How to make the WRC sexy again

Former American president Lyndon B. Johnson reckoned we could take lessons from the past, but we couldn't live it.

He was probably right. But what if he wasn't? What if we could live in the past and what if we could make the past the present? Talk to anybody in the World Rally Championship about the sport's good times and, almost inevitably, the history books come out.

How, then, should we turn that around? Granted, the sport's not in the best of health right now, but it's not in bad shape. The cars are going as quick - if not quicker - than ever, despite the introduction of a control tyre this year. The right rallies are, largely, still there.

Despite that, there's still something missing. In my case, it's the names McRae and Burns on an entry list. And it's the absence of a World Rally Championship entry list for events like the Safari.

To my mind, the WRC is heading in the right direction. Granted, it's not going quick enough and I might not agree with every decision which is being taken, but there's no doubt the main sail is beginning to billow and the doldrums are being left behind.

Former world rally champion co-driver Robert Reid has a sense of de ja vu when it comes to talking about living in the past.

"When Richard (Burns) and I were getting started in 1993 and 1994 there were only two full-time manufacturers," says Reid, "Then, all people were talking about Group B cars. 'Phwoar, Group B cars,' they said. 'That was real rallying.' Everything was better in the past.

"It's the same now, people look back and talk about how many manufacturers there were in the sport ten years ago. That's not right. It's not good, bad, better or worse now, it's just different."

But, if we did want to make it better - or different - without the bureaucracy, what would we do?

Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen (Ford) get air in Finland © LAT

Ford's number one driver Mikko Hirvonen is in no doubt. His answer, for a driver at the top of the world championship, is fairly predictable.

"More power," says the Finn. "We need more power."

Subaru's operations director Paul Howarth puts this into perspective, remembering a time when Markku Alen stepped from his steaming Lancia Delta S4 at the end of a long stage. Asked what the car lacked, Alen took no time in answering.

"More power," he said, in his typical staccato style.

If 500-odd horsepower wasn't enough for Alen in the 1980s, the 300 Hirvonen has on tap now is certainly not going to satisfy the modern-day driver.

Hirvonen adds: "If you want to make rallying more spectacular then just give us more power. At the moment, the FIA wants drivers to go more sideways. They think they can make changes to the cars, like only giving us one active differential or control tyres, and this will make us go sideways. They're wrong.

"Every driver knows the fastest way is to drive the car straight these days. But, if you have more power, that can be different. If you have the power to get yourself out of trouble when the car is sideways, then it can be different."

But what's enough?

Four hundred horse power would be about right, according to Reid. He would know, the Subaru Legacy RS he and Burnsie won the 1993 British Rally Championship in probably had about that, unofficially, of course.

That Legacy was a favourite of both RB and Reid.

"The Legacy was probably the ideal rally car," he says. "It had a 38mm restrictor which gave loads of power, a locked rear differential, mechanical front differential and a hydraulic centre, which gave you some speed-related stability in some sections. Let me tell you, when you were sitting in that car, you knew you were in a rally car.

"Then, in 1995, when the restrictors were cut from 38mm to 34mm, it was the biggest disaster ever. I remember in Portugal that year, everybody was moaning about it. I think the best opportunity the sport has right now is with Super 2000. Okay, maybe there's not enough power from that, but why not look at Super 3000, that would certainly give them a bit more grunt."

Double world champion Carlos Sainz can see Reid's point with Super 2000. Having tested Skoda's Fabia S2000, the Spaniard was a big fan of the concept, but not really of the power.

Carlos Sainz © LAT

"There wasn't so much torque from the engine," says Sainz.

"It needs more. That would be a good way for the future. But, the thing I really like about this car was the way it felt like a rally car when you sat in it. It sounded like one, too. But the good thing was the weight. There wasn't much weight with it.

"Now, for World Rally Cars there is the 1,200 kilo minimum limit, which is too much. It's too heavy. When I drove the Fabia, it was like a real race car - like rally cars used to feel. This is important for the future."

But what about four-wheel-drive? Group B cars were all well and good, but if you really want to send your average rally fan misty-eyed, start talking Lancia 037, Stratos or Ford Escort BDA. All of those had one thing in common: a prop and only one set of driveshafts.

Howarth's not convinced.

"I sat with Stig [Blomqvist] in an Escort a few years ago," he says. "He was straight pretty much all of the time. These drivers know the fastest way. Okay, coming out of hairpins and in the medium-speed stuff, they'll be more sideways, but not on the quick bits."

