Tarmac Rally in the USA

[stuartj]

Watching James May's (Top Gear) wine show and he was tooling through Northern California’s wine country in a huge RV across some magnificent roads-and the thought occurred to me- why is there no tarmac rally in the USA? There is only one event Im aware of in North America – Targa Newfoundland. Seems to me, California being the sixth largest economy in the world, and full of car nuts and exoctic cars (as are many parts of the USA) there is an opportunity for this form of motorsport in the States.

In the southern hemisphere, there are quite few such events, attracting field of 200-300 cars, modern and classic. Loads of Porsches ofcourse. Staged over 2- 5 days, comprising transport and special stages. Special stages occur over a close road, which might be anything from 2 miles to 50 miles long. There are various classes of cars from Tourers (road going exotica) , travelling behind a pace car. A good brisk drive at high speed- and the competition cars, which are fully prepped rally cars. They compete on special stages for time- go as fast as you can on pace notes.

With the enthusiast community in the USA, there has to be ready made market for these events. So why aren’t there any? Would it be a problem to get the roads closed (typically for 4 hours)

Reckon this would fly in the US? Here is a taste- Lotus on wet road, Targa Tasmania, Australia.

[berettafan]

Not popular here because you can't sit in one seat with a couple hot dogs, pretzels and beer and see the entire event.

There are hillclimbs but we desparately need somebody to put together a tarmac rally...a LEGIT one not this stupid 'one lap' ****....here in the US. I would volunteer every minute i possibly could to assist in any fashion if it were within 5hrs of my home.

[Jeff Higgins]

I think the biggest problem is the selfish nature of the typical American. Any sporting event that closes public roads, no matter how remote or lightly travelled, raises a furor. Even bicycle stage races are a very, very tough sell.

Add to that the danger inherent in motor races, and the American public's pious, puritan perspective of what they consider to be motoring safety, and a tarmac rally becomes an almost impossible sell. This outlook on motoring is fed and enforced by our public officials, who seem to have well and truly snowed the average disinterested citizen into believing their nonsense. I believe we have the most draconian driving laws in the industrialized world, aimed at removing any semblance of enjoyment from the endeavor. Anything remotely resembling "spirited" driving is strongly discouraged by these ninnies and the laws they use in their quest to reduce the rest of us to their misserable existance. Anyone having any sort of fun with a car, God forbid on a public road (even if it's closed) is unthinkable to this lot. And they are very much winning...

[Pazuzu]

We need to take the silver State Classic and expand it to a second, "low speed" rally race.

[bonkers]

There is an active Stage Rally scene in the US. We have two sanctioning bodies - Rally America ( Rally America ) and NASA RallySport ( NASA Rally Sport ) with events across the country throughout the year, including national championships.

Many of the stages are on gravel but there are tarmac / asphalt stages also. I don't know that there is a dedicated "tarmac rally".

There are also active TSD rally and Rallycross scenes in various parts of the country.

The sport has been getting more press over the last few years mostly due to the likes of Pastrana and Block, and inclusion in the X-Games but the majority of competitors are still local folks racing on their own dime with whatever small-time sponsorship they can scrape together - often just free tire mounting & the like.

Crews and marshals are all volunteers. If you want to get involved, I suggest finding events in your area and volunteering to help out as a great way to meet fellow petrol-heads.

[berettafan]

hey bonkers i've seen the dirt rally stuff in GRM and it's just not what i want to do to my 911. REALLY need people to push the tarmac rally concept.

it is good to see the dirt rally scene growing though!

[Jeff Higgins]

The Northwest Rally Council runs weekly Friday night TSD "rally" events up here in the summer. Just not the same thing. One or two is about anyone needs to get really bored with it.

We do have a number of rallys in the Olympics, and Cascades as well. As far as I know, no tarmac stages. We have no full-up tarmac rallies. The cars are far different than off-road rally cars, to the point where one could consider taking a street driven, fairly nice 911 on a tarmac rally. No way in hell in an off-road rally.

[berettafan]

werd!

i'd be entering left and right if we had a scene like the aussies or brits do. wouldn't be in the balls to the wall class for a while but still would love it.

[bonkers]

You are going to face the same challenges putting on tarmac rallies as they do with gravel:

1. Need a sanctioning body and rules - as I said we have two already, though they are focused more on gravel events right now
2. Need event insurance
3. Need roads to run on - the logging roads most commonly used are typically privately owned, though I believe some are state-owned. I suspect paved roads would be mostly state owned which could be more difficult.
4. Need a lot of volunteers / organization to put on the event - realistically you would need to tap the resources & experience of the existing local rally organizations
5. Need competitors who are interested and capable of participating and willing to spend hundreds of dollars to do so - it's not cheap to put on an event
6. Need positive publicity for the events to have any chance of getting potential sponsors interested - again, existing rally groups, both local and national, would be your best bet.

