The World Rally Championship comes back to Wales tomorrow - but you'd be excused for missing it - where is all the TV coverage of what used to be a really big event?
For us in the UK, there will be, as has been for the rest of the Season, a fairly decent highlights/summary show on Dave after the event. But, if you want to catch more up-to-date (including some live) coverage, you'll need to tune in to the Welsh-language broadcaster S4/C. This is OK if you've got the right satellite or cable package, but for those of us without the urge to pay for such services, you need to be lucky enough to live in Wales or, like me, near enough to the border to pick up this channel.
Is rallying now so unpopular in Britain that none of the major broadcasters have any real interest? Has it really gone the same way as Showjumping and Rallying's sister sport Rallycross? I remember well as a child every Christmas watching "The Horse of the Year Show" on BBC1 from Olympia with Harvey Smith and David Broome and Alvin Schockemohle all trying to jump over "The Wall". I also remember Rallycross on a Saturday afternoon on Grandstand with lots of Minis, Escorts and Porsche 911s with plastic windscreens with little holes cut in them so that the drivers could still see when they were covered with mud. Rallycross still happens, check out their
website - it just doesn't get the exposure.
The WRC has just about everything the other branches of motorsport has including
pretty girls and a dominant champion in Sébastien Loeb. In fact, Sébastien's achievements are pretty remarkable - he has already claimed the WRC Driver's Championship this year and this is something he's now achieved for the
seventh consecutive season. Incidentally, here's a quiz question based on a fact I learnt today: What has Sébastien Loeb got in common with Gabby Logan? Answer:They both used to be gymnasts. Maybe he should trail a pretty ribbon from his car? Then again, maybe not.
What the WRC doesn't have, though, is a Bernie Ecclestone/Alan Gow character in charge - I don't even know who is in charge of the WRC. Everyone knows who Bernie is - and what he continues to achieve as a grumpy 107 year-old (I may have his age slighty wrong there) is amazing. A younger, more Australian version of Bernie is Alan Gow who has
just signed a new contract to keep him in place for three more years. Alan has steered the BTCC through difficult times and continues to see it thrive - including TV deals with ITV4 and introducing new rules to make it cheaper to compete.
Which brings us back, yet again, to Rallying. Whoever is in charge has done similar things to the car specifications/regulations and already attracted a third manufacturer in Mini (Sorry that should be
MINI!) which will make a nice change from the leader-boards always reading Citroën, Citroën, Citroën, Ford, Ford, Citroën after each race. Now we need to sort out some TV deals - in the UK at least. Some big foreign stations already seem to be on board: TF1 in France, RTL in Germany, Network Ten in Oz.
So where are BBC Sport and ITV4? Channel 4 and five both did excellent work with cricket coverage in the past - let's have some mainstream channel showing live Rallying please.
The story is covered by BBC News here so I'll not go into too much detail. Suffice it to say that Mark Webber clipping the barrier with his offside-right-rear wheel and causing a significant spark was not planned but it probably led to him being concerned enough about his tyres and wheel to pit earlier than planned.