So, four-wheel-drive stays. Fair enough. But what about the challenge of the sport?

Hirvonen's not a fan of the watered-down version of rallying we're in to now. The last round of the World Rally Championship - Rallye Deutschland - was 730 miles long, 218 of which were competitive. It took Sebastien Loeb three hours and 26 minutes to win. That's about the norm for a WRC event these days, although some of the slower gravel rallies - Turkey or Cyprus - will take a bit longer, but not much beyond four hours after three days of competitive driving.

Now, I know this is a bit of an extreme example, but when Hannu Mikkola collected the first Safari Rally victory for a Group A car on the 1987 Safari Rally, he and his Audi 200 Quattro had been as one for 2,500 miles, nigh on a thousand of those had been flat-chat for 20-plus hours.

"We need an element of endurance and challenge," says Howarth. "We need tough conditions, variable weather, lots of surprises. We need to get some extremes, this isn't Formula One, it's rallying.

"Look at Safari, that was all about the challenge. Nobody knew what was coming, when there was a lot of mud in a section, the winner was the person who could get the most out of it. The drivers from before were hardier characters, they got on with it. Characters like Markku Alen, Walter Rohrl had, in my opinion, more spirit about them.

"Drivers seem to be too clinical in this sport now, they don't seem to be able to go more than three hours without a sandwich or a session with the physio. But that's just my personal opinion."

Carlos Sainz and Luis Moya (Toyota) in the 1992 Safari Rally © LAT

Hirvonen might be found regularly tucking into a ham and cheese sandwich at in controls, but that doesn't make him any less hardy. He relishes a return to the rough and tumble of the days gone by.

"I always loved the old style of rally: five days and overnight, full days," says last year's Rally GB winner.

"I would definitely bring Safari Rally back. I would like more adventure, like the Camel Trophy. More adventure and more survival. Okay, this is not coming for the WRC, but we can make things better with things like longer stages and driving overnight again."

Hirvonen and his former boss at Subaru Howarth are in complete agreement about a more substantial amount of night driving in the WRC.

Howarth adds: "I don't see any problem with running dark stages. This highlights different performance in cars and drivers - and tyres. Look at Monte Carlo this year, there was some ice on the top and we could see which drivers adjusted the best to it.

"Rallying is about compromise, on those dark stages, the drivers were always going to be on the wrong tyres at some point in the stage - but this is rallying, they have to get on with it."

Having won the Safari twice with Burns, Reid is a big fan of Kenya and rallying in those parts. But he's only too aware of one of the chief reasons why the event lost its WRC status in 2003.

"It was," he says, "always reckoned to cost about three times more to compete in Kenya than any other European event. I loved it, though. It was an incredible challenge. I'd love to see it back."

Ford team principal and former British Rally Champion Malcolm Wilson can see the point about the Safari, but he reckons current events offer just as much of a challenge - just in a different way.

Wilson says: "My days as a driver were enormously satisfying and then the job satisfaction from winning the Safari [as a team principal] was tremendous, but the feeling I - and the rest of the team - got when we won in Turkey earlier this year was just like nothing before. I got as much if not more satisfaction from winning Turkey than I have running a team in the last 10 years. There are other ways to achieve that kind of classic-event status.

"I think, for example, Jordan can become a classic because it's such a different part of the world and the stages are different to anything to WRC has seen before. And then in places like India or China, some places which have some distinction and real character - these again can become classics."

Matthew Wilson and Scott Martin (Ford) in the 2008 Jordan Rally © LAT

High on Wilson's wish-list for the future of the sport is the education of the public.

"We need to let people see what we're doing and we need to make them understand our sport," he says. "Once we've got them, they're in and they'll stay in. This is the most fantastic sport around, but we've got to let people know about it."

One of the biggest barriers to that is the technical side of rallying. It doesn't have the purist attraction of a race. The first man across the line is not necessarily the winner in our sport. This is something which is bugging Hirvonen, too.

"There are too many small, stupid rules," says Hirvonen. "We need to make it simple. That would help with the spectacle as well. This is supposed to be a team sport involving team work, but when we're not even allowed to help our teammates, not allowed to give them tools to help fix their car at the end of the stages, this is not right.

"As well as that, we can't even have a punctured tyre to go to service now, but that was part of the rally. That was one of the things which made our sport spectacular. I know it was dangerous in road traffic, but if there was some sort of escort to make it safer, this was always part of the story."

The story has changed dramatically down the years, and as the next chapter is written, it can only be hoped that some of the above is taken into account.