Seven 9s and 10s

How It’s Made - Rally Cars (by PanosDCC)

Combining two of my favorite things: How It’s Made and rally!

The first advice most aspiring rally racers receive is to never build your first car; instead, buy a used rally car - it’s cheaper and it teaches you a good lesson: it’s definitely going to break and it’s probably going to be your fault.

You’re less likely to be emotionally attached to a used car than to something you spent weeks designing and building - emotional attachment has no place in rallying, because…

  • If you’re focused on not breaking your car, then you’re not focused on winning.
  • If you’re not focused on winning then you’re not focused on driving.
  • If you’re not focused on driving then you’ll think you heard your codriver say “keep left over crest into short 4 right plus” when he actually said “keep left over crest into short 4 left plus” and then you’ll find yourself crying because you wrapped your car around a tree.

Anyway. Rallying is a serious goal of mine - even if it’s just a 5-day class at Team O’Neil Rally School.

High-res It’s a rare occasion that you’ll find me cheering a Ford team, but for the next three days I’ll be doing just that. After 7 consecutive championships, it’s time for Citroën and Sebastien Loeb to finally experience the bitter taste of defeat. Loeb has been so dominant for so long that it’s been extremely rare that the WRC Championship would be decided on the last rally of the year, but thanks to a few new improvements to the series (the power stage) and another driver capable of winning rallies (Loeb’s teammate: Sebastien Ogier), the WRC season can finally culminate in a thrilling finish in the year’s last event, Wales Rally GB. There’s a little corner of my heart that’s reserved for all former drivers for the Subaru World Rally Team, and this weekend Mikko Hirvonen will get his chance to win the championship. For his whole career, he’s had the misfortune of competing in the WRC at the same time as the best driver the sport has ever seen - take Loeb out of the equation and Mikko might well have a few championships on his resume by now - but hopefully by Sunday evening he’ll finally have his first.

It’s a rare occasion that you’ll find me cheering a Ford team, but for the next three days I’ll be doing just that. After 7 consecutive championships, it’s time for Citroën and Sebastien Loeb to finally experience the bitter taste of defeat. Loeb has been so dominant for so long that it’s been extremely rare that the WRC Championship would be decided on the last rally of the year, but thanks to a few new improvements to the series (the power stage) and another driver capable of winning rallies (Loeb’s teammate: Sebastien Ogier), the WRC season can finally culminate in a thrilling finish in the year’s last event, Wales Rally GB.

There’s a little corner of my heart that’s reserved for all former drivers for the Subaru World Rally Team, and this weekend Mikko Hirvonen will get his chance to win the championship. For his whole career, he’s had the misfortune of competing in the WRC at the same time as the best driver the sport has ever seen - take Loeb out of the equation and Mikko might well have a few championships on his resume by now - but hopefully by Sunday evening he’ll finally have his first.

now that the speed channel has become the nascar channel, where does one catch rally highlights and whatnot? the youtuber?

Asked by Anonymous

That’s a great question.

If your cable/satellite provider offers Discovery HD Theatre, they broadcast the daily race recaps of each rally on Fri/Sat/Sun nights, but they usually are delayed 2 or 3 weeks after the end of the rally… so if you’re a diehard rally enthusiast, it’s kind of hard to avoid spoilers for that length of time.

Alternately, you can download torrents of each rally by attempting to find an invite to http://www.racing-underground.com.  The site is fantastic and is well worth your attempts to find an invite (I have none, sorry).

Finally, if you can’t find an invite or any other torrents, I personally host the British broadcasts from Motors TV and OneHD at the end of each rally.  I can provide a username/password and download links to anyone who is interested (but if you share that precious info I’ll delete your account). Just email me at steelopus at the gmails and we can talk.

