Bring Group B Back- Good idea, bad idea?

[hawkeye122]

There has always been a lot of talk about how Group B rally cars are "The best".

Mental engines(400+ bhp), small roads, and drivers who just didnt seem to care. Tons of spectators, excited to see their favorite car and driver win their hometown stage...
Lancia, Ford, Audi, Renault, Peugeot, Rover

That was then, this is now-
Citroen, Ford, Mini. All based on small, affordable, regular cars. Limited to 300-ish bhp

A Gymkhana driver, a 2-time F1 star, some Spaniards, a Norwegian champion and his brother, Malcolm Wilson, the French bloke who wins EVERY SINGLE YEAR, and those other 2 guys who are good, but just can't keep up with the french.

Sure, it's safer, but in the US you cant even watch it on tv, and there seems to be very few spectators on the road compared to then.

So, which was better? Discuss below..

 

[Northstar]

Problem is, even if they never banned Group B there would still be the problems that the WRC is facing today. The automotive industry has changed a lot since the 80's, mainly that they don't have nearly as much money to devote to motorsports as they did in the 80's. It's hard enough for them to justify the costs of developing a WRC car with the current regulations(Which is why there are only 3 right now with a 4th on the way), making it a prototype series would only inflate those costs to a level they couldn't justify.

 

[Tornado]

You can't justify dumping tons of money into a racing series when the regulations were just changed recently mostly because no one was watching. Maybe 10 years ago when WRC was strong, but these days its hard enough to keep manufacturers in the series at all.

 

[F1 fan]

a 2-time F1 star

Raikkonen was only champion once. To the OP, I think a lot of people in their hearts would prefer to see a return to group b, but this thread will probably turn into a lecture on why it isn't financially viable.

I voted yes as I would like to see it. I'm not suggesting it's financial viability though.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

It's a bad idea. One of the main reasons why the current rules work so well is because the cars used to compete in the WRC is because they are releavant to their road-going counterparts.

 

[XPOWER180]

I would love to see it return but apart from the reason already stated you can guarantee that the nanny states wouldn't allow it on safety reasons.
Just one point to the OP; you state that the drivers just didn't seem to care. I hardly imagine that was the case, i think you are confusing bravardo with a lack of care. It wasn't the drivers faults that the idiots spectating decided to stand in the middle of the road as an RS200 ploughed towards them at 130mph often resulting in a human game of 10 pin bowling.

 

[Scaff]

I would love to see it return but apart from the reason already stated you can guarantee that the nanny states wouldn't allow it on safety reasons.

When spectators and drivers start to die during sporting events then personally I don't think the term 'nanny state' really come into it.


Personally I don't think its a change of the cars that has caused the decline of the RC, but rather the change in how the events run.

The loss of classics such as the Monte and Safari changed the very character of the WRC, combined with the shorting of stages and the repetition of stages.

The Safari is a classic example of this, in the past having stages that ran for W's of Mks, nothing these days comes even close and the RC as a result has turned from a test of endurance and ability to a 'sprint' format.


Regards

Scaff

 

[Hun200kmh]

^^^^^^ This. Nowadays rallies are the 'nannies' when compared to their 80's counterparts.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The loss of classics such as the Monte and Safari changed the very character of the WRC, combined with the shorting of stages and the repetition of stages.

Rumour has it that the organisers of Rally Argentina are looking at making a unique format for next year: a rally that starts in Argentina and finishes in Brazil, requiring service crews to pack up, get to the next service park and re-establish themselves before their cars arrive. If someone pulls into the service park and the team isn't there, it's really going to mess things up. It could be an instant classic.

If you want someone to blame for the castrated sport we have today, then blame Gary Connelly. He's the one who came up with the "super-rally" format, and he's the one that advocated for television-friendly routes.

 

[niky]

Without a television friendly format, a sport that requires millions of dollars in sponsorship just to get out of the starting blocks is doomed.

