THE TYRE QUESTION
author: Leon Botha
A number of people have been throwing ideas around concerning how many tyres should be used on National Championship rallies - with money saving as the main objective?
After listening to some arguments and reading all I could ON the matter one thing is certain - everybody will not be happy in the end.
Some are happy with 12, others feel that they should have only 16 and then you get the 20 tyre per rally requests.
With rally distance being around 160km these days it means that you only need to cover around 30kms per set if you are allowed 20 tyres - on the presumption that you get at least 5 service opportunities?
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You want them frozen or medium rare?
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When I read all about the merry happenings on Rally Sweden this weekend - one thing became very clear… but before you pop an eye - don't even think I am trying to impose anything except maybe the start and finish controls, the sponsorships and the nice girls they have walking around half naked in the snow, on our setup.
I am not, and I believe we are incredibly stupid to even try and keep up with the overseas Jones' given the fact that we pay more than most for the "honour" to drive grand S2000 cars, while our sponsorship amounts are typical South African!
The next presumption you must also not make, is that I am suggesting that we take away any possible edge from the rally excitement?
No Sirree, I would like to see 30 Ken Blocks making a mess of anything and everything - smoking tyres and handing out 47 800 signatures, selling so many T-shirts and G-strings that we make a R1m profit per rally! I would like to see schools close - they don’t seem to be doing anything anyway - hospital staff come and Toy-Toy at the start of events, black Range Rovers and bullet proof BMW X5's leading the way up to the first stage, and that other fecker who sang our multi-language National Anthem in France being towed down the street behind a service van on a mechanical trolley until he gets it right!
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FxPro - Official new sponsor added to WRC until 2012
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All you must believe is that we need to bring the costs down to enable more than only us to participate in the sport!
Yes - I am crazy enough to suggest that we keep the budgets the same - but that the money should be made (read "forced") to go further!
If you - the manufacturers or anyone involved in the sport do not intend keeping the budgets in place and stretch the publicity mileage and value of every Rand - you may as well take 72 tyres per car, a 102 octane tanker and a Homo-Como Bus and you three can go enjoy the events!
I truly do not believe that any saving measure currently is taken with the right end-result in mind!
Most attempts to cut costs are made to increase profit in cases where the departments have been outsourced or where better sponsorships in private teams are involved. This is obviously the right way to conduct a business, but in these cases the manufacturer should have the right add-on budget to grow the sport down the pecking order.
In case of direct company and sponsor related budgets - all is about being in less trouble at reckoning time! All they try to do is to stay as close to the budget as possible.
I get the same horrible feeling of our audacious conduct when I drive past informal settlement shacks, as I get when I drive through the service parks at rallies - and please, again I am not a moron who thinks that you can give a show or defend your good name and reputation with anything less than the very best. Still when I look at the difference between the top and the bottom end of the money ladder - it is actually heart breaking.
What worries me more than anything else is the fact that we can have 20 more, cheaper cars and teams around if they could share in what we (try to) save?
I know we need to look mdern and rich on TV to get the sponsors in (have we in the past?) but I would rather look a bit battered than not at all!
Then on the other hand given the money - we will probably stop the lorry filled with the extra competitors where many other potentially good competitors have been stopped - right there at the FIA Top-hat scrutineering where poor John Doe has to compete with Rasputin and the Merry Money.
I would honestly like to hear from any of you claim that you sat down with a budget (which in many cases respectfully is big enough to cover everything and more) and then say: "I have to run two or three cars. We need to win the championship and my drivers should be able to do so on Rx if they are worthwhile, or maybe I should look a bit further than what I have got? I can cut down on this, slice away some of that and with what I have left over I am going to assist the following privateers!"
If the late Bernie Mariner were still around to defend himself I would have written here what I heard him say one day about privateers - an attitude that today still seems to stand with the so-called works teams? The privateer - their customer and the bloke who actually generates the money for their budget - is merely seen as "a necessary evil and please make him go away?"
But as I said dear old Bernie is not here to defend himself, although some of his previously privileged hangers on might even now pop up to defend him?
Anyway here and there but far between, you will find someone who controls a purse string who will do something for privateers. In this case whether they are doing it right or not - Volkswagen deserves to be singled out - I love their A5 program that showed so much vision although it stopped short of what could have been done with it.
I can understand the attitude against privateers as some of them are true pedigreed pain in the backsides. They do waste time and are not willing to pay for anything while they also believe the world owes them for not having any talent in many cases - but, I have always said that with the right budget and if I knew I would get the same equipment as some on the other side of the coin are using, I will show you a good run for your money, without using any of the current top 10 drivers!
I have often wondered what would have happened if we came out of the cupboard and humbly declared that we are all real supporters of the sport and that we will all work together for a week?
You know what?
