I really wish SpeedTV still showed WRC. It’s been a total pain since they dropped it.
Anyone else miss the TV coverage of WRC? I don’t like car racing, but I loved watching this. Something about the craziness of it, mixed with it being a race against time.
I think for the first year of “non-coverage”, one guy was making torrents of the European coverage of it. I assume this was illegal, but it was downright convenient(I admit it).
I wish there was a way(legally) to get the coverage of WRC events.
I loved it, too. As a high-performance driver myself, I was tremendously impressed with the quality of the driving, and the variety of the courses. Speed’s coverage was excellent, too. The in-car shots were great, and the computer graphic/GPS images they used to compare multiple runs were very cool.
But apparently its ratings on Speed were pretty bad, and now that it hasn’t had any coverage in the US for a couple of years, the fate of the whole league is in jeopardy. Several manufacturers have dropped out.
I suspect that one of the problems with its coverage in the US is that the scheduling was inconsistent. The scheduling of the events made it hard to find the broadcasts. I know I missed a few races because I didn’t know they were on. And I was trying to find them.
I really wish they’d bring it back, but I’m not counting on it.
Yeah, instead we get these seemingly endless “garage” shows and whatnot on SpeedTV. Doing what these guys did, balls to the wall on narrow bumpy dirt roads, certainly impresses me.
As a rally driver, yes, I love the WRC. But I think it is dying as a series.
Edit: commasense, there are plenty of (non-WRC) rallies that go on in the US, sponsored through Rally America. They are definitely worth checking out, and are always looking for volunteers to work the events…
I’m not sure that top-flight rallying is really a good fit for the US. You spend all day standing around in the edge of a forest, a car shows up, briefly slides around and then is gone in a shower of mud.
Then you wait half an hour (okay, five minutes) for the next one. You have to be a pretty rabid fan to attend more than one or two WRC events. It might appeal to the huntin’, fishin’ and shootin’ crowd, but they’re generally not big fans of rice rockets, and rallycars are the ultimate expression of the breed.
Anyway, world motorsport and American motorsports have been separated for a good fifty years, and I doubt anything will change that now.
I think the WRC has done a terrible job of marketing itself. It has a huge natural constituency for viewers - young males under 30 would love it. But they needed to advertise the cool factor of it all, build up some personalities, both drivers and camera talent. Figure out some new ways to present the races - perhaps some computer graphics to show road conditions and courses, and things like that.
But it’s always presented itself as a kind of car-guys’s race, where technical details abound but the wow factor is low.
Watch the way Top Gear shoots a race, for example. The commentary is witty, production quality and camera work is fantastic, and they can make you riveted watching a couple of guys chase each other around an RAF airstrip.
Put someone like Richard Hammond in the commentary booth, put the Stig in the race, and they’ll make it a hoot to watch. Well, not literally the Stig, but they need personalities like that to draw the interest of the public and have them start picking favorites, which keeps them watching.
It WRC the league that Travis Pastrana races in or is he in a different league. The kid has massive cross-over appeal and is great with the media. I personally will stop and watch rally cars on TV. I remember one from Colorado I think? They were drifting around corners with massive dropoffs and no guard rails. Pure balls.
I miss it being on Speed as well. I miss a lot of racing that used to be shown on Speed, which appears to be down to F1 and NASCAR trucks and NASCAR practice sessions. This year’s dropped coverage was DTM & Aussie V8’s. Sigh.
It be a perfect pick-up for Versus I would think (who somehow became the IRL’s main broadcaster this year). I think I read something along the way that the WRC basically priced itself out of the American market…they want too much money for the broadcast rights for the limited North American interest. Oh well.
Travis races in the Rally America Championship. See here: Home - Rally-America
The race in Colorado is Rally Colorado, formerly called Colorado Cog: Home - Rally-America
