Hug the trees while waiting, take no mud home, that famous event sponsored by DayInsure

[PhillipM]

Hop on a ferry, Plaines et Vallees runs at the end of the month, night stages included:

 

And just like the good old rallying days, it runs through villages, the scrutineering is in the middle of town on Friday night (complete with plenty of outdoor bars, etc), the cars are up and down the roads with normal traffic back and forth from stages and you can watch for free and stand wherever you like.
 Oh, and the French believe engine noise limits are a minimum target. And unlike here where half the town complains when they hear someone fart first thing in a morning 5 miles away whilst unloading their car, the french just shut entire villages and towns down, everyone has a local holiday and comes out to cheer the cars on.

Much like over here there's a massive range of cars from standard RAV4's with cages, through LADA rwds with Mi16 engines bolted in, up to bespoke spaceframed, kevlar clothed beasts with I4's/I6'sV6's/V8's/V10's/W12's/V16's and twin and triple rotarys. All at the same event.

[forddeliveryboy]

^ The sort of spirit which seems to have vanished here, regarding shutting down towns and villages and having an impromptu holiday, welcoming people with spirit. Looks a great spectacle.

 

That Top Gear Rally Report team had just nine or ten people with a couple of Trannies touring the rest areas. I reckon Woollard, Mason and co. made a fine job of it, helped by a BBC which wasn't so politically correct as it is now. The WRC has a separate company to promote the event with five large trucks and 50 people who take 2 days just to set things up. Number of viewers? No idea, but I bet it's not a tenth of the 3 million achieved by those rally nutters on the BBC in the 1980s. Just so typical of the bullshit which is given credibility mainly through big money in this weird world we're in today.

 

I suppose the public aren't daft, they can see the difference between a carefully stage managed event and a real battle of human skill and endurance over a week, day and night - I'd forgotten they only introduced pacenotes in 1990. Makes you wonder how the sponsors can justify the expense, perhaps it's much bigger in other lands? I fail to see how VW UK will benefit much from their UK rally win this year. 

 

More win, here's primetime Beeb given over to a bit of Vauxhall Nova oily bits - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yzvLOMXaroI#t=40. And Derek Warwick uttering those famous Rally Report lines, "It's very slippery, that's the problem".  And grumbling about the loss of grip with four wheel drive. 

[Jim Bell]

I did all my rallying in the house

[UltraWomble]

I used to have the hots for Steph and her sister Rachel

[Timewaster]

I still have all the 1987 Lombard RAC coverage on a video.

 

Shame I don't have anything to play it on anymore.

[PhillipM]

I used to have the hots for Steph and her sister Rachel

They're still racing the French TT's and over here in Safari's on odd occasions - usually at the memorial event for their dad.

 

[andy18s]

This is the genuine ex Simmonite RS2000 performing at Chumley

Found locked away after many years in storage

[spike60]

IIRC the Simmmonites were dropped like a hot potato by Ford when of them got done for DD in Malton.

[forddeliveryboy]

Surprised anyone well-known could be done for dd in that place, a local farmer was helped out of his car one night while trying to drive down the unfinished bypass by the local constabulary and helped home.

[Zelandeth]

I still have all the 1987 Lombard RAC coverage on a video.

Shame I don't have anything to play it on anymore.

I should be able to transfer it into a DVD/into a digital format for you if you want. Sadly VHS is the only tape format I've got working at the moment as parental miscommunication a few years ago saw my good Beta and V2000 machines binned... currently rebuilding a VR2020 so should have V2000 capacity back soon. Probably won't replace the Beta machine though as I've no tapes of my own and the format doesn't interest me like V2000 does.

 

I really enjoyed the rally stage at Goodwood over the last few years (this is the first year we've not gone in a while, largely because the ticket prices have gone daft). Was really a sad show though in that when the whole rally side was sponsored by Skoda, there was absolutely *nothing* anywhere on site telling anything about their rally history...what the?!? C'mon, I know there are both a couple of the old cars left (they had one on display in the paddocks down at the bottom of the hillclimb....), and there are at least a couple of replicas going around...why the heck weren't they going sideways around the track? Hearing that they'd sponsored the rally stage had me really hoping to hear the unmistakable blare of something small and rear engined approaching through the woods and appearing sideways...closest I got was a bloody Beetle.

 

The Lada was ace though, even if they were taking it easy. It really sounds the part when opened up though.

 

I've hovered around it several years now in the hope of getting to say hello to the owners, never managed though. Sure they get a lot of attention, but can't be every day they see an actual driver of the motor theirs is based on these days.