High-res ronbailey: 2010 Ford Fiesta - Monster WRC via cache.gawker.com I’ve got some conflicting feelings about Ken Block’s new contract with Ford. On the one hand - as a Subaru-fanboy - it’s sad to see his great relationship with Subaru come to an end.  It was mutually beneficial to Subaru, to Ken, and to Ken’s DC brand.  His Gymkhana videos are the things of legend. On the other hand, an American driver (Ken) racing an American brand (Ford) in the biggest rally series in the world (WRC) should do good things for the popularity of rally in America.  Hopefully he finds some success when playing with the big boys in his seven WRC events.  Success could help shed the international impression that America doesn’t care about rally (which is generally the truth), and more importantly, it could help grow the popularity of rally in America.  However, I anticipate that he will not be successful. I predict that he won’t finish at least 4 of the 7 events, and in those events he does finish I think he’ll be well down the leaderboard, scoring points in none. He’s proven that he can be competitive in Rally America when he doesn’t drive recklessly and he keeps his car on the road, but if he can’t even consistently beat Travis Pastrana in this country, why should anyone believe he’ll be able to even compete with WRC upstarts Sebastien Ogier and Evgeny Novikov - let alone super-talented veterans Mikko Hirvonen and 6-time world champion Sebastien Loeb - in international rally? Regardless, the new Fiesta is a nice looking machine and Ford’s full-time commitment to Rally America is a good thing. Competition is a good thing.  The Mitsubishi EvoX has proven to be a bit of a disappointment in professional rally (although it’s been a tremendous success in the consumer market), and I look forward to seeing if the Fiesta can give Subaru and the STI a run for it’s money.

ronbailey:

2010 Ford Fiesta - Monster WRC

via cache.gawker.com

I’ve got some conflicting feelings about Ken Block’s new contract with Ford.

On the one hand - as a Subaru-fanboy - it’s sad to see his great relationship with Subaru come to an end.  It was mutually beneficial to Subaru, to Ken, and to Ken’s DC brand.  His Gymkhana videos are the things of legend.

On the other hand, an American driver (Ken) racing an American brand (Ford) in the biggest rally series in the world (WRC) should do good things for the popularity of rally in America.  Hopefully he finds some success when playing with the big boys in his seven WRC events.  Success could help shed the international impression that America doesn’t care about rally (which is generally the truth), and more importantly, it could help grow the popularity of rally in America.  However, I anticipate that he will not be successful. I predict that he won’t finish at least 4 of the 7 events, and in those events he does finish I think he’ll be well down the leaderboard, scoring points in none.

He’s proven that he can be competitive in Rally America when he doesn’t drive recklessly and he keeps his car on the road, but if he can’t even consistently beat Travis Pastrana in this country, why should anyone believe he’ll be able to even compete with WRC upstarts Sebastien Ogier and Evgeny Novikov - let alone super-talented veterans Mikko Hirvonen and 6-time world champion Sebastien Loeb - in international rally?

Regardless, the new Fiesta is a nice looking machine and Ford’s full-time commitment to Rally America is a good thing. Competition is a good thing.  The Mitsubishi EvoX has proven to be a bit of a disappointment in professional rally (although it’s been a tremendous success in the consumer market), and I look forward to seeing if the Fiesta can give Subaru and the STI a run for it’s money.

High-res Dear Discovery HD Theater, I really appreciate the effort your making to increase American interest in WRC and rallying in general, but someone needs to tell you that rally is timed racing, not head-to-head, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a checkered flag at the finish line. Sincerely,steelopus

Dear Discovery HD Theater,

I really appreciate the effort your making to increase American interest in WRC and rallying in general, but someone needs to tell you that rally is timed racing, not head-to-head, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a checkered flag at the finish line.

Sincerely,
steelopus

Latvala crashes in WRC Portugal 2009.  Approximately 20 rolls down a ravine…

This is incredible.  Both the driver and co-driver walked away uninjured.  Roll cages are impressive - seriously impressive.

Here’s hoping no one at Rally New York has an off of this magnitude tomorrow.  While spectacular and fun to watch, it’s truly frightening at the same time.