So a little while ago I posted that the RAV4 Virtual Reality display from Toyota featuring Ryan Millen and his stage rally SUV at Supercross events across the US was arguably the biggest exposure to this type of motorsport in the US this year.
On the heels of that comes what I would argue is the second largest exposure of stage rally to those of us in the US this year. Written and shot by Cole Sprague for DirtSports magazine which is available both digitally and in print (see your local B&N), the article really doesn't cover anything ground breaking and only sounds like Cole attended and shot from the spectator locations (shocker that he didn't get any real proactive support from the series to put him in the thick of the action) but Team O'Neil gets a mention for their support of one of the racers as does the usual Higgins and Pastrana Subaru crew and, again, Millen's RAV4 showing and being mentioned prominently.
It would have been nice of Cole to have dug deeper into Bryan Bouffier's effort given his unique car but at least it gets a photo as does the classic Volvo of Derek Knight.
While print's circulation numbers aren't what they once were and DirtSports is not half the magazine it was a decade ago (its merger with "OffRoad Magazine" has resulted in far too much pandering to the mall crawler, bolt on accessory crowd) but stage rally coverage (three full pages with lots of photos!) in a magazine that has a reader count safely in the tens of thousands is a pretty good thing and positive exposure for the sport.
Sooooo...the two arguably largest exposures to stage rally in the US this year were...Supercross event displays and an article in a largely desert racing/offroading magazine. Nice work Rally America...nice work...
Only a few days till we take off for the Ledwidge Lookoff Rally in Nova Scotia. Its not much but the entry list is up to six entries. Three 2WD and three AWD. Hopefully there will be one or two last minute entries to bump this up a bit but regardless we're going to have a good time, see some new roads and meet some great people. The first day's spectator stage is unique in that it takes place entirely within a quarry and the roads on which it takes place are nice and wide and flat. These little sprint stages aren't favorable to the NISMO Stuff Frontier sponsored by Bedard Pharmacy, particularly when they appear so smooth. We'll do our best and look forward to the longer stages of Saturday.
So some five years ago I bought a brand new truck that I turned into a stage rally, hill climb, rally cross, desert racing, all around toy. At the time I had no vehicle to tow it with and no trailer to tow it on. Typically its good to have those before embarking on such a path. In that time I've begged, borrowed and paid for transport of various kinds to and from events and occasionally driven the race truck to and from the event itself just crossing my fingers that nothing bad would happen that would prevent me from driving it home.
I've now finally remedied one of the above noted absences. My frequent co-driver David Dennis recently had the opportunity to downsize his trailer by buying a lighter trailer from a brother of his that would suit his purposes just fine...so his full deck trailer on which we have towed my truck a number of times became available. So I bought it. As trailers go she ain't pretty but she gets the job done and with a bit of work can be spruced right up as her bones are solid. I also like the full deck as while it makes the trailer significantly heavier it also helps prevent frame twisting that I've seen when my 4000 pound truck is put on an open deck. First up for modifications? A new jack for the front including a nice fat caster wheel attachment to help it pull around my yard with my Pathfinder since I don't have a truck with a hitch...yet.
With the new jack in place next up is a new winch for the deck and some new ramps. Oh, and if you need something like a new project car towed around and don't have a trailer? Let me know, she's always available for work if you need her and can provide the vehicle to tow her and your stuff with.
Available digitally or at your local Barnes & Noble its good to see stage rally get coverage in a quality magazine here in the US. With the explosion of Dual Sport riding and motorcycles here in the US over the past few years this is great coverage for NASA's Rally Moto program. Besides the cover there are a number of pages devoted to additional photos and story. Of course everyone's favorite cowboy hat wearing Rally organizer/enthusiast/motorcycle rider made one of the shots...just a glutton for the camera lens...
For the first time in about a year I actually raced the "race" truck. It was up at the Team O'Neil Rally School in Dalton, NH where the SCCA put on its first stage rally race in some ten years. Many of my fellow entrants were racers I've known for years through the SCCA Rallycross program, including a couple of my prior codrivers.
The weather conditions were fantastic...it was dry and warm and my codriver this day was Tim Meunier who also ran as a driver and codriver in my little Mexican adventure last year. I was admittedly dramatically out of practice and my times showed it. I was pleased by my constant improvement from stage to stage and by then end of the day I felt like some of my pace had begun to return, though far from where I would want to be.
The mileage run on the day was pretty minor--under 20 miles--but it was a good shakedown for the truck to ensure that everything is still up and running and working properly. For the day we finished 20th out of 25 and finished every foot of every stage which would place me 16th on the day if the stage DNFs were viewed as true DNFs and not just a time penalty. Regardless, its a good first step to getting back and used to driving at speed. We'll see what's next.
So it was a busy month for developments in North American Rally now comprising four separate organizing entries in the US alone...
