Rally in America: Should We Even be Surprised?

"Haimatox" (haimatox)
06/17/2015 at 14:06 • Filed to: Rally, subaru

Photo Credit: Subaru/VSC/Blackflag

I was watching the most recent Launch Control video, and it got me thinking. There’s a TL;DR at the end, for those of you who are too impatient to read the whole thing.

Should we even be surprised that Subaru Rally Team USA’s David Higgins and Craig Drew are dominating the competition? They have won every Rally America National Championship since 2011 and are on track for a five-peat. Of the past thirty-two Rally America events, they have won twenty, and podium’d for ten. Only in two rallies did they not reach the podium, and both were DNFs caused by mechanical issues.

Photo Credit: Jalopnik/Orlove

What is the source of this complete dominance and control over the Rally America circuit? In my opinion, the answer is simple: Money. Lots and lots of money. According to Travis Okulski/Jalopnik/Subaru, the value of the above car, SRT’s 2014 Subaru WRX STI car, is in excess of $250,000. That is a not-insignificant sum of moola. To put that in perspective, that is within $9,000 of the Ferrari 488 GTB’s starting price. This Subaru hatchback costs as much as the latest Ferrari, and that does not even include the development costs, which could easily double or even triple the cost of the overall car. Compare this to competitor’s cars, which are not nearly as expensive, and therefore are not nearly as competitive.

Photo Credit: CarAndDriver

If it is not yet obvious, Subaru Rally Team has an advantage. Having the support of a manufacturer includes benefits beyond the wildest dreams of the lowly privateer team. The testing and research opportunities, hospitality suite, hotel reservations, and service crew are all handled by the big dogs at Subaru.

Looking at past overall championship standings probably tells the story better than I could. As you can see, the closest competition and the narrowest victory was in 2011, David Higgins’ first year of competing in Rally America. The next narrowest victory was in 2013, when Ken Block was toe-to-toe with Higgins all year, only to slip up at the final rally of the season. The interesting thing is that the runner up, apart from the 2014 season, was in a well-funded car that was close to or on par with SRT. See Ken Block’s Ford Fiesta or Antoine L’Estage’s Mitsubishi Evo from this very limited study.

This might only be an issue for me, because I like to cheer for the underdog. Whenever I watch Launch Control or read the results of a rally, I automatically expect the winner to be Subaru. I feel like it is similar to last year’s F1 season, in which Mercedes destroyed the competition in almost every race.

TL;DR: This is not a problem, just a fact I thought I would share with you lovely people. It would be nice, however, if more manufacturers took an interest in rallying, and funded more teams at a level to compete with the currently-dominant Subaru Rally Team USA. Unfortunately there isn’t enough media coverage and money in American rallying. Therefore, if that can’t happen, which I assume is the case... well... never mind then.

DISCUSSION (15)

mwoodski > Haimatox
06/17/2015 at 14:12

There’s no money or mainstream media exposure in American club rallying.

There’s literally no point for any of the manufactures to get involved.

Haimatox > mwoodski
06/17/2015 at 14:14

That’s probably the issue. Not much can be done about that I would say.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Haimatox
06/17/2015 at 14:20

I had a chance to talk to some of the drivers while at Climb to the Clouds, which Higgens not only won but set a new course record. there was clearly some hard feelings regarding the financial difference in his team versus the rest of the field. I heard $500,000* value for his car plus an operating budget compared to buying a used car, stripping and caging the yourself in your back yard with an operating budget of duct tape and zip ties.

*(could have been $250k plus $250k for operations)

Haimatox > OPPOsaurus WRX
06/17/2015 at 14:23

I guess this might be why I lean more towards NASA Rally Sport. It’s almost entirely grassrooted (is that a proper use of the term?), so it’s probably more competitive and just more fun in general.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Haimatox
06/17/2015 at 14:28

We can hope that with the release of the Focus RS that Ford will get into supporting Rally America. It would be a pretty natural fit for the AWD FoRS in terms of marketing and market demographic. Go to any rally and you will see tons of WRX/STi’s and Evo’s still around and with the FoRS being aimed squarely at the STi it seems like a natural move for Ford to get back into Rally America. Whether or not they want to or have the budget is another question. Obviously NASCAR is their big domestic motorsports venture and with a return to LeMans planned they may not have the time or resources to be bothered getting back into rally in the U.S.

