What country would you want back in the WRC?

[Simmpa]

I don't really see any of the current manufacturers wanting to go to North America either. Citroën doesn't sell any cars there, and both Volkswagen and Hyundai do WRC with a car that isn't sold there.

Of course WRC event in North America wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for any of them, although I'm not sure about Hyundai as they seem to want move from the former rugged image in that market and rallying doesn't exactly help them at that, it still wouldn't be the first place any of the manufacturers would like the series to go from the marketing point of view.

Isn´t Mexico part of North America?

 

[Legro]

Isn´t Mexico part of North America?

Depending on the definition, but I tend use it for the USA and Canada only.

 

[Simmpa]

Depending on the definition, but I tend use it for the USA and Canada only.

Mexico is part of North America but people do not accociate it with North America, sort of like how Turkey is never referred to as Asia altough It´s part of the Asian continent.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I have been considering it, and I think that the best chance to expand the calendar is to move into Eastern Europe. The sport has an enormous following there; the European Rally Championship holds rounds in the Czech Republic, Estonia and between Latvia and Lithuania, and has previously held events in Romania. Likewise, the Intercontinental Rally Challenge ran events in Romania, the Ukraine and Russia. The ERC in particular gets a lot of entries from Eastern Europe, so it might be worth looking into poaching the Rally Zlin in the Czech Republic rather than reviving something like Cyprus.

I think Portugal should go as there is already a saturation of rallies in western Europe.

I would be inclined to agree with you, were the event still based out of Algarve. But the event moved back to the north in recent years, which is really the spiritual home of rallying in Portugal. It may not be hallowed ground like Monte Carlo or Finland, but it is important.

I'm not sure about Hyundai as they seem to want move from the former rugged image in that market and rallying doesn't exactly help them at that

I'm not really sure what you mean by this, seeing as how they just invested a lot of money in developing an entirely new i20 WRC for 2016, even though they will need to develop another entirely new car in time for 2017.

 

[Legro]

I'm not really sure what you mean by this, seeing as how they just invested a lot of money in developing an entirely new i20 WRC for 2016, even though they will need to develop another entirely new car in time for 2017.

Hyundai has higher end brand image in the US and Canada, where making the name associated with small budget hatchback could make selling cars like the Equus harder, than in Europe, where it's much more logical for them to use a small hatchback going fast in rough terrain for advertising as they're still mostly considered as budget cars.

 

[mustafur]

The only place where a Rally would work in the US would be New York/New England IMO from what I hear they have a pretty decent grassroots Rally scene there.

Canada could work I would have it as a Snow Rally though.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I'm not really sure what you mean by this, seeing as how they just invested a lot of money in developing an entirely new i20 WRC for 2016, even though they will need to develop another entirely new car in time for 2017.

I thought the last thing they developed was a dishwasher, I'm sure I followed one for several miles yesterday. A dishwasher with four veeeery old people in it.