I am plagerizing myself here....the following was a response I made on another website to whether this years Rally events at the XGames were any good and if the best available Rally drivers were actually taking part...if you can't tell by the response below--I thought it sucked...big time...The best American Rallycar drivers WERE there...Pastrana, Block, ACP, L'Estage, Foust, Bacon and Duplessis are THE top drivers in Rally America...
Isachsen is THE Rallycross champion in Europe...
So you have the BEST American rally racers and THE best Rallycross racer--so the competition was at an elite (or as near to it as possible) level.
The DESIGN and EXECUTION was horrendously botched though the Rallycross (SuperRally) was better, though mostly just by comparison to what came before it. The Rally event has gotten worse EVERY year its been a part of the XGames...its first year in the XGames it was a multiday event run in some of the hills around LA and only finished along a street/dirt course that was still a proper "Super Special Stage" length on the final day. True "Rally" is NOT a made for TV sport...its more like desert racing, Dakar, etc. which is very tough to translate to TV audiences...
SuperRally (RallyCross in the European sense) is a VERY TV friendly event---just not at the LA Colleseum...it should be run on something darn close to a short-course offroad venue (though without near as many large jumps). RallyCross Euro-style blows NapCar out of the water and would truly be great if done here the right way.
---And SuperRally/RallyCross is not coming to the U.S. NEXT year, it is coming to the U.S. THIS year...Though you West Coast guys probly won't pay attention ;) as all three events put on by Rally America will take place in NJ at the motorsports complex there. The big names will be there--Block, Pastrana, etc. and THAT will be the true test of whether Rally America knows what its doing. RA has done really well with the design and operation of their Rally events over the past decade or so but have faired poorly when turning things over to the XGames where it is managed by a different company (by chance a company that is/was VERY close to Ricky Johnson and TORC). If RA can run the NJ events as a TRUE Rallycross event then they will be fine and I would expect to see ESPN/ABC pick up broadcasts of the events in '11. If RA sets it up like the XGames course it will be a massive fail.
All that being said, the most recent XGames Rally debacle also shares blame with the original poster of this thread and Mr. Block. The Gymkhana-ization (just made that up) of the sport, while drawing "eyes" to Mr. Block and his efforts and generates a lot of media "impressions" does nothing for the sport. Highly edited, unrepeatable, spins and tire smoke make for great video, but poor drama. Look at the course laid out for the Rally drivers at the Xgames and you can see the influence clearly. I for one hope that Mr. Block and his media co-horts drop the Gymkhana BS (exactly ZERO chance of this given the amount of exposure it generates) and focus on actually finishing a race. For now, Mr. Block remains the Danica Patrick of Rally. He might look good, and sell a lot of shoes but wins little and is merely using the sport as a stepping stone to other ambitions...
1 comment:
Well said, i watched the rally stuff and couldn't figure out why they made the course so difficult and narrow ?? seem'd very challeging specialy as the drivers couldn't see what tunnel/archway they had to go in, and had no practise on the course in that configuration.
Also seems like the ford fiestas were running nitro, they were untochable. Funny how ford was sponsoring the event. seems a bit suspect to me.
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