Robin Hood Rally, not Rally, not safe

AbingtonRally wrote: In reply to JFX001: Hi JFX001, It is true that assistance was offered and the RHR organizers did not take advantage of it. Furthermore, the first two rounds of RHR were in Berlin NH and Tuxedo, NY. Berlin NH hosts several stages of the New England Forest Rally, and Tuxedo NY is near to Rally New York. It can't be coincidence that RHR chose those locations. Shutting down RHR might be an option, but the libertarian in me also doesn't think that is the best option. The best option is to distance real rallies, rallies that endeavor to be as safe as possible and retain the good will of the community, from gimmick events like RHR. RHR is a made for TV event that is as close to Rally as any "reality TV" program is to actual reality.

Dan,

Thanks for filling in the gaps, I appreciate it.

I agree that safety should be first and foremost.

My take on it is that the issue is a turf war. Realistically speaking, would the Old School/Landed Gentry be so vehemently opposed if the RHR were held in CA/NV/AZ/FL....instead of their own back yard?

Just give the people the option to choose.I don't think that the Rally guys are going to lose many to the flash of RHR. And, people who watch RHR on Versus might want to join the local SCCA and learn/participate.RHR is new, it has TV exposure,fast cars, good looking women... good PR thus far and a good cast and crew (judging by the online bio's).Maybe next year they will be in a better position to accept help when offered.

By the way, I'm very much Old School.

StevenFV19 wrote: This looks like a rally to me. I don't see how it hurts the name of Rallying when someone crashes. It is a high speed motorsports event, crashes happen. Steven

Yes, crashes happen. But the area where the crash happened was very poorly designed. There NEVER should have been people that close to that location. Period. It's not the fact that a crash happened, it's the circumstance around it (and others).

Hockey got a bad rap a while back because a player died in the new KHL, a Russian league that is already notorious in its young age for its disregard for safety. Players with neck injuries just picked up and hauled off the ice without a neck brace or stretcher. Ambulance drivers that are absent when someone needs to go the hospital. All people see is that it was hockey. Never mind that the NHL takes much more precaution; it's all one and the same to those outside the sport. There's risk, but then there's unneccessary risk.

I wish a higher-quality video was available for closer examination of a few of the people responding to the accident, specifically the blond in the denim shorts.

When were the elections for emperor of the Rally World? Or did someone decide to nominate themselves?

Z06SRT8 wrote: When were the elections for emperor of the Rally World? Or did someone decide to nominate themselves?

Thank you for saying it a lot nicer than I would have.

Abington, mind your own business, and leave the stupid reality show alone. It's people l;ike YOU that are ruining motorsport.

I dunno, growing up I kinda liked having just one world champion in everything - Rallying, Formula One, etc. Having sanctioned racing/rallying with recognized rules, and an emphasis on safety, not money and entertainment is kinda what these guys don't seem to be about. Criticizing them doesn't make someone anti-motorsport, and certainly in no way like the harridan from the other post.

If we wanna go the way of boxing well then bring these guys on.

racinginc215 wrote: I don't have a dog in this fight but it seems to me that any event can have something go wrong. I've been racing since 16 and I've been cut out of two drag cars. I never once thought to boycott the sponsors or the track because I had a tire let go. It's racing accidents happen lawsuits are filed people get paid and everyone moves on and figures out a better way for the next race. What I really want to know is this if this thing is so disorganized how the hell did they Pull of a Ferrari F430 A Porsche 911 Turbo and a Vette Z51 Convert as the 3 top prizes? The whole thing reminds me of crying cheerleaders. sound like abington rally is a competitor to this and they can't make the grid.

Sorry, but you're wrong on all counts. BTW, show us these cars, or real pictures of them (the prizes). They don't seem to exist. Read my post a couple of posts ago again, or for the first time if you didn't read it.

AbingtonRally wrote: In reply to slantvaliant: Your point is well made, under a broad definition it could be considered rally, but when any more than generalizations about the sport are used, the comparison falls apart. It kind of ends up like Potter Stewart's description of pornography, "I know it when I see it."

Lighten up, Francis.

Rally HAS a broad definition. Broad enough to include families in minivans doing a gimmick rally and the Russian truck teams at Dakar.

I know a rally when I see it. This, sloppily or poorly or unsafely done as it may be, is a rally.

As long as everyone in, on , or around this thing knows the risks and has signed appropriate paperwork stating that they know they might die and it's no one's fault but their own, then I wouldn't care if they threw freakin' hand grenades out the windows as they raced. I'll be watching from a very far distance.

In other words, let idiots be idiots. As long as no one is hurting innocent bystanders, let them be as dangerous as they want. Oh, and if your standing on the edge of a road where amateurs are driving race cars, you're not an innocent bystander.

