RE: Because I can
As someone who lectures people on their reading abilities you sure seem to have overlooked every single one of my posts in the threads about Cog.
I personally felt those stages were too straight, they were certainly challenging as the speeds and ruts forced a driver to really contemplate their speeds, confidence, car, and conditions thats not just what rally is about.
The shame is that nobody seems to make the point that in a true rally championship you need to challenge all facets of driver and car. You need tarmac, you need altitude, you need snow, you need ice, you need dirt, mud, gravel and sand. In my opinion being a rally driver means being able to display speed and control on ALL surfaces under ALL conditions.
Here is the problem. In CO the roads that are currently in a condition that would pass inspection for the main part fall under 1 or 2 categories, residential access or private property (most of the roads in a good enough condition to use are used by mines, in our own local hill climbing series we lost two events due to mining operations demanding the road 7 days a week).
You give me and excavation company to prepare the roads and a big enough lobby to get the road permits and I'll give you atleast 250 stage miles and under 500 transit miles of some of the twistiest, tightest, most technically demanding roads you'll see rallied on in the US. There will be tight roads with lots of hair pins, flowing roads with lots of sweepers, there will be many many many elevation changes, all aspects of driver skill short of ice and snow, ok maybe rain/mud depending on weather.
And if you bothered to read my posts you'd see that I never told anyone to not voice an opinion because they weren't there, but asked that people listen to the competitors that were there and then judge for themselves.
Everyone has an opinion and a right to express it, even you, but people that have never been there or seen what is being discussed should be more patient to listen and evaluate the opinions and comments of those that were there before they pass judgement.
Cog is turning into a real shame, with such a great organizing committee and so little actual competitor support it will probably wither away and die. There doesn't seem to be enough support from competitors outside of CO that support Cog for the event to grow and improve.
Whatever though John, the day I truly take to heart what you have to say because of how you say it will probably be the day before I die.
Edit to add:
Is the mileage comment based off of complete mileage or planned mileage as they did have to drop a stage because of mud making the road all but totally impassable. I'd look it up but I am not the one complaining about it.....
Though I wouldn't look at speeds and such as I don't think that speed averages are an important part of rallying. But # of rallies, series info, average entrant numbers, number of rally schools, cost of the schools, would all be interesting info. The really hard part would be using this ranking each variable to determine the countries "score".