On the ugly and disappointing side of things is the USRA. Formed only in '14 and coming out with a number of announcements and expectations early in '15, it has fairly well thrown in the towel for the year. First off, as stated in last month's report you had the Waste Management Winter Rally which "should" have been one of the USRA's first events with organizers of the event also being party to the new Rally organization but was foiled in this attempt by supposed contractual obligations and remained with Rally America. Then there was the Matthew Noble-Mark Memorial RallySprint which also should have been an USRA event. For whatever reason (not disclosed to public by organizer) this event was cancelled outright. Lastly you then have Denise McMahon (a listed board member of the USRA) out in the Southwest announcing that "The USRA at this time is not ready to put on a rally program but should be able to take over in 2016 of what the Organizers HP RallyGroup has already in place since last year" seeming to indicate that we will not be seeing ANY events put on by the USRA in '15. Denise did announce that her own group, HP Rallygroup LLC, will be putting on the Bilstein Southwest RallyCup series that includes:
Desert Storm Rally - April 11th in Blythe, CA (coefficient 3)
Mendocino Rally - July 18/19th, in Ukiah, CA (status TBD) (coefficient 2/3)
Rally Utah - August 7/8th, in Cedar City, UT (coefficient 2/3)
Arizona Extreme Rally - September 12th, in Kingman, AZ (coeff3)
Seed 9 Rally - November 7th in Jean, NV
This is pretty darn impressive for a small (one woman?) organizing effort, many people struggle to put on a single event, let alone five, and without a National organizing/sanctioning body behind her? Going forward we will replace the USRA with updates on the HP Rallygroup events unless the USRA has anything of note to mention.
USRA grade for the month: F
Then you have the reentry to US Stage Rally of the behemoth that is the SCCA. Exiting stage rally in the early 'oughts for numerous reasons while continuing autocross on dirt for the past decade or so, the SCCA is now officially dipping its toe back in the stage rally waters. Rumored to be happening on a "test" basis for a while, the very first SCCA RallySprint was announced in late February and is to take place at the Team O'Neil facility in New Hampshire. Documents show this to be a two stage (each of some 2.5 miles in length), run multiple times event. Supposed top speeds will reach 70 mph and there will be no cones...this is a real stage rally event presenting all the risks seen at a non-sprint length event, just shortened up a tad. It will be interesting to see just how much mileage is done in the event. The entry cost is under $200 and the # of competitors is to be capped. Additionally, the individuals actually running the event are long time SCCA Rallycross and NEFR Stage Rally contributors who know how to run events pretty well. I have entered the event as is very close to me and at the price its hard to go wrong...as long as we aren't sitting around trying to tech the vehicles all morning it should be OK. I encourage the organizers to not take a real "lunch" break and just build in a brief "service period" as a normal stage rally would have. The absolute minimum amount of down time possible should be built in. I know of no other official SCCA RallySprint events that have been announced yet though I'm sure there will be soon. The SCCA has stated that it will be running RallySprints only in '15 though given most national Rally America events have deep roots in the SCCA, if the USRA isn't pressuring events to move to them in '16, I wouldn't be surprised if the SCCA was...All that said the SCCA doesn't seem to be putting much effort into promoting the RallySprint efforts with no info on it on their site, nothing broken out separately from their RallyCross or RoadRally programs, nothing in their forums...if you weren't keyed into watching websites like Jalopnik or in close contact with SCCA Rallycross staff in the New England, you might not have any idea that such a series of events is coming to fruition.
SCCA grade for the month: B
Rally America saw two events in February. First up was the aforementioned WMWR in Pennsylvania. Though the primary Rally America site provides little to no info on the event, the stand alone web page for the race reveals 14 entries (double the 7 entries seen in '14) with three Open Light Impreza's on the podium, led by Jon Kramer taking the win by a bit over five minutes and a time of 1:15. The event even generated a 7+ minute long video and interview on a Wellsboro, PA news website to be seen here:
Continuing with the "winter theme" after Sno Drift and WMWR Rally America is usually done with the snow but not so this year. With the deep freeze the US has seen this year, 100 Acre Wood was more a snow/ice rally than the very high speed gravel/dirt it typically is. The 2014 version of the event included nationally known (even outside the Rally community) racers like Pastrana and Block as well as National level competitors like L'Estage, ACP and Matt Johnson and 25 National entries. The 2015 version saw growth in the overall number of racers from 50 (25 National, 25 Regional) in '14 to 58 this year, it saw a substantial drop in National entries (from 25 to 17) and an exit of all of the aforementioned names except ACP. David Sterckx provided David Higgins only competition and finished 5:42 back of the winner. In equal vehicles and tires a Sterckx/Higgins contest would be a great thing to watch. Jim Beaver again provided nearly live radio coverage of the event, much as he did at SnoDrift. Rally-America posted "full" video coverage of SnoDrift about 10 days after the event and had posted very nice daily recaps of the event just after the finish of action each day. Rally America completed the same nice recaps for 100 Acre Wood as well. Rally America did generate a bit of negative press for itself when it reversed an earlier decision to grant Bill Caswell's "Build Race Party" photographers media access to the event, likely as a result of comments and articles from BRP asking where the National level competitors have gone and if Rally America is really being run properly--questions anyone with a brain would contemplate. Because of this action, Caswell revealed that his group had gone unpaid for an extended period of time in '14 after being hired for photo coverage of an event. Eventually he was paid he stated but not after months of collection efforts and pressure from a third party. Not exactly the way a racing organization should be run but it continues a long established pattern with Rally America.
