[HiTempguy]

And love World Rallycross.

I recently watched Belgium WRX, and Washington GRC. I tried watching New York GRC as well. Both were god awful (GRC), horribly boring racing with terrible announcing. Its basically become roundy round racing that sometimes requires a quick turn to the left...

WRX on the other hand was simply AMAZING. The battles, the cars, the tracks, all AWESOME. And great driving talent!

That's my rant for the day

 

[rallyxr4ti]

I........greatly dislike posts about GRC TV ratings...

The 2 GRC races I actually attended at Irwindale were actually pretty good.

Especially the first one(2011?) with Gronholm,Rhys,Dodd,Foust,etc.
Racing was close-no pesky fans in the way,and open pits -just walk up to Gronholm or Rhys or whoever and just chat away with them-no biggie.

Also that first race still had the 2wd "poor mans" classes before they did away with them...so saw some Foci vs Honda Vs RX-8 vs. Miata battling-which was cool.

But yeah-I've watched a few GRC's on the tube that were a snoozefest for sure....

 

[shredxcam]

GRC sucks, end rant

 

[9five9]

I........greatly dislike posts about GRC TV ratings...

^^^THIS^^^

GRC has some hidden gems in there where they actually design a course with a decent first turn. When GRC drivers can get through the first turn clean, there's usually a decent event. But most of the time they all try and bulldog their way through a poorly placed 90 degree turn or hairpin right after the start straight and look like a bunch of overprivileged kids fighting over a starbucks latte. What's worse is seeing them whine and cry when they get "taken out". Sorry, but when you huck it and hope for the best, you're gonna lose sometimes. And when there's two vehicles left on the course with a half-track gap between them, we all lose.

WRX is something these GRC course designers should be paying a LOT of attention to. WRX does a lot of things right.

 

[John Vanlandingham]

And love World Rallycross.

I recently watched Belgium WRX, and Washington GRC. I tried watching New York GRC as well. Both were god awful (GRC), horribly boring racing with terrible announcing. Its basically become roundy round racing that sometimes requires a quick turn to the left...

WRX on the other hand was simply AMAZING. The battles, the cars, the tracks, all AWESOME. And great driving talent!

That's my rant for the day

Isn't it nice to find perfect agreement sometimes...

made for TV shows usually suck giant donky dongs.

Hype vs reality.

 

[pjhe]

GRC will be gone in 5 years even with it's TV deal and energy drink money. Course design is lacking and the classing is terrible. They need to bring back 2WD, have a privateer class, then the lites, then the SC class. ERC/ERX is great stuff though.

 

[EVT_Dan]

I've been to many World RallyCross and GRC events now.
What GRC needs, is a better Site Location team.

This year, far and away they have had much better tracks. The two events you guys mention in this thread are honestly the 2 worst tracks all year.

Barbados - Preexisting track made into great Rallycross track
X-Games - Pre existing track, made into "OK" Rallycross track. Too tight into the jump
Washington DC and NY - The space available for a track was just too small. Screwed themselves and the racing showed the results
Charlotte - Ok limited by a circle track, but at least the track was large enough for passing etc. Best racing I've personally seen at a GRC track
Daytona - Plenty of room- boring joker but no big accidents
LA - The space available was too small again. The location was awesome, just too small a track
Seattle - Amazing
Vegas - Finally a parking lot large enough to accommodate a large track and passing.

So, when they give themselves enough space, they make decent tracks. Ok, it's not the 50 year old pre-existing purpose built tracks in Europe. The problem comes when they screw themselves on space. Every time they built a track in a small area, they ran into headaches with the 1st corner crashes.
World Rallycross has had 2 events in an environment where they had to build a temporary track. Guess what, those tracks sucks. I'd say Montreal was worse than a lot of the parking lot tracks GRC has built. The ol' blanket statement "GRC Sucks, it's nothing but crashes!" doesn't quite work anymore. Those issues are getting sorted, and when it does happen, the penalties are being delivered as they should have been from the start (Scott Speed cutting Lasek off in Vegas last week)

Perhaps someday, a long time from now, there will be enough of a grassroots rallycross system in-place to build permanent purpose built tracks in the US. From there, you'll see all the feeder classes, FWD, Clubman etc. For now, it's been very clear that GRC is TV / Sponsor driven for big budget teams who want to play in motorsports.

I've not seen any of the GRC or World Rallycross broadcasts, so I don't know how well the events are portrayed in your living room. These are my opinions from standing at these tracks all over the world the last few years

 

[A1337STI]

The one before vegas was alright on TV.

I forget which one, Washington i believe , for what ever reason my wife actually wanted to watch it (ken block) and really enjoyed it. which made it my favorite race of the year that I've seen on TV.

