Bringing the WRC to the people: the Citroen Road Show

The Citroen Total World Rally Team have wowed the crowds in a pre-Rally Argentina roadshow, good on them I say.

Seb and Dani headed over to Argentina early to drive the specially-created 300m stage and wrc.com reports that over 50,000 people flocked to the streets of Buenos Aires to watch the so-called Citroen Road Show.

After watching that video all I can say is WOW!

A bit of crazy driving from the King of Cool there, I’ve never seen Seb do that before!

Now, if he can put that much excitement into his regular stage driving the WRC will certainly liven up a notch or two…somehow I think that’s unlikely though as far as old Seb’s concerned.

Race of Champion memories

Seen as though all our Race of Champion dreams have been dashed I thought I’d post a few videos of happier times.

Enjoy.

Mattias Ekstrom (a fairly good rally driver don’t you know) beats Micheal Schumacher to the Champions title…nice to see Michael taking it so well.

The McRae tribute in 2007, great to see all the drivers showing their support like that.

Our Sebastien beats David Coulthard to the Champion crown, simple proof that rally drivers do it better….but I suppose it’s not that difficult to beat Coulthard is it?

One HANs device please, HOW MUCH????

Sebastien Loeb has this week given the HANs device a big thumbs up over on the offical WRC website.

Yes you're safe, but you're also bankrupt

Our world champ has rated the Head and Neck Support device as being the most significant safety feature introduced to the WRC since he began competing.

Seb told wrc.com that although he found the device uncomfortable when he first started wearing it he doesn’t even think about it now and feels strange and ‘too loose’ without it.

I recently went to a marshals training day where I tried one of these little gizmos on and couldn’t believe how light it was. Sure it’s tight round your neck and shoulders and does feels a bit claustrophobic at first but you definitely feel secure.

I’m neither a rally driver or codriver myself but thought I’d have a quick look at how expensive these things are out of interest.

Prices ranged from about £500 to £1500 but for a top-notch HANs device you’d have to fork out £5000!

I know, it’s extortionate!

If motorsport bodies are to introduce this safety feature to all levels of rallying I don’t know how the average rally driver competing for fun is going to be able to afford it especially when the sport is already so expensive to compete in.

Saying that though Jari-Matti’s accident has shown us how important these features are so maybe I shouldn’t be putting a price on safety.

£5000 though……

Rally round-up 30th March to 5th April

• Michal Kosciuszko kept his Suzuki Swift S1600 out of trouble and finished first in the Rally Portugal JWRC class. Finishing over six minutes ahead of his nearest rival he’s now level with championship leader Martin Prokop in the standings.
• There was a record number of Norwegians in the Rally Portugal top ten, with Petter finishing 4th, Henning finishing 5th and Mads finishing 6th.
• Matt Wilson actually retired! He rolled it on SS17 and then burnt out the clutch, does this mean he was actually pushing it for once?
• Petter Solberg has revealed he turned down an offer to drive for Courage-Oreca team in 2009 Le Mans Sports Car Series, including the Le Mans 24 hour race. He wanted to give priority to the WRC.
• After taking the first four rallies of the season Sebastien Loeb thinks he can win all the remaining rallies but is still concentrating on keeping his crown.

Championship standings

													Total
1.	S. LOEB	10	10	10	10									40
2.	M. HIRVONEN	6	8	8	8									30
3.	D. SORDO	8	4	5	6									23
4.	P. SOLBERG	-	3	6	5									14
5.	H. SOLBERG	5	5	0	4									14
6.	M. WILSON	2	2	4										8
7.	J-M LATVALA	0	6	0										6
8.	C. ATKINSON	4	-	-										4
9.	F. VILLAGRA	-	-	2	2									4
10.	S. OGIER	3	0	R										3

The real reason behind Seb’s success

In the past month or so our World Champion has finished second twice.

Ok, they may not have been rallying events – one a quad biking event in Monaco organised by Daniel Elena, the other a time trial against Motocross ‘legend’ Stephan Everts.

Irrespective of whether it is rallying or not he still finished in the first place of the losers position and it got me thinking….

When Seb has been on his own in little events such as these he has always failed to make the mark and Daniel Elena says it himself…“When I am not next to him, Sebastian does not win!”

He might be right with that one.

I’ve always liked Daniel, he provides the comic value to Loeb’s slightly tedious nature, although the poor bloke does get some stick from his driver from time to time.

I can’t remember what rally it was but Sebastien’s time on a stage was down on what it had been the previous year. When asked why this was Seb replied “Well Daniel is fatter than last year so he’s slowing us down!”

Seriously though, I don’t think the guy gets the credit he deserves – he’s a record breaker too and Seb wouldn’t have got to where he is without him.

Loeb’s new job

He’s a cleaner.

No, you didn’t read that wrong and no I don’t have photographic proof, I don’t think Citroen will let gems like that loose in the public eye.

Our friends over at the official WRC website are reporting that Sebastien and his C4 went head-to-head with Motocross ‘legend’ Stefan Everts on the ‘Mur de Grammont’ in Belgium, a week before the Tour of Flanders is due to pass over it.

It was the first time that a car was allowed to drive over the famous cobbles.

After two test runs the final duel went the way of the bike rider, yes Sebastien lost!