Takes a lot of work to put on something "cool" like a rally.

[bonkers]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

The Northwest Rally Council runs weekly Friday night TSD "rally" events up here in the summer. Just not the same thing. One or two is about anyone needs to get really bored with it.

We do have a number of rallys in the Olympics, and Cascades as well. As far as I know, no tarmac stages. We have no full-up tarmac rallies. The cars are far different than off-road rally cars, to the point where one could consider taking a street driven, fairly nice 911 on a tarmac rally. No way in hell in an off-road rally.

We do have some tarmac stages Jeff but no full on tarmac stage rallies.

If you were going to have actual timed racing stages, whether on gravel or tarmac, any sanctioning body worthy of the title not to mention any insurer willing to cover your event, is going to require your cars to be properly safety prepared with welded in race cages and your drivers to be licensed with some proof of experience (beyond a folder full of speeding tickets).

To be competitive, you are going to want to modify what's under the hood for more power. At that point, the only things separating you from a gravel rally car are suspension set up and tires.

TSDs aren't everyone's cup of tea. Personally, I liked them as a way to discover new and interesting roads, though I preferred the Saturday 'Monte Carlo' style events to the Friday Nighters. The most fun I ever had TSD'ing was 'Night On Bald Mountain' - night time TSD on gravel.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by bonkers

We do have some tarmac stages Jeff but no full on tarmac stage rallies.

If you were going to have actual timed racing stages, whether on gravel or tarmac, any sanctioning body worthy of the title not to mention any insurer willing to cover your event, is going to require your cars to be properly safety prepared with welded in race cages and your drivers to be licensed with some proof of experience (beyond a folder full of speeding tickets).

To be competitive, you are going to want to modify what's under the hood for more power. At that point, the only things separating you from a gravel rally car are suspension set up and tires.

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. In no way did I mean an unprepared, stock car would be suitable for tarmac rally. I'm thinking typical almost-race-car types seen in the "deep end of the pool" at DE's, or even IRDC, SOVREN, or SCCA production class race cars. You would be surprised how many of these continue to be driven on the street occasionally (sometimes a great deal; one of our local R Gruppe members has driven his IRDC winning race car on our club drives for years), and remain pretty darn nice cars, in spite of their track use. One weekend of gravel road rallying would undo that whole "nice car" part of it. That's why most won't take these cars out to one. I believe they would go to the tarmac rallies, to run in the non-competitive classes.

[bonkers]

Could be... could be... I'm thinking in terms of the Rallyists I know. I don't think "non-competitive" is in their vocabulary, even the few that drive Historic cars.

Anyway, as I said earlier, the way to do it would be to work with the existing rally sanctioning bodies and local rallying organizations. They have the experience of putting on motorsports events outside of a dedicated racing circuit.

I should think you would need to present them with a pretty good business case though and have some eligible roads lined up.

Insurance would be "interesting" to say the least...

[stuartj]

In regard to insurance- these events are run by private companies for profit but under the auspices of the national motorsport body, and ultimately the FIA, the international body. So the events comply with FIA standards. Crews must carry appropriate licences (drivers need full circuit racing licences + relevant experiece) and a portion of the entry fees paid by crews (these are quite expensive) ultimately goes to governing motorsport body who underwrites the events.

In Australia, these companies have been quite successful in attracting support and money from regional govts as tourism events. After all, 200 or 300 crews of 3-10 people, couple of hundred volunteer marshalls coming into a region for 2-4 days plus spectators, media etc- lots of airfares, hotel beds, meals (not to mention tow trucks and panel shops). Getting local regional support is the key. After all, if the local govt wants it and supports it, getting road closures, getting police onside etc – is all pretty easy. I’d have thought a wine district- semi rural, tourism focus- would be the perfect setting.

[porsche4life]

Wow.... I want that lotus....

[Langers]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Add to that the danger inherent in motor races, and the American public's pious, puritan perspective of what they consider to be motoring safety, and a tarmac rally becomes an almost impossible sell. This outlook on motoring is fed and enforced by our public officials, who seem to have well and truly snowed the average disinterested citizen into believing their nonsense. [b]I believe we have the most draconian driving laws in the industrialized world[b], aimed at removing any semblance of enjoyment from the endeavor. Anything remotely resembling "spirited" driving is strongly discouraged by these ninnies and the laws they use in their quest to reduce the rest of us to their misserable existance. Anyone having any sort of fun with a car, God forbid on a public road (even if it's closed) is unthinkable to this lot. And they are very much winning...

