Would factory support hurt or help rally cross?

"boxrocket" (boxrocket) 08/08/2013 at 15:43 • Filed to: top gear, rallycross, tanner foust, racing, lemons, budget, cheap

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So as many of us has read earlier, Ford is pulling support for one of its NHRA series. Not a huge deal, all things considered, but it got me pondering about where Ford - and, by extension, other OEMs - could best invest its marketing and racing dollars. Obviously it would remain in NASCAR, because of the installed base, and it's done well in drag racing, the Craftsman Truck series, V8 Supercars (although with Ford AU going down the tubes, who knows what'll happen there), and they have some support in SCCA and a few other smaller series. But what about rally cross?

Now, for those not familiar with Rally Cross (which is understandable, since it's a grassroots hybrid of rallying/WRC and asphalt racing), there are numerous videos about it which well-chronicle its appeal. Top Gear has covered this from a couple different perspectives: TG UK covered it from a budget standpoint, and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

TGUK part 1:

TGUK part 2:

Also, of note, Car & Driver also had/has a series called "Battle of the Beaters", which, while arguably overdramatic, did have teams building rallycross-ready vehicles in 72 hours:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Which brings me to the point of my post.
RallyCross started as a grassroots effort, cheapish, fun, approachable, a lot like how 24 Hours of LeMons started. It's now beginning to hit the mainstream with WRC teams doing it (like in Tanner's video), which is arguably more spectator friendly (since it's a closed-track professional event with a parking lot for spectators, a real track and PA system, and vendors rather than a field somewhere where it's somewhat slapdash, despite months of preparation), but it loses its charm when cars costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to make and more to research and refine from multi-million-dollar teams competing. Now there's still small local groups doing it, and growing more with exposure from big names like Top Gear shedding light on it, but there seems to be no intermediate level of actual racing ( since !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and doesn't always include asphalt, which, to me, is part of the largest appeal, since you have to set the cars up to be flexible), one that could benefit from factory support without the expensive purpose-built race cars like WRC, that is, make it a semi-pro competition like Karting or lower-level Formula series e.g. Formula Ford.

Thus, is there, as I believe, really a need for such an intermediate level? If so, would it benefit from continuing grassroots-style racing but with larger buy-ins and more purpose-built vehicles, or would it be better to have some factory support and development, grooming drivers to eventually join WRC or !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! as professionals?

*UPDATE* A few have pointed out GRC Lite, which, while it is a level below GRC, is still a bit more advanced than what I had in mind. To me, the intermediate level I'm proposing is just a bit above folks in fields with beaters with roll cages (but still "home-built" more or less), perhaps regional or national at most, but not international, where the factory helps with some of the expenses of the event and travel with sponsorships and such but without a full factory team or engineers at the driver's disposal. Like the SCCA RX but on both course textures and small race heats rather than time trials.

Fred Smith > boxrocket 08/08/2013 at 15:46

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Ford supports GRC very, very heavily. Far moreso than any other manufacturer. They pay for half the grid. If they have professional RX covered, why would they want to fund amateur RX?

For Sweden > Fred Smith 08/08/2013 at 15:48

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Waiting for Bill Caswell to give his answer.

boxrocket > Fred Smith 08/08/2013 at 15:51

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Driver development, the intermediate step between total amateur and pro

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > boxrocket 08/08/2013 at 15:52

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That already exists:

http://www.global-rallycross.com/news/category/…

HammerheadFistpunch > boxrocket 08/08/2013 at 15:54

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I support money staying the hell away from grassroots racing. ANYTHING can get too big for its own good, good example, I almost stopped playing ultimate Frisbee because of the ultra competitive collage league I played on soured the fun, same with Bike/ski racing...once it got to a point where I had to take things really seriously I hated it and I baked away. Fun motorsports need to exists and Corporate money can take a hike as far as I'm concerned. Can you even imagine a billion dollar demolition derby organization? Where is the fun in that?

Fred Smith > boxrocket 08/08/2013 at 16:00

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What do you think GRC Lites, a Ford spec series entirely funded by Ford and Royal Purple, is?

boxrocket > Fred Smith 08/08/2013 at 16:03

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That's still a bit more purpose-built and expensive for what I had in mind.

Fred Smith > boxrocket 08/08/2013 at 16:07

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But it's a low end professional rallycross class. Not sure what more you'd want...

As an aside, Ford would be stupid to spend money on low-end rallycross when their Grand-Am programs (soon to be far more important as they become USCR programs) and even Roush-Fenway itself are in such disarray. Two wins for RFR at this point in the season is not acceptable...

Hoccy > boxrocket 08/08/2013 at 16:10

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I think that some of the charm of rallycross is the crazy home-built cars that is special for each drivers. It it some kind of teams involved, but car manufacturers don't support them more than other sponsors. Though what I've seen of the GRC is that the teams there are closer to being factoryteams than the teams in the ERC.

I love the way that you can enter an ERC-round if you have a proper rallycross supercar, and be able to reach the final even though the car isn't brand new. The level of the competition isn't lower than the GRC, but there are a larger variety of cars, teams, drivers and different solutions to the same problems.

boxrocket > Hoccy 08/08/2013 at 16:12

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Exactly. Home-built, but with factory support to help cut expenses and groom drivers towards eventual professional-level racing.

boxrocket > HammerheadFistpunch 08/08/2013 at 16:17

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Yes indeed, which is why I had it in mind as a step up from a bunch of folks in a field with their self-built cars. Your demolition derby example is a good one, as it's one I'm much more familiar with. I agree that corporate sponsorship can ruin a fun, informal activity; I used to do a lot of remote-control racing at a nearby park, but a RC company - I want to say traxxas? - got involved and it went from cars you could build yourself or pick up at Radio Shack for under or around $100 to thousand-dollar vehicles with folks being way too competitive and overprotective, to the point the informal league mostly collapsed.

Hoccy > boxrocket 08/08/2013 at 16:25

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That's about how it is today, because everyone is able to buy a factory rallycross-car if they have the money. That would be cheaper than building your own supercar, so there is already some kind of support.

The amount of sponsors decide how professional you can be, and the most successful ERC and GRC driver can be considered (semi)professionals. There are already drivers that started their careers in European rallycross and gone to both the WRC and WTCC, so using it as a starting point as a racedriver is a good idea.

boxrocket > Hoccy 08/08/2013 at 16:27

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Indeed, but we don't seem to have such an intermediate step as that in the US.

Bakkster, touring car driver > Hoccy 08/08/2013 at 16:34

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I don't think anything's stopping that in GRC, aside from there being fewer rally supercars cars sitting around in the US than in Europe.

Fred Smith > boxrocket 08/08/2013 at 16:34

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If you think that, I don't think you understand what ERC is. It's at the same level as GRC, in fact considering the level of talent it may even be higher...

boxrocket > Fred Smith 08/08/2013 at 16:45

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I'm honestly not familiar with ERC, I was going off of my understanding of your comments. My mistake. I'll go educate myself shortly.