What is the Most Challenging Motorsport?

Too Fast To Race is a pretty awesome Group B doc. i hear the sequel Still Too Fast To Race is good as well. Also Subaru did a sort of miniseries/doc about their world rally effort "Engineering the World Rally" which i have but have not yet watched though it is also supposedly very very good.

Someone should make a sticky thread in Video Requests/Offers that is a big huge list of everything car related on TV.
 
The_Finn said:
Too Fast To Race is a pretty awesome Group B doc. i hear the sequel Still Too Fast To Race is good as well. Also Subaru did a sort of miniseries/doc about their world rally effort "Engineering the World Rally" which i have but have not yet watched though it is also supposedly very very good.
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Ah yeah I forgot about that one. Haven't watched it in a long time. I'll have to check out the sequel.

The_Finn said:
Someone should make a sticky thread in Video Requests/Offers that is a big huge list of everything car related on TV.
Click to expand...

That would be sweet.
 
GT VIRUS said:
In terms of overall challenge, i'll say Rally raid motorbikes. However, in terms of most skill needed, i'm going to stick my neck out and say Drifting. Being able to control a slide that well and get close to another sliding opponent. I hate the bastards, but they do have skill
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I would classify drifting as a form of stunt driving not a real motorsport. I also feel like any experienced racing driver can easily drift very well because all drifting is, is a demonstration of car control. Take Ben Collins for example, he's a decent racing driver that is a great drifter as shown by this clip from one of Clarkson's movie specials. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdXkgFzhr5A

Also take Fifth Gear for example. Both Tiff and Jason are racing drivers and are excellent at drifting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Wi7gdRx2Y
 
The_Finn said:
Too Fast To Race is a pretty awesome Group B doc. i hear the sequel Still Too Fast To Race is good as well. Also Subaru did a sort of miniseries/doc about their world rally effort "Engineering the World Rally" which i have but have not yet watched though it is also supposedly very very good.

Someone should make a sticky thread in Video Requests/Offers that is a big huge list of everything car related on TV.
Click to expand...

I've got both the "too fast to race" videos, and they're fantastic.

With regards to the original topic, I'd say rally. Nothing says nutter quiet like 150km/hr+ with trees about a foot away from each side of the car, especially when we're talking about the Group B monsters. Modern cars are faster, but the old monsters would chew you up the instant you didn't concentrate.
 
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It's not that I don't agree with all you rally supporters about WRC being the most challenging motorsport, but there have been some missed considerations in the challenges of other forms of motorsport. For one, rally drivers don't "drive in the dark," they do have partners giving them directions constantly. even though it is very challenging to race on dirt and gravel on narrow pathways, their cars are specifically tailored to the sport and have traction control aids in place to help the driver out considerably. there are also no worries about evading or passing opponents in WRC, nor do drivers ever have to deal with controlling a 700-900hp monster in the wet with racing slicks on as the latter situation is rather common in F1 & Le Mans GP class.
 
But rally stages do get surprise rain when they're out on slicks, tyre choice errors happen ALL THE TIME! And 300hp/700Nm of torque on a 10 foot wide road lined with trees is immeasurably more frightening in widly varying levels of wet than a race track ever could be!

Also, rally drivers never used to have drivetrain electronics, it came in for a few years, but now it's being kicked out again for a mechanical setup. They had electronic diffs, but i doubt they ever had traction control per se. F1 on the other hand... Also, i'd go out on a limb and say that their cars were more specifically tailored to the sport than WRC cars. You hardly see rear doors on F1 or lemans cars...

They may not have to worry about passing opponents, but that's hardly scary in racing anyway, and a statistically insignificant event in F1. In rally you have to drive blind from the notes (which aren't pinpoint precise and the surface may have changed since!) when the opponent in front of you is kicking up a 3km long, inpenetrable dust cloud!

WRC > Allcomers

 
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Oh, no love for autocross? j/k :)

Although you do need to be pretty talented at a National level, but rally and F1 are miles ahead.
 
The Dakar rallies, before the advent of GPS.
It's an enduro and a rally together, and you get a map instead of pace notes.
 
they did run rallying at nights.. not anymore though. But some fia spokesman (todt?) said that it should make a comeback.
 
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