IMPRESSIONS FROM A RALLYING VIRGIN
Note: all of the images link to hi-res versions when you click on them.
There's lots of different car rallies and different kinds of rallies too. The biggest group seems to be the FIA (Fédération Intarnationale de l'Automobile). They run a series of races all over the world each year called the FIA World Rally Championship. Races take place in Portugal, Sweden, Kenya, China, Argentina, New Zealand, and other exotic places. There are 14 races in total, with the popular Australian race as the 13th of the year. This leg of the adventure seems to be a favorite of the drivers and their teams. The FIA WRC drivers are just one of the groups that participate in the race. There's also a very active group that only does rallies in Australia, and both groups have different classifications of cars for different race competitions. In total, there are more than 60 cars participating in the Telstra Rally Australia. This makes for lots of great, varied action for the spectators! Some of the cars are 300hp turbocharged all-wheel-drive beasts, and some of them are lightweight little 1.6 litre front-wheel-drive speed demons. For this rally, there was a special stage at a large park in downtown Perth right next to the river. This main stage -- the Langley Park Superstage -- was a specially constructed double track with tight turns over a fairly level dirt and asphalt surface. For more info on Langley Park and other specific stages, check out the Spectator Experience section. Other stages took place around an agricultural college, through the bush and deep forests, near a dam, and all over the Bunnings Tree Farm -- considered the highlight of the event by many with some of the best rallying on earth and the location of the final 5 races. Each car lines up before it's their turn to race on the track. The cars all travel in 3 or 5 minute intervals to allow dust on the track to settle (crucial) and prevent pile-ups. Each race is timed, and the winner is the one who has the lowest overall time for all races combined. Once the drivers complete each race, they drive on public roads from stage to stage. It's pretty cool to share the road with these impressive machines! It's quite strange to be waiting at a traffic light and have a World Rally Car pull up next to you with the engine revving. (Hey Colin McRae! Wanna drag? You've got your rally car, and I've got my rental hatchback. Let's go!) The drivers are required to both stay within the speed limits and get to the next stage within a certain amount of time. They don't want to get pulled over for speeding or reckless driving because that would destroy their between-stage time. and cost them time penalties. One of the cars during the race suffered a couple of punctures and there weren't any scheduled service stops, so the driver had to try and make it to the next stage as is. He was pulled over and the police officer wouldn't let him continue. Sucks! As a result he was out of the race completely! Cars participating in the rally are broken down into two main categories -- Group A and Formula 2. Group A cars are highly modified with fewer engine restrictions, and Formula 2 cars are either of less powerful designs or are very similar to actual production cars that regular people can buy. Within Group A is a relatively new sub-category of car called World Rally Cars, or WRCars. You can't really consider these cars as being modified because they're built completely from scratch from a kit supplied by car manufacturers. The teams take the shell of a production car (like the Subaru Impreza) and can put any 2-litre mass-produced engine they want in it, as long as the engine comes from the same manufacturer. For example, Toyota's Corolla has a Lexus IS200 engine in it (Toyota owns Lexus). They also put in a four-wheel-drive system, customized transmission, custom suspension, custom brake systems, etc. Manufacturers only need to make 25 of these kits (which must fit within certain guidelines from the FIA). This keeps the cost of investing in rally racing down to a minimum for the manufacturers and has allowed smaller manufacturers like Hyundai and SEAT to get involved. The other Group A cars can be just as modified but don't come in a kit, and the manufacturer must make at least 2500 of these cars. Mitsubishi is the only manufacturer still making the older form of Group A cars, but they're doing a damn good job at it, considering their drivers have now won 5 of the last 4 FIA World Rally Championship seasons. Formula 2 has two sub-categories as well. The first category is Group A kit cars which are identical in concept to Group A WRCars but they can only be two-wheel drive, the engine must be two litres or less, and they can't have turbochargers. The manufacturer must still make at least 25 kits, which have to be approved by the FIA for use. Also in Formula 2 are Group N cars which are virtually identical to the cars you and I can buy from a showroom floor. Teams are only allowed to change the brake pads (but no other part of the braking system), the shock absorbers (but no other suspension components), and they can add safety systems (like roll cages and racing seats with safety harnesses). They have to keep the full interior of the car including floor coverings and roof linings, and the body work and engine management systems, and curb weight must remain unchanged. If you're looking at rally cars with the intent of buying a similar one for use as a daily driver, Look at the Group N cars to see how it's possible to drive them.
T H E O R G A N I Z A T I O N S
T H E S T A G E S
Another thing that keeps the action varied is the large number of different courses the drivers race on. These courses are scattered all over the countryside, up to nearly 200km away from Perth. Your own car (or a rental) is an absolute must if you want to see more than 3 of the 23 (!) races.
B U I L D I N G A R A L L Y C A R
Initially I thought that Tommi Makinen's car was just Tommi's car, and they ship the same car all over the world. As it turns out, this isn't the case -- the various teams build several different cars that are customized and modified to run in specific types of races. There's a car just for asphalt racing, a car just for dirt racing, etc. Even though there's 14 different races in the WRC series, they don't use the same car more than 3 or 4 times! That's it! The race in Australia required some heavy-duty specialization to deal with the ball-bearing-like gravel surface prevalent on many stages.