I have never been in a better position to really look at the sport than what I am currently in. I talk to every one who is anything in the sport (Ok so if you smugly think that I have not spoken to you - you may not be as important as you thought) and I hear almost every story first. This may not seem so, as I am sometimes out-scooped on things that are supposed to be confidential on the website - but anyway I have been privileged to be trusted with a load of information and developments.
I have further been in a wonderful position to learn more about people than I could (or was interested to) while competing where I was apparently not an easy person to get along with?
My opinion about almost everyone except maybe two or three have changed over the past few years and I do believe many persons now also start to see the light that I truly have the sport at heart?
I have jumped out of the closet a number of times and truly tried to tell all that we have a great sport and that we are in control of the closest thing to real entertainment in South Africa and now, at last, it seems that some of you are starting to blink an eye and show signs of believe or is it life?
The making of the Route Notes, the RallyStar SMS service, Rallystar Motorsport Academy and then also this very popular website brought me closer to the sport than I ever was.
That is then also the reason why I get so frustrated when there is absolutely no movement due to certain people trying to cling to the past.
The most frustrating however is that we still don't do what we should have done a long time ago and that is to organise a serious meeting of competitors who arrive prepared to voice their opinions and then plan the future of the sport in South Africa (please note: all that counts is South Africa and maybe directly around us!)
We have never unitedly voiced our opinion - we have never openly told the "world" (again only where it counts) what we wanted, what bothered us, and where we wanted to go with the sport. This fact make me think that you are not really serious about anything else than YOU enjoying the sport. That short-sighted "I am OK!" approach?
The RallyStar Open Day on the 6th February did prove that the hearts of many lay in the right place and that we have what it takes, all we need to do it to put all in place and work out a definite plan - together.
What we need to get rid off are those who can not ever come out and voice their grievances in the open.
I am so tired of the "did you hear what so and such (normally a never-was) have said?" Come out in the open and say your say even if you never meant more than being a handicap to the sport! Maybe someone and even maybe all of us will agree with you? Now that will be the pinnacle of your miserable existence won't it?
The tyre issue: The easiest way to control this is to leave the choice with those concerned.
1. You can have 3 service points - with two extra refuel but "no-service" points - and 20 tyres or
2. you can have 4 service points and 16 tyres!
8 wets included in both deals in case it is declared a wet-rally? Maybe we should allow cutting of tyres when a rally is declared "wet"?
If you run into tyre problems - I suggested a 30s per tyre penalty if you use extra tyres with permission of the scrutineer or CoC and exclusion if you did not have permission to drive on an undeclared tyre.
I still have strong feelings for a monetary clamp (currently it should be R24 000) on tyre expenses and that is that.
If you want to carry 50 Pingzongs at R480 each or 16 Pirelli's the choice is yours!
What became clear looking at Rally Sweden this weekend is that tyres are part of the strategy and the competitors had to plan their attacks very carefully - if they spoiled their tyres they had to run on ice without studs!
Yesterday (Saturday 13th Feb) it seems if Hirvonen for once out-manoeuvred Loeb? Locally we seem to think we can simply drive at maximum and have all fitted new and repaired between every stage?
To sum up I believe that we should introduce a system where a manufacturer can score bonus points for assistance to privateers? A system that may work out a hell of a lot cheaper than running just two or three cars now cost?
Privateers should score additional points for manufacturers if they are supported to a certain extend, while none of their points may be used where drivers have no or little support from the manufacturer? The option should be placed in the hands of the privateer who should be allowed to enter as manufacturer supported or not.
Then further if we all contribute a certain amount of money to generate publicity per year we can get four times the value we now get and I am not talking R100k each - I am talking R5k to R10k per year extra - added to that we can get a minimum of R200k from Volkswagen and Toyota out of the savings on five cars using four tyres each less per event!
OK - where are the so-called savings then if they have to spend it on PR?
The right “PR” or agent will get you at least 4-times that money's worth in additional publicity and that in its own will probably make the pencil pushers acknowledge the added value - plus the privateers will at least be able to refer to some publicity worth something when they look for sponsors?
People may then stop thinking of "old Sarel" or "O ja, ou Hannes - he took me for a spin!" or goodness forbid still refer to Habig in the Skyline and yours truly in "that red Golf"!
Something must have been right then? But lets agree to stay away from the past.
Our task is to determine exactly what we need to do NOW to create a new breed hero - to build characters and most of all - GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT!
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Age of the car does not affect the show - if it is made to do the right things!
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Do yourself a favour Mr Important and come have a look at what happens at the Rallysprints on arguably the best Xtreme Super Special in the world!
You may find the answer right under your nose.
This is a place where you can actually develop future drivers and also add more customer-value to your product than even you thought possible.
More tyres - less tyres - longer rallies, shorter rallies - do not matter as long as you play the game where your customer and future customer can see and enjoy it!
You don’t even have to budget as long as you can prove that you get excellent value for every cent you spent!
What do I need to say or do to make you all realise that we are at the start of a new era of entertainment - an era where we will be able to build rallying to one of the best sponsorship investments ever?
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