Is WRC the only true racing series left?

[Big time]

Real life cars, real roads and outrageous driver skills.
Unlike most racing series.

[TVR IS KING]

The answer is no.
Real cars? You think the "Fiestas", "Minis" and "DS3s" competing in WRC are related in any way whatsoever with their production counterparts? Something like a Fiesta doesn't have a turbo, or AWD, or anything like that anywhere in the range. It's not remotely sporty, and certainly isn't a rally car.

Gone are the days of near-production Imprezas and Evolutions battling it out.

As for outrageous driver skills, don't even try and tell me F1 and NASCAR drivers don't have skills.

If you want true racing you have to look on a smaller scale, like the Australian targa series.

[Big time]

The answer is no.
Real cars? You think the "Fiestas", "Minis" and "DS3s" competing in WRC are related in any way whatsoever with their production counterparts? Something like a Fiesta doesn't have a turbo, or AWD, or anything like that anywhere in the range. It's not remotely sporty, and certainly isn't a rally car.

Gone are the days of near-production Imprezas and Evolutions battling it out.

As for outrageous driver skills, don't even try and tell me F1 and NASCAR drivers don't have skills.

If you want true racing you have to look on a smaller scale, like the Australian targa series.
You can't drive an F1 or even a Nascar on the road, they will be scrapping the ground.
No matter how many Gs they can pull their front wings and splitters are useless in real life.

F1 has become ridiculously unrelated to real life.
Even their brakes won't do much when cold.
Their engines can even be started cold by themselves, kind of a rich old man carrying their oxygen tank who just can't have sex, not even with viagra.

Of course racing is a tech testground. But tech must be useful in the real life.
Remember Ferrari -we all know Ferrari produces super high performance cars- once thought of abandoning F1 because technology isn't related to real cars.

[250gto boy]

Well all forms of motor sports take some type of skill. No normal person can just hop in an F1 car and win a grand prix on the first try. I personally think that the quality and skill of the drivers has dropped in all forms of motor sports. There aren't any Ayrton Sennas or Stig Blomqvists left in the world. It is probably because of the fact that motor sports are a lot safer now then maybe 30 years ago.

[csl177]

>sigh<

[TVR IS KING]

Yes, WRC cars can be driven on the road, but only because they're specialised to be versatile. They're no less specialised than a NASCAR.

It sure doesn't mean they're related in any way to actual road cars.

[Mugen_Ferio]

I think its touring cars. More specifically the
British and World cars

[pimento]

I think its touring cars. More specifically the
British and World cars

I believe they run a pretty similar spec to rally cars nowadays, regulations-wise.

[Brix]

I believe they run a pretty similar spec to rally cars nowadays, regulations-wise.
S2000 regulations :). Eventhough WRC has modified it slightly.

But saying WRC is the only true racing series is ignorant, because if one use our arguments, then IRC is a much more "true" race series!

[faksta]

Racing is not about real life cars and tecnhology testing - it's about racing, everything beside that are just excuses to attract money and sponsors...

And btw, if you value the qualities you have specified, try following some club racing maybe? More accessible cars and technologies, close battles.

[Cobrafan427]

As for outrageous driver skills, don't even try and tell me NASCAR drivers don't have skills.


Have you seen the last race at Talladega? They crashed on a restart as soon as they hit the start/finish line! There is no skill involved in that series, you just have to be on a good team to do well. No wonder they welcomed Danica with open arms, she's good at crashing

[Dino Scuderia]

Have you seen the last race at Talladega? They crashed on a restart as soon as they hit the start/finish line! There is no skill involved in that series, you just have to be on a good team to do well. No wonder they welcomed Danica with open arms, she's good at crashing

I've seen a crash in just about every road series on warmup laps...including Allan McNish, one of the best in the world, on the formation lap at Road Atlanta.

There's no driver who is above mistakes.

I do a lot of sim racing and someone will invariably make a mistake spawning others to raise hell at them and call them names....then you tune into a real race on TV and see even worse moves by 'professionals'.

[RacingManiac]

Have you seen the last race at Talladega? They crashed on a restart as soon as they hit the start/finish line! There is no skill involved in that series, you just have to be on a good team to do well. No wonder they welcomed Danica with open arms, she's good at crashing

Yeah no skill required to keep a 3400lb car at 200mph on a car that is severely under tired, under braked, and under downforced......:rolleyes:

Any top tier racing, teams accounts for a lot more of the performance, but at the same token it also takes skills to stay with those teams...And when your lap time is compared with thousands of seconds, minor skill difference accounts for a lot....

You want "real" racing, you have to go to grassroot level when there are no sponsorship involved and people are doing it for the fun of it. Once you involve commercialism, it becomes entertainment, and bills have to be paid.

[Cobrafan427]

Yeah no skill required to keep a 3400lb car at 200mph on a car that is severely under tired, under braked, and under downforced......:rolleyes:



Is that why they can't keep off of each other? They made the biggest track on the sked look like Knockhill

[RacingManiac]

Is that why they can't keep off of each other? They made the biggest track on the sked look like Knockhill

Basically. If you think F1 and its current purposely fast wearing tire is bad, NASCAR has been doing it for decades....Everything in NASCAR's rule is to managed competition, to make it challenging and keeping things close.

[kingofthering]

Have you seen the last race at Talladega? They crashed on a restart as soon as they hit the start/finish line! There is no skill involved in that series, you just have to be on a good team to do well. No wonder they welcomed Danica with open arms, she's good at crashing

Well, when you have 40 cars chomping at the bit on the restart in close quarters, all it takes is a small nudge and somebody going sideways to make a huge mess.

To answer the original question, I would say yes, but only to Group N. It's the "closest" you can get to production based racing in rally but not the only production-based class. In America, for instance, there's still Speed World Challenge classes where they take mostly stock cars with rollcages and brake/tire upgrades and race them.

[Kitdy]

What racing series do you watch kotr?

[RacingManiac]

Well, when you have 40 cars chomping at the bit on the restart in close quarters, all it takes is a small nudge and somebody going sideways to make a huge mess.

To answer the original question, I would say yes, but only to Group N. It's the "closest" you can get to production based racing in rally but not the only production-based class. In America, for instance, there's still Speed World Challenge classes where they take mostly stock cars with rollcages and brake/tire upgrades and race them.

Or there are even more showroom stock class racing in SCCA.....

[kingofthering]

What racing series do you watch kotr?

Not as many as I used to since I dropped Speed from my cable bill. I've been sort of getting back into NASCAR and World Challenge (production-based touring cars) racing here and there. I follow Petter Solberg's WRC car through the season so there's a bit of that. Can't forget F1 too; I usually catch the Australiasia races because they end by 2 in the morning.