[sachilles]

It is still very young, as a result it's evolving pretty quickly. It's not perfect, but is improving steadily. Track design is getting better. The level of competition is rising. There will be growing pains of course. Rules are coming in line with FIA, which will make cross series competition easier when schedules allow. As mentioned above, red flags diminished as the year progressed. Schedule has ramped up this year as well.
There a lot of good folks working hard on it to make it a success. There will be hiccups along the way. Overall it is in a far better place than it was two years ago.

 

[redlegacygt]

Considering the fact that I went from sitting and watching for 3+hours of live stream on ESPN3 to trying to get tickets to the Redbull GRC NY event last year, i'd say as a fan it's making a huge progress. I'm hoping to be able to get tickets to the DC event, but even if i cant, i'll be sure to watch/dvr the event. It's been an absolute blast this year looks to be even better than last.

 

[gizzmo]

I'm a stage rally freak. I went to work for Andretti last year on the Polos and once involved with the series I've taken a much greater interest in it. The racing was actually great this season all year and the cars were all extremely close in performance making it a driver's race(hence Speed being champion). My complaints with the series are the marketing of Ken Block!*

*and some other guys too

I'm of the opinion that they've grown past the point of needing to use just him as their marketing tool. There's a LOT of talented drivers and amazing teams competing.

 

[9five9]

I'm of the opinion that they've grown past the point of needing to use just him as their marketing tool. There's a LOT of talented drivers and amazing teams competing.

As a guy who watches GRC purely from the couch (but I follow it quite closely), I agree that there are lots of talented drivers and great teams with incredible funding. But it's amazing how many of these drivers appear to be in-no-way marketable. Much of the time these drivers talk like robots (Dyne), appear scared to death of mics and cameras, or you can't understand a word that comes out of their mouths. Also, I can't stress enough - people want to see cars they recognize. I know that funding is an issue here, but when entire liveries change (colors, logos, the whole shibang) from one day to another in a single weekend, it's not helping build a fan base for that driver.

But that's just me.....from the couch.

 

[gizzmo]

I know exactly what you're saying about driver marketability. I just got sick of hearing Ken say "well we had bad luck" after every race the last half of this season. No, someone did what you like to do and pushed you out of the way. Turn about something something.

 

[555ftw]

Relax Gizzmo, we all know you are the "run-of-the-mill" Ken Block hater

Since you work (worked?) for VW, can you give us all some insight into how the Beetle has become so competitive as a chassis ?

 

[gizzmo]

On the contrary. I LOVE what Ken's done for the sport and he's an absolutely stand up guy. He's never been anything but nice to me. My thinking is that it would maybe help some of the less "in the camera's eye" guys more how to deal with it. Give the guys that are consistently top 5 finishers some love. He could crash/get pushed into someone/roll off the jump and be out and they're still giving him loads of attention. The only way to get the other drivers to a bigger status is to give them some love too

Regarding the Beetle chassis, I wasn't involved with it at all. It was under development in Europe when I was there. I do know that VW is WAY more heavily involved with these than they were the Polos. The Polos were leased from Marklund Motorsport from my understanding and were the previous year's cars from what I could tell. I know that Andretti is a wealth of knowledge and they applied it ALL to the GRC program. The combo of VW Motorsports in Germany and Andretti here is kind of a team to watch regardless of the car. We did win our first GRC race ever

 

[KevinG5Hahn]

On the contrary. I LOVE what Ken's done for the sport and he's an absolutely stand up guy. He's never been anything but nice to me. My thinking is that it would maybe help some of the less "in the camera's eye" guys more how to deal with it. Give the guys that are consistently top 5 finishers some love. He could crash/get pushed into someone/roll off the jump and be out and they're still giving him loads of attention. The only way to get the other drivers to a bigger status is to give them some love too

Regarding the Beetle chassis, I wasn't involved with it at all. It was under development in Europe when I was there. I do know that VW is WAY more heavily involved with these than they were the Polos. The Polos were leased from Marklund Motorsport from my understanding and were the previous year's cars from what I could tell. I know that Andretti is a wealth of knowledge and they applied it ALL to the GRC program. The combo of VW Motorsports in Germany and Andretti here is kind of a team to watch regardless of the car. We did win our first GRC race ever

Its the same issue that a lot of people had with Ken when he was doing a lot of stage event still.

Ken Block the person is a pretty decent/good guy.

Ken Block the personality, well, he is either "sick" or you are sick of him.

From watching the events this year, Ken was the recipient of other people's decisions at a pretty impressive rate, but he helped perpetuate the attitude of win or crash everyone in the first corner the last two years as well as "the race craft be dammed I'm coming through" urgency that is exasperated by the lack of a proper joker at most tracks that I just can't feel sorry for him when it goes wrong....

 

[gizzmo]

I'd LOVE to see the introduction of a longer joker lap like the World Rallycross does.

 

[gizzmo]

I'd also enjoy something to bring the common man into it.