Hey Dude - it's a life style!

6486 Views 97 Replies 28 Participants Last post by Morgan, Jan 27, 2003

Topi

Discussion Starter · Jan 22, 2003

Rally - lifestyle activity in US
January 20, 2003
The growing popularity of forest rallying in the US is drawing competitors - and spectators - from a new public. Unlike Europe where rallying competes with other motorsport disciplines for its participants, in the US the vast majority of rally competitors have never considered any other form of motorsport.

"Most of our new competitors are coming from snowboarding, skiing or mountain bikes into rally," says Pro-Rally series Director Kurt Spitzner. "We've surveyed them and the broad opinion is that rally is a "lifestyle" activity, rather than being perceived as an alternative to racing."

Rally is the fastest growing sector of Sports Car Club of America's (SCCA) activities; the number of licence holders for rally has grown from two to ten percent of the SCCA total since 1997. Last year 15 teams ran the full ten event series. Although not required to register their intentions before the season the same number is expected in 2003, some of them fielding two entries. Just four teams entered the full series in 1998. Last year ProRally event organisers had to deal with unprecedented numbers of spectators, and big crowds are again expected this year, stimulated in part by the TV coverage on the Speed channel.

The nine event series spans the country and involves competitors in vast distances between rounds. Spitzner reckons that the distance between the events totals 24,000 miles, without returning to the team base. A centrally based team returning to base regularly would cover about 80,000 or considerably more if the base was on either coast.

The first round of the 2003 SCCA ProRally series, the Sno*Drift Rally is based in Atlanta, Michigan and runs 24 & 25 January. David Higgins will be defending his Champions title in the newly formed Mitsubishi USA Team. Main opposition is likely to come from 2001 Champion Mark Lovell (Subaru) and his team-mate Ramana Lagemann while Tim O?Neill will give a Ford Focus its US debut. Dodge joins the Manufacturers Championship with a Gp 2 Neon, and British Champion Jonny Milner will contest the Group N class.

Source: World rally news

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warwick

· #9 · Jan 22, 2003

I don't know enough about the US series to comment on the the other parts of the article, but I think he's right about the following:

"Most of our new competitors are coming from snowboarding, skiing or mountain bikes into rally," says Pro-Rally series Director Kurt Spitzner. "We've surveyed them and the broad opinion is that rally is a "lifestyle" activity, rather than being perceived as an alternative to racing."

At least, that's very much the feeling I'm getting up here in Canada. Pat Richard - ex competitive snowboarder, just happened to ratbag old cars on the fireroads around Whistler...myself coming from mountain biking...Chad from skiing, etc. A lot of my friends who aren't into traditional car racing are REALLY into watching rally, and want to get into it. This is something marketers of the sport should harness to bring more people into it. We just need some solid "surveyed" numbers to back it up.

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warwick

· #89 · Jan 25, 2003

RE: OK, more fun with numbers

>
>Success in anything comes from opening your ears to the
>opinions of others. I've said before and I'll repeat...Every
>single person that contributes to SpecialStage knows
>something that everyone else doesn't know. It may be so
>trivial that on its own, doesn't seem that important but,
>exposed in this type of forum setting could be invaluable to
>alot of people.
>
>I've learned lots from this forum and it isn't limited to
>rallying but this knowledge can be adapted and used in other
>sports.
>
>It will be a sad day when we stop learning.

Amen to that. I think this post wins the award for "blowing things out of proportion"...or at least "thread that has strayed the most from the original post". Rally as a lifestyle folks...that's what the press release was about.

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warwick

· #95 · Jan 27, 2003

RE: OK, more fun with numbers

Roving Rally Man: I didn't mean your post (I liked yours...). The thread went way off topic after about the third or fourth reply

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