I was gonna take a newphew-in-law to the vegas race, but wasn't able to take days off work to drive down..

 

[dotdotdotPaul]

Seattle was before Vegas -- done at the Dirtfish Rally School grounds, and was pretty great, mostly because it was "real dirt" with only some pavement in places, as opposed to the other way around... Also good advertising for the rally school -- David Higgins showed up and ran their school car, although ended up near last place, if I remember correctly...

...Paul

 

[stillatoy]

I just wish they would have more tracks like Charlotte and Seattle where there's more dirt than pavement or at least even it out more like a 50/50 dirt to pavement ratio.

 

[Roger Hull]

My first GRC event in person. La Vegas, hmm ,I have to say that they have sponsors and when you have MONEY you can put on a good show. Purpose built cars and big name drivers. Stands were full on the last final and tickets were not cheap. As long as they have sponsors they will make stage rally look like poor cousins.
What's the answer? Combine the two somehow.
Roger
Datsun Guy

 

[321Go]

Perhaps someday, a long time from now, there will be enough of a grassroots rallycross system in-place to build permanent purpose built tracks in the US. From there, you'll see all the feeder classes, FWD, Clubman etc. For now, it's been very clear that GRC is TV / Sponsor driven for big budget teams who want to play in motorsports.

I've not seen any of the GRC or World Rallycross broadcasts, so I don't know how well the events are portrayed in your living room. These are my opinions from standing at these tracks all over the world the last few years

Maybe, but if there were permanent tracks built for this, they'd be out in the boonies which is not where GRC wants to be.
I agree that they are boring to watch on TV. Not sure who it appeals to as the jumps have become commonplace and tame for the flat-brim dudes.

 

[Joe Average]

The biggest problem with GRC is the promoter doesn't do a very good job.
Last year at SEMA if you had a show badge you got in for free. The track kinda (did) sucked, but it was free. I don't know why it was so small, the Paddock and "VIP" area was as big if not bigger than the track for a hand full of cars. The track could have been 30% longer.
This year..No free entry with a SEMA badge and a small track. I think the tickets were $30+ dollars for the finals. SEMA gets 60,000 attendees and 2000 + exibitors. A pretty good audience to boost your demographics.
Robbie Gordon's Super Trucks had a better course. name drivers, a $25.00 ticket, and discounts available on line. I attended 3 of these races this year, Costa Mesa, Coronado and Vegas and they were a blast, with Balls to the Walls driving...on street Toyo truck tires.

 

[555ftw]

GRC is making the tracks as big is possible, given the space they have to work with.
Last year, the Vegas track was actually quiet large compared to other tracks. I agree the paddock was bigger than need be. The paddock this year was the best all year.

This year, again, the track was as big as the space would allow, and to be honest, as far as GRC tracks go, it would be considered a "large" track.
I don't have an answer for the change in SEMA pass access, however the stands were full, both last year and this year.

I think GRC has been figuring out just how many fans they can expect at these events, and trying to match those expectations to the amount of grandstands brought in. Keep in mind it's a made-for-tv event to them, before it's a "attract a couple thousand local fans" event.


I haven't been to a Stadium Super truck event, and it's not on TV as far as I know so I can't compare the two. However, the excitement of GRC to me, is in different manufacturers, cars, what they can do to them.
1000 inches of suspension travel on the same truck x 20 doesn't do it for me in the same way.

 

[Roger Hull]

General admission tickets were $55 at LV, VIP were more than twice that. Stands were full and paddock was crowded with flat brim tatoo dudes and dudetts. Talked to few manufacturer reps and they were enthusiastic about the format. Of course they will be until their bosses pull the plug at some point, but, they are putting up big bucks for GRC. This was a high dollar dog and pony show.
Roger
Datsun guy

 

[modernbeat]

GRC at SEMA was also at different days of the week the last two years. In 2013 it was at the end of the week, allowing me to finish business at SEMA and then go. This year it was early/mid week, which wouldn't work for my normal SEMA schedule.

 

[sachilles]

Last years course was constrained by the lot. It was behind fencing, but there were actually small preexisting structure between the stands, and the paddock. So that created the natural barrier between the paddock and course.

 

[Joe Average]

All the races were shown on NBC or the NBC Sports Network, same as the GRC..Go figure.. The size of the truck is about the same as a GRC car with 600 HP, not the size or HP a Desert Truck.Here's a clip from SEMA week in Vegas a few weeks ago.
[video=youtube;BWhF6SAJZJ0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWhF6SAJZJ0&list=UU5rBpVgv83gYPZ593XwQUsA[/video]

 

[spalind]

And actually the SSTs were on ABC as part of the XGames this year and were overwhelmingly voted the favorite event by viewers on the XGames website at the time....

 

[Tijuana Taxi]

Hyundai has pulled out of GRC.