Views on YouTube for SnoDrift Rally--17,200
Views on YouTube for 100 Acre Wood--10,600
Facebook Likes--30,556 (up from 29,748 last month)
YouTube Subscribers--10,334 (up from 10,033 last month)
Twitter Subscribers--20,000 (up from 19,700 last month)
Instagram Followers--5,296 (up from 4,246 last month)
Alexa rating of Rally-America.com--146,292 (down from 139,632 last month)
Rally America rating for the month: B
NASA Stage Rally saw one small event happen and picked up a second event as it was announced to be the sanctioning body for the RallySprint test day that was organized in the place of the failed USRA Matthew Noble Marker event.
The California Rally Series Rally School event saw 53 participants looking to learn more about the sport and get some tips from organizers and current drivers/codrivers.
The Washington Test Day #1 was put together in very short order to help accommodate the plans that a number of racers had made but were in danger of going unfulfilled due to the cancellation of the USRA event. A small turnout was expected in early March as entries are capped for the NASA test day program that was introduced this year.
NASA also released their updated version of their Android Rally Clock app to run on your phone or tablet just as NASA uses on their NOOKs. Additional NOOK developments included some online training/education on how to use their NOOK timing system via their YouTube channel where they posted a series of videos such as the one below:
NASA Stage Rally staff also attended the North American Motorsports Expo in Charlotte, NC as an outreach to educate/promote the NASA Stage Rally Program and showing off some Stage Rally vehicles to boot.
Facebook Likes--3,031 (up from 2,615 last month)
YouTube Subscribers--238 (up from 232 last month)
Twitter Subscribers--319 (up from 301 last month)
Instagram Followers--458 (up from 378 last month)
Alexa rating of 290,220 (up from 526,968 last month)
NASA Stage Rally rating for the Month: B+
As always, comments are welcome as would be a recap of events/developments of Stage Rally either North or South of the border...
Call me a loser, call me a hack, call me a know nothing, call me a detriment to the rally community. That's fine. I accept it. Fortunately I really don't care. Whether out of narcissism or a need for attention (both?) I enjoy looking into the success or failure of Rally. In some instances its success...in others its failure...
In some cases its organizations that don't communicate with their customers what their actual operations look like and what troubles they may be undergoing. While from a business perspective it makes sense to keep these issues private, from a consumer perspective, it can be very important to know where your money is going and how it is being used. If you want to attribute positive reasons for my disclosure of this information, great. If you want to ascribe uglier reasons, that's fine, I accept it.
So here goes...The following information was obtained first hand from various high level sources at multiple Rally organizations with each corroborating parts of the others information.
Rally America is about to see a significant change in the way it receives or doesn't receive the proceeds of competitor funds and its actual role in the sport is being drastically curtailed.
First off...one of the first USRA 2015 events will be the Waste Management Winter Rally. No surprise here given one of the USRA's board members is one of the WMWR's chief organizers. Secondly it looks as if there will be a second USRA even in the Northeast in connection with the O'Neil Rally School in '15 given Tim O'Neil's involvement with the USRA and his confirmed displeasure with Rally America at the moment. The rest of USRA's events are likely to be held in the SouthWest where the majority of USRA's other listed board members are located and have organized prior events.
Now onto the good stuff...
If
you remember a couple years back, RA got into a deal of trouble with
Oregon Trail (I believe) and other events/organizers because they never paid the
organizers for months after the event. At this point in time the flow
of funds from competitors went directly to RA first and RA was then
responsible for sending these funds out to organizers, insurance
companies, vendors, etc., etc.
Eventually that got ironed out months and months later though whether everyone got paid what they were owed is doubtful (this last part is my speculation).
Well
fast forward to now and the situation has only turned astronomically
worse. RA is being sued by a previous insurance company who was never
paid, causing RA to obtain a new insurance company in the past couple years and pass on a jacked up insurance rate to racers, organizers haven't been paid, vendors haven't been
paid, most RA employees (what few there are) haven't seen a check in
months and perhaps most importantly, USAC hasn't been paid.
