• AMA Superbike - California Speedway, Fontana, CA
• World Supermoto Championship - Castelletto di Branduzzo, Italy (first round of the championship)
• Cookstown 100 - Cookstown, Northern Ireland (first race in the Irish real road racing season)
• Kansas Lottery $150 Grand - Kansas Speedway (ARCA / Remax Series)
• Kansas Lottery Indy 300 - Kansas Speedway (Indy Racing League)
• O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 - Kansas Speedway (NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series)
• Rim of the World Rally - Lancaster, CA (US Rally Championship)R
• Rally de Canaria - Las Palmas, Canary Islands (FIA Southwest European Rally Cup)
• ADAC ACAS H&R Cup - Nurburgring, Germany (VLN Championship)
• Terrible's Town 250 - Pahrump, NV (Best in the Desert series)
• Rally Matador Tatry - Puchov, Slovakia (FIA Central European Rally Cup)
• AMA Supercross - Seattle, Washington
• British Superbike - Silverstone, England
• Aarons 312 - Talladega, AL (NASCAR Busch Series)
• Aarons 499 - Talladega, AL (NASCAR Nextel Cup)
• VIR 400 - Virginia International Raceway (Grand Am Rolex Sportscar Series)
• VIR 500k - Virginia International Raceway (MOTO-ST)
• Star Mazda Championship - Virginia International Raceway

A few things to mention here... Firstly, interesting to see three entirely seperate sanctioning bodies together at Kansas Speedway (IRL, NASCAR and ARCA). I like to see that kind of thing, it's good for motorsport. Secondly, same thing at Virginia, except even more so. Star Mazda is usually aligned with IMSA and the ALMS, so they're kind of bridging a gap by running alongside Grand-Am. And how WEIRD to see a motorcycle race as part of that weekend. I would have thought that the infrastructure for two-wheeled racing is too different to run alongside cars (I'm thinking of air fencing versus tyre barriers for example). MOTO-ST is run by Grand-Am so the hook-up is not entirely surprising, but I hope that motorcycle safety isn't compromised by running with cars.

The Rim of the World Rally, which I've competed in a few times, is a shell of it's former self, after the Forest Service pulled their permit to run in the Angeles National Forest. It will now be a Superspecial-only rally, albeit one that will feature RallyMoto (another example of the motorcycle-car hookup). Funny, these coincidences...

The problem with split times

Once again, the pace of development in the world of communications has had a negative impact on the spectacle of motorsport. I'm referring to the usage of split-times in the World Rally Championship. Too often these days you hear about drivers "driving to the splits", effectively managing their time gaps so as to not go too fast or be overly risky.

I'll be the first to admit that rallying is very much about getting to the finish - I have many trophies from my days as a co-driver that prove that outright speed is not always necessary to achieve success! However, when a driver makes a decision about how hard to push on a given stage, it should not be influenced during the stage through communications from outside the car. The whole concept of driving to splits is inherently unfair, since it favours teams that are starting later (the top runners on days two and three when this practice is most often utilized) and teams with the budget for the kind of radio technology integration.

It used to be the case that as the end of the rally neared, anyone not in the lead would push like crazy to gain back time. This meant the leader had to do the same. These days that never happens, since the guy in second knows that the leader will be able to adjust his pace based on those split times. If you know your rival will push only as hard as necessary, there's no incentive to risk it all.

Even Formula 1 clamped down on excessive comms technology by banning pit-to-car telemetry. I see no legitimate reason for split-time communications to be legal (unless of course those in charge feel it's a safety issue by limiting how fast the cars will go - if that's the case then we live in sad, sad world).

The biggest losers in all of this are the fans, who can no longer witness heroic last-day fight-backs. Instead those final stages pass by like moves in a chess game: considered, informed and downright dull.

A trip to the Swedish Rally, part 4 - Sunday

Thanks for staying with me as I tell the story of my trip to the Swedish Rally. We're up to Sunday, Leg 3 of the event.