Besides... the relation of the current WRC format to actual production cars is pretty questionable, considering you can't buy AWD Focuses. I'm glad they're moving back to 2WD... but I do wish they would give more coverage to the Group N machines...

 

[Hun200kmh]

[Off Topic] ^^^^ I think I'll report you niky [/Off Topic]


On topic: I don't agree. The old format had something epic about it that nowadays rallying totally misses. And that made for the HUGE following of Rallyes back then. You don't need to be friends with TV to get sponsors, what you need is to have thousands of people showing up at the stages and THEN TV will be your friend. Along with sponsors.

Is Rally Raid TV friendly? Was the Dakar TV friendly? It wasn't, but it got enough public interest to make the TV go after it, in such a way that, after a few years, we even thought "wow, this sport is very TV friendly, such awesome desert footage"

My two cents.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Without a television friendly format, a sport that requires millions of dollars in sponsorship just to get out of the starting blocks is doomed.

I'm all for a television-friendly format, but Super-Rally was all wrong. It allowed retired drivers to rejoin the event, thus negating any mistakes they made (and on more than one occasion, drivers could rejoin and recover the time penalty they took). It also led to shortened rally routes and an overall shortened event. I remember the days of the early 1990s when Rally Australia used to go to the awesome Wellington Dam stage, which was one of the best in the world. I still have the 1992 and 1993 rallies on tape, and the thing that sticks out is a shot from a helicopter showing Juha Kankkunen tearing along the edge of the dam. It was true rallying, but Wellington Dam was axed when television crews decided they didn't want to drive that far out. Super-Rally led to some of the best stages in the world being dropped simply because they were too far away.

And that's why I have high hopes for the 2012 Rally Argentina. If it crosses South America, it could be awesome. And at the same time, I hope that the disaster that was Jordan will actually have some positives - the drivers said organisers have been considering shorter sprint rallies for years, but no-one was ever brave enough to run them. It wasn't until Jordan was shortened that a sprint rally was run, and given the winning margin of 0.2 seconds, I wouldn't be surprised if we get one or two in the future.

What rallying needs is longer stages, and a return to multi-surface events. Bring back night stages, too. Ditch the habit of running three stages over twice in one day. Make rallies harder and more varied (we need stages like Corsica's Ocana-Radicale again). Bring back Monte Carlo (naturally), and quite possibly Poland (because that was really very fast). Maybe even get the odd tarmac rally in there for good measure. The ideal calendar would be fifteen or sixteen rounds.

 

[Scaff]

Without a television friendly format, a sport that requires millions of dollars in sponsorship just to get out of the starting blocks is doomed.

Besides... the relation of the current WRC format to actual production cars is pretty questionable, considering you can't buy AWD Focuses. I'm glad they're moving back to 2WD... but I do wish they would give more coverage to the Group N machines...

The move to a TV friendly format back-fired in a big way and simply didn't work.

They hoped it would attract large numbers of new fan, while still maintaining the interest of the old fans. In the end it failed to do the first and alienated the second.

Given that the sport would arguably have been in a healthier state if they had left well enough alone.

TV has also moved on in a big way and enough channels need to fill air-time to return to the old style events and still allow good (or even better) coverage. The Dakar can manage it and the 24hr LeMans get uninterrupted coverage, so I honestly think air time exists for it.

In regard to the cars, yes they are about as far removed from the road car as a WTCC or BTCC car is (no surprise given that the regs are almost identical) but they are at least cheaper to run which should help to draw manufacturers back in.


Scaff

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The move to a TV friendly format back-fired in a big way and simply didn't work.

It probably didn't help that Loeb started to dominate while Subaru, Mitsubishi and Suzuki all pulled out while the changes to TV-friendliness took place.

 

[Clark]

I'm not voting because they're is no sensible option to vote for. Manufacturers can't afford to spend millions on developing and homolagting a road car. The current 1.6T rules with the smaller cars seems to be working.