So
this USRA thing began development about 10 months ago from a bunch of
organizers and others who don't like RA and have numerous personal
gripes against RA. Their idea is not much different than anyone else's
in Rally. They aren't recreating the wheel there...they just want to
put on events and get people to come. Their plan is to start out with
smaller events, probly like 6 or so in '15 and move to National level events in years after.
These events will be organized/sanctioned between USRA and USAC, there will be no RA involvement here.
On
the RA event side of things, the National events did and have not wanted to
operate with RA in '15 for some time. They actually came to the USRA as a group (in part or whole) and
asked them to handle the '15 events hoping to drop RA entirely but USRA
turned them down feeling they were not ready to take over such a task
given that at the time they barely had their BOD set and lots of other
beginning stuff to work on.
So
the RA National events were stuck with RA for '15--but...USAC is PISSED
they haven't gotten their money from RA and how RA has handled their payment of various parties in general, (this is where the 1/1/15
date comes in) and will be notifying RA that as of 1/1/15 that they, USAC, are taking over all the licensing, registration, payment, and insurance, etc. of the RA National events. RA (the company) will be
left SOLELY as a promotional/marketing arm putting their "name" on the events but not really having anything to do with the
competitors or their money.
And
HERE is where I think the rubber meets the road in terms of the Fogg's
interest in the sport and this gets into some speculation on my part vs.
what I have been told first hand by those directly involved. RA
as a company owes tons of people, tons of money and can't pay its
bills. It also couldn't produce something that NBCSN wanted and
couldn't meet its obligations to paying sponsors who had counted on advertising/promotional time on those supposed NBCSN broadcasts.
So
where did that money go?? Here's my speculation. Until very recently,
RA controlled 100% of the flow of funds for these events. They took
all these funds in and then were trusted to pay everyone. Well, that
didn't happen very often. So my belief is that the Fogg's were and are,
using the funds from competitors to prop up their other businesses or
to fund their personal interests and then would "repay" various groups
at later dates when they got more funds from somewhere else (cash flow
improves, another event happens and they have another inflow of funds, a
sponsor signs, etc.) Whether this is 100% true is mostly besides the point...what matters is that RA took the money in and did SOMETHING with that did not involve paying its obligations related to Rally America events...
Its worse than even a company earning money on the "float" they might earn by holding the funds for longer than they should...it seems to me that they were using these competitor and sponsor funds for operating purposes elsewhere.
Well,
this is where USAC's decision is going to seemingly cripple their ability to do
that. See, in the past the flow of funds went something like this: Competitor
(entry fee) -->RA-->Organizers/USAC/Insurance company and as of
1/1/15 the flow of funds will be like this:
Competitor-->USAC-->organizer/insurance company and then if there
is ANYTHING left over it will go to RA for their "sanctioning" of the
event.
So
instead of being first in line for all these funds and RA making all
the decisions as to who gets paid and when and getting their hand on
EVERY penny an event generates they will now be LAST in line for the
funds and won't get them until very late in the process if at all.
So...if
YOU were RA and you had been using the funds gathered from various
events in order to support operating needs of other companies or
personal interests and suddenly had that flow of funds (in the hundreds
of thousands of dollars annually) completely pulled from you with no
control over the amount or timing of the funds you MIGHT get....and you
had no real interest in the sport itself...What would you do?
So...going forward you will be needing a USAC license, not an RA license for competition in RA. RA will have zero control over the flow of funds with USAC taking complete control over registration, insurance, etc., and the longer term intention for many National events is to leave RA and its broken promises behind. What is Rally America as a corporate entity left with at this point?? A name, a website and a rulebook that looks the same as everyone elses. That's it. There is no TV package. Their own events don't want them, there is no national level competition, entries are dwindling, they are being sued by multiple unpaid parties, they can't pay their employees, there hasn't been a PR release in over three months...
In the meantime the Fogg's have already made intimations as to their willingness to sue various entities mentioned here over these changes...it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. I hope this at the very least provides a bit of new information as to where RA stands and what some of the behind the scenes maneuvering has been of late. All this info was up to date as of two weeks ago.
Well, this looks like what we have so far. There are rumors that there may be another event or more (?) added to the schedule that don't appear in this video but this is what exists so far and are the longer running, reliable events. It also doesn't include Hyperfest which is a typical event that is very short in nature but a good time and a points (though at a reduced rate) event for the Atlantic Rally Cup) race. Nice to see Rally Idaho and Magnum Opus back again in '14. Hopefully I'll be racing at a number of these!
While print's circulation numbers aren't what they once were and DirtSports is not half the magazine it was a decade ago (its merger with "OffRoad Magazine" has resulted in far too much pandering to the mall crawler, bolt on accessory crowd) but stage rally coverage (three full pages with lots of photos!) in a magazine that has a reader count safely in the tens of thousands is a pretty good thing and positive exposure for the sport.
