Comparing sports car racing to rallying is insane.
It's even more predictable, is class based to try and make it interesting, the races take hours and it is staggeringly full of rather poor gentleman drivers at the lower level. there is more than enough talent, but the guys funding the teams want to have their go to, and that turn me right off.
At least rallying is a base for pure talent to show itself on most occasions, yes some of the teams have pay drivers in their cars, but not at the expense of a good driver.
I have never understood the appeal of sports cars to anyone sane in motorsport!
And comparing it to rallying is really rather missing the point, as WEC is perhaps one of the dullest spectator sports known to motorsport, and tv really! The complete opposite to rallying which live is spectacular, diverse in terms of environment and you also get out into lovely parts of the world.
The issue is that rallying cant find itslef a decent place on telly, WEC will never be popular on telly becauzse it is boring, takes too long and noone knows half the drivers!
To drive it's awesome, but as a fan sport it ranks lower than most motorsports, but to be honest most fans of WEC are circuit racing fans who have never ventured to a bike enduro, stage rally, autograss, short oval, dragstrip, beach-race, rallycross in their lives in my experience. And if they had they would drop WEC like a stone!! lol, I did!
I really don't want to make this a "my series is better than yours" bash thread, despite your best attempts, but a few points to what you wrote.
WRC is class based too. You've got the top WRC, then WRC 2 which I only know about, since Kubica won the title last year, and several others that always seem to get a passing mention in Autosport. So to criticise sports car racing for being 'class' based is pretty ironic to say the least.
Likewise, your comment about funded drivers. There are far more funded drivers in WRC than manufacturers. And, I'd argue that the quality of WRC is pretty low right now as well. It seems that there's only really two guys who are capable of winning, being Ogier and Latvala. Like I said in the rallycross thread recently, who really is there beyond those two? That's what I find a shame. A few years ago WRC was full of quality, superstar drivers such as Burns, McRae, Makkinen, Sainz, Gronholm, Solberg etc. But who is there today?
Again, your comment about "no-one knowing half the drivers" in the WEC. Now that may be true, but I think the WRC has the same problem. I personally used to be a big WRC fan, but probably couldn't name more than three of the current drivers. Ogier, Latvala, Kubica...no idea who else is in it.
I actually agree with you that WEC, outside of Le Mans, will never gain a massive following on TV. Endurance racing isn't really designed for that, but then again, neither is the WRC. It's not that it 'can't find itself a decent place' it's that there's zero interest for any mainstream channels to show it. Again, it isn't built for TV. Who wants to watch a single car pass through every once in a while, racing only against the clock, with limited cameras and various other limitations that come with filming rallying? Very few people, and certainly not enough to warrant live TV coverage. Like endurance racing, it is better suited to the internet, or better still, a highlights package on TV.
Lastly, I wouldn't say comparing rallying to sports cars is 'insane'. They share similar values, or at least, used to. Both used to be about endurance, and the challenge it took to get the car to the finish, whether it be at Le Mans or any rally. Now, rallies are completed in what, 2 days? Call that a rally? Because I don't. Whatever happened to events like the Safari rally? Events that really used to test man and machine...now the drivers seem to be against longer events for reasons I don't entirely understand.
Uninspiring cars and rallies, and few good drivers is why my interest in WRC has dropped off. But at least rallycross these days is on the up again. Who knows, maybe it won't be too long before Ogier and co will move into rallycross instead. I'd definitely be interested to see how they performed if they did.
Edited by JHSingo, 09 June 2014 - 22:26.