Snore… After three weeks of watching the Tour de France, I had to check my pulse to see whether I was still alive. Even though millions of fans are super-glued to their TV sets to watch those matchstick men go up a mountain at 20 km/h, I’d much rather watch a rally!I must confess, I’m definitely not a fan of cycling, and my 1995 model mountain bike (which is now a safe haven for a daddy longlegs), has been hanging upside down in my garage for about three years. And yes, cyclists do rub me the wrong way when they’re riding side by side in an inconsiderate manner. So when I see these 40 kg men cycling their guts out, with hundreds of people lining the road and running alongside the competitors in chicken suits, I wonder, “What’s all the fuss about?”. The cyclists are barely moving, and even if they hit a downhill section, the person driving the support car is almost falling asleep. Sure, each team has strategies to outthink their competitors, and the cyclists’ bodies (and reproductive bits) must take a pounding, but watching a bike race is about as boring as seeing Kepler Wessels block his way through a Test Match.
When I watch the cyclists going up a French mountain pass, with the fans only getting out of their way at the last second, I always think back to the glory days of rallying. The days when Audis, Peugeots and Lancias were flying through rally stages at death-defying speed, and only narrowly avoided the thousands of people that swarmed the road. Sometimes the crowd would fill the road on the other side of a blind jump and only wait for the car to “take off” (and getting that snapshot) before opening up like the Red Sea. I’m sure many of those fans were on some form of dangerous medication, as no sane person would willingly to put himself in harm’s way.
Even though the modern day cars are not as spectacular as their 1980s counterparts (think Sarel’s Audi, Hannes Grobler’s numerous Skylines), and crowd control is of a much higher standard, rallying, and especially the World Rally Championship, is probably the most exciting motor sport on the planet. It’s also the stepchild of the FIA in terms of media exposure. There is just no comparison between the one-hour highlight package that each WRC event gets, and the time and money spent on the live transmissions of F1, WSBK and Moto GP races. In addition, they also make a big fuss about the qualifying sessions of the three big guns. Every Sunday we’re bombarded by bikes and cars that go in circles for hours on end. And all the rallying fan has to look forward to is a one hour summary of a three-day event.
I can only assume that it comes down to the root of all evil – money. There are obviously not as many fans of rallying as there are of F1 and bikes. That means sponsors don’t spend as much of their marketing budget on rallying as on the other popular forms of motorsport and as a result the gravel heroes get less airtime.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think that the FIA should make a bigger effort to promote rallying across the globe. Just imagine if one could follow the event live on TV over all three days, or at least get a one-hour summary at the end of each day. They could slot the programmes into the more popular viewing times (for example from 7pm to 8pm), and I’m sure sponsors will line up to get exposure.
It is also the FIA’s responsibility to make superstars out of the drivers and co-drivers. Michael Schumacher must be one of the most well-known sportsmen on the planet, and he doesn’t even smile. If they can make someone like Kimi Raikkonnen, who has the personality of an apple, a superstar, then surely Sébastien Loeb, with his laid-back “nothing-fazes-me” attitude, can also be used to attract more people to the sport. It should even be easier with rallying, as fans can at least relate to the production car-based rally cars… By contrast, F1 cars look like something only aliens should drive.
The point I’m trying to make is that if millions of people can slavishly follow an event with an average speed of 40km/h, surely you can attract the masses to a spectacle where cars are piloted through sweeps, hairpins and blind jumps at unimaginable speeds? And, what’s more, you can tell your mate that your 1,6 litre Focus can also perform a four-wheel drift around the local traffic circles…