Shock horror!

King of the stages or king of cleanliness?

His forfeit was to clean Evert’s bike…so, well, I’ll admit it my post may have been a bit misleading and I don’t think our Seb will be swapping his racing gloves for some rubber gloves any time soon.

Good on him though.

The big 5-0 for Loeb

Not literally, he’s old but not that old.

I predicted it would happen. It wasn’t that difficult a prediction to make, no Derek Acorah-esqe psychic talent needed with Loeb around.

With 50 WRC wins to his name Seb is now a staggering 20 wins clear of previous record holder Marcus Gronholm and to be honest there’s no one out there who’s going to catch him any time soon.

Well done Seb!

Weekly round-up 9th March – 15th March

It’s all about Cyprus this week…..

• Hirvonen finished Cyrpus in second place to Loeb. Bad times you may say but he finished a respectable 27 secs behind Loeb. You may think this is far from respectable but considering on the last Cyprus he finished a whole 5mins behind Loeb it’s quite decent.
• The Munchis team had a solid start to their slightly delayed season opener with Federico Villagra finishing in 7th place.
• Sebastien Ogier, bless him, was on course for a fantastic 5th place, that was until he crashed out 200m before the finishing line.
• Czech Republic’s Martin Prokop moved into the lead of the JWRC after winning his class.
• Patrik Sandell took his second win from two starts with the Red Bull Rally Team, extending his lead in the PWRC in the process.
• A bit of un-Cyrpiot news now – Sebastien Loeb has hit out at the proposed changes to the WRC saying that the most important thing is to put the security of the series first in the current economic climate. I know he’s said he would be far from keen to be involved in the sport if Super2000s are introduced but he must have had a bit of a rethink and has now said he’ll remain loyal to the sport whatever happens -All you Loeb haters out there, it seems you’ll have to put up with him for a bit longer yet.

Latest WRC standings

														Total
1.	S. LOEB	10	10	10										30
2.	M. HIRVONEN	6	8	8										22
3.	D. SORDO	8	4	5										17
4.	H. SOLBERG	5	5	0										10
5.	P. SOLBERG	-	3	6										9
6.	M. WILSON	2	2	4										8
7.	J-M LATVALA	0	6	0										6
8.	C. ATKINSON	4	-	-										4
9.	S. OGIER	3	0	R										3
10.	C. RAUTENBACH	0	R	3

Share a bit of Petter Solberg love ……

….or then again maybe not, seems like I’m his only fan these days….bring out the violins.

My earlier post got me thinking about the days when Petter was the number one guy in the service park.

My mum, being the Sebastien Loeb obssesse in the family always put Petter down and I know for a fact that she’ll deny it but it’s true. One thing she always tried to imply was that the whole fan friendly image was apparently only for the cameras.

Well I beg to disagree.

I have met Mr Solberg on more than one occassion, three times in one day in fact at Rally Catalunya 2004. Firstly at Shakedown I waited and waited for an autograph, each time Petter got out of the car he apologised for not being able to come over, promising to come back later.

Eventually Petter came running over and dancing as if with ants in his pants he said “I’m so sorry I’ll be back in a minute, I really need a wee!” before running off behind the Pirelli van, doing his business and running back over to me while still zipping up his flies!

Not only did I get an autograph, I got a lovely cuddle to go with it.

Later in the day while parked up on a road section (parents were arguing over rally road maps) and Seb sped past. Knowing that Petter would be quick behind I got out the Norweigan and Welsh flags. I didn’t just get a wave, no, I got a manic wave, a Subaru weaving down the middle of the road, flashing of the lights and crazed beeping of the horn! It was great, I was the only one there!

Finally after the ceremonial start myself and my brother waited outside Parc Ferme and Petter walked past and I got a wink and a smile and my brother got an autograph and a shake of the hand. There were no cameras and very few other fans present so you can hardly say the guy was playing up to make himself look good.

It was the perfect end to the perfect day.

Settle an argument

Well, there’s an argument going on over on rallyforum.

Apparently there aren’t any charismatic drivers in the WRC any more and there haven’t been since the likes of Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae.

I think these people need to take a minute to look in the dictionary, this is what they’ll find.

cha·ris·ma

a. A rare personal quality attributed to leaders who arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm.

b. The quality or power of an individual to attract, influence, or inspire people [Greek kharis grace, favour]

I don’t like to admit it as I wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of Colin but he did attract a hell of a lot of fans, but what about Petter????

I know his days of winning are long gone and almost forgotten but when he was at the height of his success the crowds around the Subaru service area were wonders to behold. You had to be there at least 2 hours before the car came in to service even to be in with a chance of getting an autograph.

I think he had that ‘rare personal quality’. The jumping around, screaming and shouting and pure excited passion commanded the devotion of thousands of people (or maybe just thousands of crazy Norwegians).

Perhaps though, could it be that it isn’t charisma rallying is lacking and this void is down to a distinct lack of head to head fights. It was the old ‘fueds’ that made for fantastic interviews where drivers experessed real fight.

Where are the likes of Burns v McRae, Makinen v the rest of the world???

You certainly don’t get what those guys had with Loeb and Hirvonen.

Dare I say it but perhaps we need a bit of the Bernie Eccleston magic to inject a bit of excitement back into the WRC……