Are you kidding me? The US has some of the least stringent driving laws in the western world. You are allowed to drive rustbuckets on the road, use radar detectors, no speed cameras, few red light cameras, your DUI limit is 0.08 (rather than 0.05 here or 0.00 in Scandanavian countries)... and so forth and so on. In Victoria, Australia, you can be booked for being 3km/h (2mph) over the limit, even though nation-wide design regulations require that the speedo only be accurate to within 10%.

Try England and Australia for draconian driving laws. US is a driver's utopia by comparison.

[Langers]

Originally Posted by bonkers

You are going to face the same challenges putting on tarmac rallies as they do with gravel:

1. Need a sanctioning body and rules - as I said we have two already, though they are focused more on gravel events right now
2. Need event insurance
3. Need roads to run on - the logging roads most commonly used are typically privately owned, though I believe some are state-owned. I suspect paved roads would be mostly state owned which could be more difficult.
4. Need a lot of volunteers / organization to put on the event - realistically you would need to tap the resources & experience of the existing local rally organizations
5. Need competitors who are interested and capable of participating and willing to spend hundreds of dollars to do so - it's not cheap to put on an event
6. Need positive publicity for the events to have any chance of getting potential sponsors interested - again, existing rally groups, both local and national, would be your best bet.

Takes a lot of work to put on something "cool" like a rally.

Try tens of thousands expense for competitors and you're closer to the mark.

[stuartj]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

Wow.... I want that lotus....

Amazing cars- but not this little black duck. I want more sheet metal.

[TimT]

That driver has good hands!!

[stuartj]

Originally Posted by Langers

Try tens of thousands expense for competitors and you're closer to the mark.

Entry fees arent that high- 000's yes, not tens. Targa tas is about 6k. But add in the cost of mounting the event- crew, logistics, spares, consumables, (very hard events on cars), accomodation, meals...etc etc - its not for the financially fainthearted.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Langers

Are you kidding me? The US has some of the least stringent driving laws in the western world. You are allowed to drive rustbuckets on the road, use radar detectors, no speed cameras, few red light cameras, your DUI limit is 0.08 (rather than 0.05 here or 0.00 in Scandanavian countries)... and so forth and so on. In Victoria, Australia, you can be booked for being 3km/h (2mph) over the limit, even though nation-wide design regulations require that the speedo only be accurate to within 10%.

Try England and Australia for draconian driving laws. US is a driver's utopia by comparison.

I'm thinking more about our levels of enforcement in the wide open, unpopulated places, where most other countries I've driven in could really care less. I actually agree with strict enforcement in populated urban and suburban areas. And yes, I agree with you in that the U.S. is far more lenient than many other countries in that regard. The problem, as I see it, is that we have about the same level of enforcement and penalties for speeding in a crowded urban environment as we do out in the middle of bumfuk nowhere.

Originally Posted by stuartj

In regard to insurance- these events are run by private companies for profit but under the auspices of the national motorsport body, and ultimately the FIA, the international body. So the events comply with FIA standards. Crews must carry appropriate licences (drivers need full circuit racing licences + relevant experiece) and a portion of the entry fees paid by crews (these are quite expensive) ultimately goes to governing motorsport body who underwrites the events.

In Australia, these companies have been quite successful in attracting support and money from regional govts as tourism events. After all, 200 or 300 crews of 3-10 people, couple of hundred volunteer marshalls coming into a region for 2-4 days plus spectators, media etc- lots of airfares, hotel beds, meals (not to mention tow trucks and panel shops). Getting local regional support is the key. After all, if the local govt wants it and supports it, getting road closures, getting police onside etc – is all pretty easy. I’d have thought a wine district- semi rural, tourism focus- would be the perfect setting.

I had the wrong impression completely. I was assuming these tarmac rallies were locally organized and run by a host car club or something. I didn't realize it was run on such a highly professional level.

So, now that I understand a bit better what these rallies are all about, I'm left wondering as well. Why wouldn't area wineries, hotels, and other tourist related businesses welcome such an attraction to their neighborhood? I guess I don't have an answer for that. Seems such an obvious thing to do to bring the people in, particularly in the "off season" or something. In light of that, I wonder if anyone has ever tried.

Still, even in light of all of that, I honestly believe the general American public's motoring paradigms are an obstacle. "My, someone might get hurt", or "what about all the poor animals, the noise will scare them", and other such sniveling. It's a very powerful force to reckon with here. How do you deal with the hand-wringing ninnies down under? They are far too prominent up here...