Could R5 help save rallying?

In the spirit of taking my motoring backwards, I found myself in a field. But, this time, I meant to be in a field. And I hadn't come in through the gate backwards; I'd come in the conventional way.

And I'd got there in something four-wheel-drive and with proper tyres. And now I was about to fiddle with the differential. What a way to spend a morning. Brilliant.

Back to the backwards bit: I'm in a Land Rover 110. And it's raining. Raining like it's going out of fashion. And the bottom of the tyres have now disappeared beneath the surface of the field. No matter.

Shifting what looks like a shortened gear lever forward moves me into 'low' and gives me a new set of ratios from the transfer box and driving out of the field couldn't be more straightforward or drama-free. Obviously, I try to give it a few more revs just to try to spin the wheels and dirty the slab-like sides of the Landie, but she's having none of it in these low ratios.

Back on the road and back in normal driving mode, the Land Rover is like stepping back in time. The side windows are misting up and my knee's banging against the handbrake. The turning circle takes me into neighbouring counties and it's not very fast.

But it is effective. The lanes on the school run were flooded last week, but nothing stopped the 110. The passengers in the X5 ahead of us might have been getting there with a degree more comfort, but they were having to lift through puddles we were taking flat - the only disappointment being that much of the water was caught in the wheel arch and not sent sideways for what would have been a spectacular rural tsunami.

M-Sport's R5 Fiesta

Part of the reason for me telling you about this was my discovery of a new hero on Rally GB earlier this month. Actually, there was more than one hero - and they're all heroes in the genuine sense of the word.

That week in Wales, they were driving Land Rovers for fun, but in any other week, they could be driving the ones made to resist the attentions of a smoking AK-47 or a roadside bomb.

But as Alan Paramore's 90 flew over the jump in Walters' Arena, it was hard not to be impressed. Granted, this was the Land Rover Wolf - a militarised, rougher, gruntier, more grrr, kind of Landie (if that's possible), but it was still remarkable to see the thing fly. And even more so to see it get through the next corner.

The Armed Forces Rally Team are regulars on the British rally scene and they don't get enough support. So, thank you for the entertainment. And, while I'm on: how do you get out of your car without looking like a whale giving birth?

The other reason I wanted to write about cars of a rather more rudimentary - but nonetheless potent and deeply entertaining - nature is because of the onset of the R5 category, which is coming next year.

Don't know about you, but it feels like this whole R5 thing has just gone mad at the moment. Suddenly, everybody is on the bandwagon or banging the drum of the FIA's new formula for next season. With World Rally Cars, Regional Rally Cars, Super 2000s, R4 cars and all the lower classes of machinery in an average international field, you would have thought the last thing we needed was another confusing acronym.

But, there's a strong possibility R5 will end all the confusion. The new R5 class is so well considered, devised and, so far, delivered that it will end the need for all other four-wheel-drive categories.

R5, like the Landie, takes motoring back to a simpler form. Yes, R5 permits a sequential gearbox - but it's five- and not six-speed and the gears are built for strength and durability as opposed to being light and high-performance. The engine, like a World Rally Car, is a 1.6-litre unit with a turbocharger, but it's far more production-based and without any of the trick bits you'll find powering Sebastien Loeb and Petter Solberg through the lanes of Alsace next week.

The brakes are still well up to the job of stopping the car, but they're not tuned to the nth degree and neither is the suspension - each corner will be fully interchangeable with dampers almost recognisable to you and me.

Is R5 what the WRC needs?

These cars are aimed at doing what Super 2000 was supposed to do (offer national drivers the chance to take on the best in a car that is quick but not too quick, challenging and rewarding to drive), but that won't a) need an engineer to run it and b) cost the same as hiring Wayne Rooney to turn out for your pub team for a fortnight.

The FIA is keen to regulate costs of R5 cars - which are currently being produced by Peugeot, Ford, Citroen and Skoda - to somewhere south of £200,000. Granted, that's a vast sum of money, but the best part about this thing is that once you've shelled out that, the running costs are much lower. The cost of a season in an R5 car will be dramatically less than running a Super 2000 or Regional Rally Car (an RRC is essentially a World Rally Car with a smaller rear wing and turbo restrictor).

The R5 is aimed at the FIA's regional championships, such as the European, Asia-Pacific, Middle-East and the like and these series all remain in need of a major shake-up both in terms of competition and the formalisation of organisation. And a regular and affordable - in context - car could provide the regular base of competitors needed to transform those series.

So, there we have it. This week, I'm loving the puddle-ability of Land Rover's 110 and the concept of another category of rally cars.

And later this week, I hope to be loving the World Motor Sport Council for delivering a set of WRC-saving announcements.

Watch this space...