If Ford did want to get back into rally they even have a hot shoe ready to go in Block since he would be much more competitive in Rally America than he has been in WRC. Whether he would be willing to do it is another question. If they were interested and had Block on board they might be able to lure Pastrana away from Subaru. Reunite the old band if you will.

At any rate it would be nice to see another works team in Rally America to bring the fight to Subaru. I might be a bit of a Subaru fan, but it would be nice to see someone to give them a consistent challenge. Maybe it would even raise the exposure to stage rally in the U.S. if they had a legitimate rival.

Haimatox > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
06/17/2015 at 14:33

That would be awesome, but I wonder if they will actually do any manufacturer-sponsored teams, or if they will just leave it up to privateers as usual.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Haimatox
06/17/2015 at 14:54

Probably just leave it up to the privateers. It would be nice to see more manufacturer support but I don’t know if they can come up with a business case for it. DSTV needs to pitch a deal to do something like Launch Control for Ford. Just checked YouTube and Launch Control looks to get around 70k views per episode there. I believe you can watch it directly on the Driving Sports website too, so it is getting some decent views.

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > Haimatox
06/17/2015 at 16:01

From what I understand Subaru got regulated out of WRC, so what’s why they’re here instead

Dusty Ventures > Haimatox
06/17/2015 at 19:40

The testing and research opportunities, hospitality suite, hotel reservations, and service crew are all handled by the big dogs at Subaru.

Actually they’re all handled by Vermont SportsCar. Subaru writes a check, provides any and all technical info VSC might need, and that’s pretty much it. VSC does the rest.

Dusty Ventures > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
06/17/2015 at 19:43

If Ford offered Ken would definitely be on board. He wants to do more rally, but right now has to compete where the sponsors tell him to compete. Travis would be a tougher sell, he and Subaru/Lance are tight.

Dusty Ventures > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua
06/17/2015 at 19:45

Common misconception. Subaru left the WRC years before the regulations changed.

Dusty Ventures > Haimatox
06/17/2015 at 19:53

There’s been a lot of talk about this in the community. The VSC car is about $350k+ at this point (I know they say less, but come on, Antoine’s Evo was at $225k, and it wasn’t even close to being in the same league), and that’s a hard target to hit. Making it even tougher, Subaru won’t reveal or sell their latest innovations to anyone, even if they can afford it, only the previous year’s stuff gets sold. There’s talk about some variation of Super Production becoming the top step, but I don’t foresee that happening because the SP rules swing too far the other way (and RA won’t adopt anything that would keep Ken Block out). Besides, even the fast SP cars are $150k+. I think the solution is coming to New England this year in the form of the M-Sport Fiesta R5. While still out of the price range of most (~$250k), I can name about four privateers who could probably afford it (not including Antoine since he’s factory now), and the R5 is at least as good as the factory Subaru if not better. If the R5 does well at NEFR we may see a few pop up next year, and then we could have the fight we’ve been longing for.

AntMic MkIII > Dusty Ventures
06/18/2015 at 13:13

Ooh, excited to see Ramana in the R5. A few other exciting entries on there as well. I might have to make a trip. I do love me some Concord Pond.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Dusty Ventures
06/18/2015 at 15:00

Good point about Block racing where Ford wants him to race. I wasn’t sure how tight Pastrana was with VSC since he has obviously gone around with others during his hiatus from stage rally.

Looking at your other post about the R5 coming the Rally America, here is hoping it does well. Even if Ford doesn’t run a factory effort I think M-Sport has the ability to put some serious pressure on VSC. They definitely have the ability to build a fine rally car and are able to put pressure on the factory WRC teams.

Dusty Ventures > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
06/18/2015 at 18:48

I’ve been waiting for about two years for someone in the states to finally buy/run an R5. Even with the old 1.6 motor of the standard R5 cars it was (on paper) at least as quick as the SRT car at 2/3 the price. Now that they’re offering it with the non-FIA 2.0 motor it should be even faster than the SRT car, and still cost a good $100k less.