 

[crooky369]

I

What rallying needs is longer stages, and a return to multi-surface events. Bring back night stages, too. Ditch the habit of running three stages over twice in one day. Make rallies harder and more varied (we need stages like Corsica's Ocana-Radicale again). Bring back Monte Carlo (naturally), and quite possibly Poland (because that was really very fast). Maybe even get the odd tarmac rally in there for good measure. The ideal calendar would be fifteen or sixteen rounds.

When did they start getting rid of all this then?

 

[McLaren]

Problem is, even if they never banned Group B there would still be the problems that the WRC is facing today. The automotive industry has changed a lot since the 80's, mainly that they don't have nearly as much money to devote to motorsports as they did in the 80's. It's hard enough for them to justify the costs of developing a WRC car with the current regulations(Which is why there are only 3 right now with a 4th on the way), making it a prototype series would only inflate those costs to a level they couldn't justify.

Spot on.

You have manufacturers like Audi who don't even run their LMPs to the extent they were just a few years ago. Group B & the end of Group 6 seemed to kill off Lancia in any form of motorsport & the rest have either pulled out of motorsport near completely or in the case of others, completely focused on building cars for GT racing.

Rallying just isn't at the level of popularity that it once was & as an unfortunate side effect, isn't quite worth the money investing in a new car for some manufacturers.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

When did they start getting rid of all this then?

Early in the 2000s. The WRC was looking at getting more viewers, so they decided that if they shortened the routes, there could be more television coverage, and more people would watch. They then started making more television-friendly stages, so where Australia was unique for the Langley Park super-special stage, every other rally started having them, and they're little more than short blasts that are only really there for spectators; they make little difference to the rally result. And then Gary Connelly hit upon the idea of letting drivers who had retired buy back into the rally at the cost of a five minute time penalty, the rationale being that fans watched the sport to follow a particular driver, but they'd stop watching if their driver retired. I recall Sebastian Loeb being able to recover that five minutes with ease on tarmac rallies when he was at the height of his powers. By now things had spiralled out of control, and manufacturers were allowed to do half-season development campaigns where they could compete at selected events to develop their cars, but when they couldn't get results, they lost interest. And as names like McRae and Sainz and Makinen headed towards retirement (which was sometimes forced), there wasn't really anyone to fill the void and Loeb was out front on his own.

 

[Adam41]

I voted yes mainly because it produced mind-blowing action and it was a much more internationally followed sport back then, but obviously there's safety and financial issues.

On a side note, I know that Dave had WRC last year but I just couldn't get used to watching it regularly. Whereas it being on ESPN this year, I love it - probably half of it down to the fact that there's been regulation changes. I also love the live 1 hour show of the Power stage they provide but as has been mentioned, it wasn't very fun to watch the same stage being run on one of the previous days. I sometimes watch it on Motors TV as well, but the commentator's a bit naff and they show too many onboard shots of the driver.

 

[Clark]

Spot on.

...kill off Lancia in any form of motorsport .

Group B did not kill off Lancia in motorsport, they were about to start dominating with the S4, regardless Group A came and they were pretty much the best to start of with and then were pretty much the only decent people in WRC then so they dominated.

What killed Lancia was the appalling financial mess that was the company as a whole.

 

[Scaff]

Group B did not kill off Lancia in motorsport, they were about to start dominating with the S4, regardless Group A came and they were pretty much the best to start of with and then were pretty much the only decent people in WRC then so they dominated.

Quite right, Lanica dominated the WRC following the end of Group B, with manufacturers championships in 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 and 92.

What killed Lancia was the appalling financial mess that was the company as a whole.

Well it killed off the motorsport side of things and the brand in the UK, however they are still a very common sight on the streets of Italy.

However the Delta in its current guise is an ugly thing.


Scaff

 

[zedextreme8177]

I voted yes, along with the safety improvements:

 

[McLaren]

Group B did not kill off Lancia in motorsport, they were about to start dominating with the S4, regardless Group A came and they were pretty much the best to start of with and then were pretty much the only decent people in WRC then so they dominated.

What killed Lancia was the appalling financial mess that was the company as a whole.

I stand corrected then. I misread my source.