The trend has been there for a few years now, but after Subaru’s and Suzuki’s retirements there remains no doubt that the WRC is really running low – despite quite a few private entries. Also on local and regional levels, rally competitors seems to be struggling. However, the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) seems to be healthy and growing since it was launched a few years ago. The entry list for the first rally of the series, Rallye Monte Carlo, is stuffed. Why? Maybe those are not the perfect – or all – the answers, but a few ones:
Economics
Economics is the big thing that makes IRC successful. Super 2000, which is a specification and regulation made by the FIA that covers both racing and rally cars, has been coming up for a while. Technical restrictions on the cars make the a lot cheaper than the extremely advanced WRC-cars that are used today. Cars based on the S2000 spec – however with some modifications – will be main class in WRC from 2010, but that wasn’t decided by the FIA until 12/12/2008. That has, until now, made IRC a cheaper championship to compete in for drivers and manufacturers not willing or able to spend the amounts needed for a season in the WRC.
Geography
IRC has – and have had – an interesting geographical spread regarding the rally locations combining classical venues with new ones. For example the China Rally has been part of the championship, which is important to car manufacturers as China is a huge and growing market – and for 2009 Brazil is new to the calendar. A good sign, since the South American rally interest is really high, proved during the years in the WRC round of Argentina.
Media
With Eurosport as partner and official network IRC have a good – not to say excellent – media coverage. Eurosport is actively working on televising the championship, and for the upcoming Monte Carlo Rally they have announced 6 hours of live coverage – while North One Television have been saving money on the WRC coverage. Helicopter images was removed on the WRC rounds a few years ago, even though it seems to be slowly coming back. In the IRC, Eurosport is continually improving the coverage and uses spectacular helicopter images, live feeds (from Monte) as well as providing their channels live on the Internet etc. We all know that TV time is almost everything to a sport like rally, so here we go: all championships needs a good promotor channel.
The challenge for the championship now should be to get better coverage in regions not covered by Eurosport. Attracting channels (and getting Eurosport to accept them) in North and South America as well as Asia should be high on the promoters list.
Well, this was just a few points, but for sure I will return to the subject… Until then, I’d be happy if you wanted to add your own points and perspectives in the comments!
