Jalopnik: How A $500 Craigslist Car Beat $400K Rally Racers

Do it like LeMons, tires, brakes, safety equipment is exempt. It's one way to have fun, cheap, safe rallying. Race series are always trying to reduce speeds anymore do to the danger.

The difficulty is then in finding good stages within the US. Logging roads are a good start - but they're usually either unmaintained (during growth cycles) or busy as hell (during harvest cycles).

Fire roads are another possibility, but they tend to be on public land where officials would likely not give permission (for any sane amount of money).

Desert stages would be easy because plenty of it is owned by private organizations and people - but that's geographically limited.
 
Misleading article is misleading. They raced in a support event, not the WRC. Specifically, the Rally America G2 class (which was run under the Open class of Rally America Mexico who actually sanctioned the specific event... confusing, I know).

It's like saying that since you raced in an IMSA Lites or Star Mazda event supporting the 12 hours of Sebring, you were racing against the multi-million dollar Peugots. You were not.

I guarantee you all of the real WRC cars creamed them in every stage.

Do you see Bill Caswell anywhere on this list?

No.

That's because he was not competing in WRC.

Here's his official results sheet. His total event time was 5:29:38.4 after penalties.

Here are the official WRC results. As you can see, he would have placed 24th out of 26 drivers (25 actual WRC drivers raced the event).

He would have only beaten the WRC cars that crashed. The rest would have beaten him by more than 25 minutes.
 
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Independent series. Like LeMons. Fuck sanctions - that increases the entry barrier to a height beyond most.

Do it like LeMons, tires, brakes, safety equipment is exempt. It's one way to have fun, cheap, safe rallying. Race series are always trying to reduce speeds anymore do to the danger.

Right on, where do I sign up? :D
 
One of the coolest things I've ever read.
 
Misleading article is misleading. They raced in a support event, not the WRC. Specifically, the Rally America G2 class (which was run under the Open class of Rally America Mexico who actually sanctioned the specific event... confusing, I know).

It's like saying that since you raced in an IMSA Lites or Star Mazda event supporting the 12 hours of Sebring, you were racing against the multi-million dollar Peugots. You were not.

I guarantee you all of the real WRC cars creamed them in every stage.

Do you see Bill Caswell anywhere on this list?

No.

That's because he was not competing in WRC.

Here's his official results sheet. His total event time was 5:29:38.4 after penalties.

Here are the official WRC results. As you can see, he would have placed 24th out of 26 drivers (25 actual WRC drivers raced the event).

He would have only beaten the WRC cars that crashed. The rest would have beaten him by more than 25 minutes.



A bit misleading, maybe, but I read the article and it never claimed he was racing in the actual WRC. At least one of the cars in his class was ex-WRC, too.
 
Misleading article is misleading. They raced in a support event, not the WRC. Specifically, the Rally America G2 class (which was run under the Open class of Rally America Mexico who actually sanctioned the specific event... confusing, I know).

blah blah

Are you a bit jealous? ;) I don't know what the difference to a "supporting event" is, but as i understood the article, he raced in a different class than the WRC cars - something like Group N i figured - he never claimed to race in Group A.
 
Realistically, Rally America is about as entry level as you're going to get. Sure, you've got guys like Block and Pastrana with big budgets, but you get a fair number of guys working out of their home garage with inexpensive cars and minimal spares/equipment with them at the rally.

Trying to get permission to close roads to hold a rally on would be very difficult without the backing of some form of motorsports organization and insurance would be a nightmare.
 
Realistically, Rally America is about as entry level as you're going to get. Sure, you've got guys like Block and Pastrana with big budgets, but you get a fair number of guys working out of their home garage with inexpensive cars and minimal spares/equipment with them at the rally.

Trying to get permission to close roads to hold a rally on would be very difficult without the backing of some form of motorsports organization and insurance would be a nightmare.

a while ago we adressed our major at a town happening if it would be possible to organise a rally again (there have been until 20ish years ago). if we provided him with a courselayout and a safety plan, everything is possible he said :D

PS: i should also mention our major's nickname is "the sheriff", never shy for a bold remark :)
 
Are you a bit jealous? ;) I don't know what the difference to a "supporting event" is, but as i understood the article, he raced in a different class than the WRC cars - something like Group N i figured - he never claimed to race in Group A.

No, I'm not. Different class, yes, but also a completely different sanctioning body.

Stories like this happen every single weekend in series ranging from MX-5 Cup to Star Mazda/Atlantics (just without the "built it in my garage" bit). IMSA or Grand Am may do an enduro race (ALMS or Rolex), then before the main race they'll let the "lower series" have a go, like Mustang Challenge or F2000 or even a Skip Barber weekend in a few cases. That's a support event. For instance, my racing school did a support race at the IndyCar race in Sonoma. It was IndyCar, Indy Lights, Historic F1 and the school's F3 cars. Every weekend the karting series I competed in last year supported SKUSA ProKart Challenge North, and they had a lot of big names racing in there (couple IndyCar drivers, couple prototype drivers, etc). Michael Schumacher has competed in SKUSA.

Like Sonza said, Rally America is pretty ghetto for the most part. It's not that far removed from SCCA rallycross, just a step or two upwards. This article only illustrates how tight knit the racing community is.
 
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Saw this posted on bimmerforums while back, truly great. Its ashame we dont see rear wheel drive in rally anymore...and this just proves what racing is about, driving fast, working on cars, competing with others but mainly yourself, and the most important thing is to have fun. In almost every sport, participating is like having a job, somewhere along the way we lose the pure joy of having fun, and focus too much on what the task is, not the meaning of it.

One of the best racing stories I have seen in a long while, blasting music mending a 500$ E30 with as little as paper and duct tape, and just driving. Who wouldnt want to be in his shoes? this is what borned the beloved past time alot of us are passionate about, a couple of blokes enjoying the thrill of driving.
 
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