Since the concept of sticking with what works seemed to do well for our dinner plans, we applied it to breakfast too, and took in another smorgasbord at our friendly local cafe. We had to be up even earlier than the previous day because the first stage we were going to was the first stage of the day, SS13, Sagen. To make matters worse, Sagen was located a significant distance further than Fredriksberg, albeit in the same direction.

The drive out to the stage was event-free and after a left-turn off the main road we found a parking space in the quaint little village of Sagen. The access road continued through the village, and it turned out that it was the end of the stage too. We walked up the stage, which ended with a very tight downhill hairpin, and found a spot up above the hairpin. The view was fantastic - cars came down the hill from the left, before braking hard in front of us for that final corner.

We were early enough this time to see all three course opening cars, with their flashing lights and wailing sirens. It helped build the excitement as the minutes passed. I spent the time preparing to do some rudimentary timing and scoring. Since this was the first stage of the day I could be pretty sure that it would start on time, and with the finish line visible from our vantage point I was planning on recording stage times.

As we chatted with a pair of Norwegians, I checked my watch: 8:35am, the departure time for the first car. Seven minutes later the first car arrived, right on schedule - Kristian Sohlberg in a Group A Mitsubishi Evo. We watched as he executed a textbook "Scandinavian Flick" around the hairpin before crossing the finish in 7:25.

As each car came through we enjoyed seeing the different lines through the corner, as well as checking out who was recording fast times. The first really quick time was put up by Seb Loeb, and as it turns out only Marcus Gronholm was able to better the young Frenchman.

We stayed at Sagen until about 30 cars had passed through, because we had a date with SS15, Hara. This gave us about two hours to drive all the way back to Hagfors, then about 20km north, before parking and walking to the stage. By now we knew how tricky it was to stay on schedule, so we made sure to not dawdle. We also chose to take a back road out of Hagfors, to avoid the potentially busy main road to Hara.

The access road to Hara was much smaller than at other stages, and the further in we went the more treacherous it became. At one point we came to a very steep downhill that begged the question "will we make it back up on the way out?" Only one way to find out....

Once we'd reached the end of the line of parked cars we began another long walk to the stage. We ended up at a crossroads - from the road we came in on, the one to the left and the one going forwards were the stage, whilst to right the road ran off into the forest. We walked up the stage, as the route ran uphill into a clearcut area. Once again we had a good vantage point, watching the cars take the 90 degree left-hander, before charging uphill past us and over the top of the hill through a medium right.

During our wait for this stage to start, it began to snow. This may not seem very surprising - we were in Sweden during winter after all, but it was the first time it had snowed on us during a stage. Visibility was reduced, which was a bit of a shame, but it did provide some great wintry atmosphere, as we stood amongst the pine saplings and bonfires.

When all was said and done at Hara, we had one more stage on our itinerary before we would bid the Swedish Rally "goodbye". From Hara it was about 15km south to the village of Sunnemo, where we turned onto a very small country road that would take us to the Hagfors forest stage. The drive was beautiful - no other traffic, and lots of breaks in the forest. Check out the pics on part one of this story - they're from this road. As expected we eventually got to the end of a line of parked cars, and started the walk. This time we faced the longest walk yet, and wondered exactly how far we'd gone when finally we saw a gathering of people next to some emergency vehicles, that indicated a marshall point on the stage. This was at a right-hand hairpin at the end of a very fast section with a couple of yumps. After the corner cars headed slightly uphill, but spectating opportunities up there seemed slim. Instead we headed back down the stage, away from all the marshalls before finding an incredible spot on the outside of a very fast left. In retrospect this was a pretty dangerous place to be, and every time a marshall came by we were made to move back about ten yards. Of course we always moved back to within a few feet of the road.

Once the stage started we discovered that this was the most dramatic viewing spot we'd had throughout the whole event. Cars came by flat in fifth and didn't start braking until after they'd passed us, before the yumps. Each car that passed counted us down to the end of the event, which made for a bittersweet experience. Still, it was a great way to finish our visit to the Swedish Rally, and after the long walk back to the car we headed straight for Stockholm, and a date with a British Airways flight the next morning.