There are very good reasons to be wary of this event. It is absolutely true that accidents happen in even the safest, most well organized events. However, the likelihood of an accident is exponentially greater at an unsafe, poorly organized event and the chances are much greater that when the accidents happen at this unsafe event they will be significantly worse than a well organized event with trained racing safety stewards and emergency response crews. The fact that this event is held on public roads under the guise of a rally and the organizers appear determined to have someone, or possibly many someones, killed is absolutely detrimental to every form of motorsport in this country.

the only thing I ever really remember jeopardizing rallies in Ireland was not repairing road damage on gravel rallies, but then I only ever marshalled one gravel rally - never liked it, I was kind of a tarmac snob. plus gravels too hard on the bodyshell, and buggered if i'm gonna get showered in the stuff as the cars go by.
heck, even Kalle Grundels flipping a boy into airspace in his RS200 didn't have too negative a result on the Ulster - kid shouldn't have been there, but it did take a decade to dismiss the lawsuit.

If the drivers don't have a problem and the spectators don't have a problem, I certainly don't. So far, everyone seems to be fine with it except the "real" racers. These guys are trying to get motorsports in to prime time. Their going to have a multi-part series on prime time TV. That's better than the WRC or any other "real" sanctioning body has ever done in the US. I say go for it guys and good luck. Hope you make a bundle and do it again.

If you don't like what they are doing, don't watch their TV show or buy anything from their sponsors. Hell, stand at their courses with big nasty signs calling them idiots. Getting them to take Rally out of their name...good luck with that.

JFX001 wrote: My take on it is that the issue is a turf war.

It is, but not quite in the manner you propose.

As someone put it in an exchange on SS.com:

"If it helps you, 99.9% of americans dont even know enough about rally to associate that dumb show with it." "But it's people in that .1 % that give us permission to use their roads."

The issue at hand is that if this show colors peoples' impression of what rally is, then insurance and road permissions will be far more difficult to get.

It appears from the outside that being unsafe is the goal of the event, because wild crashes and mayhem generate good TV. Remember, it's not about the motorsports, it's a reality TV show that happens to involve cars.

It doesn't help that in some cases the show is using locations used by actual stage rallies. That is bad publicity for stage rally.

What if the TV show was called the 2010 Challenge?

This thread is hilarious. Virtually no one in it has any understanding of what a death in this event could do to rallying in the USA (maybe even North America). Its already incredibley hard to obtain and keep permits for roads to be used for rallying to begin with, let alone when somebody dies from a "rallying" incident. While it was before my time, a couple of deaths in the USA had a significant affect on SCCA rallying in the late 90's/early millenium.

The point is, the organizers appear to be a bunch of shiny happy people who shunned help from the greater rallying community to put on an event that is not only dangerous to its participants, but damaging to rallying as a whole.

You should ask the one sponsor (a transport company) about how RHR will NOT take his branding/company name off of promotional materials until he pays them $10k because he no longer wants to be associated with them.

In reply to HiTempguy:

Yes- Imagine what could happen to Rally in this country? Oh wait- isn't that practically NON-EXISTENT? The "Rally Community" is in this case a few know-it-alls who have decided that if they weren't consulted on all things with the word "RALLY" in them, they would conduct thier own compaign to inform the world of the horrible things that they are forcing people to do. Oh wait....didnt all the participants pay a $5k entry fee? I guess no one twisted thier arms anyway.

Z06SRT8 wrote: In reply to HiTempguy: Yes- Imagine what could happen to Rally in this country? Oh wait- isn't that practically NON-EXISTENT? The "Rally Community" is in this case a few know-it-alls who have decided that if they weren't consulted on all things with the word "RALLY" in them, they would conduct thier own compaign to inform the world of the horrible things that they are forcing people to do. Oh wait....didnt all the participants pay a $5k entry fee? I guess no one twisted thier arms anyway.

I can not even be bothered arguing with a troll like you. There is proof positive of consequences when deaths happen in "rallying" of any form, and it nearly KILLED rallying in the US a decade ago. If the event was better organized, and the organizers themselves didn't act like douche-nozzles maybe things would go better:

The Pennsylvania rally is out. PA told the organizer there is no way the rally is allowed in their state. Organizer has still not paid crew, cameramen, hosts and other workers for the rally. If you google his name, more and more info is popping up daily.

Oh, whats that? It won't be on TV? Surprise! So a lot of risk was put out there for ZERO gain, and the next time any of these people are approached about having anything to do with rallying, what do you think will happen? Door hit ass on the way out. This is called deductive reasoning, which is essentially figuring E36 M3 the berkeley out. You should try it sometime!

HiTempguy wrote: I can not even be bothered arguing with a troll like you. There is proof positive of consequences when deaths happen in "rallying" of any form, and it nearly KILLED rallying in the US a decade ago. If the event was better organized, and the organizers themselves didn't act like douche-nozzles maybe things would go better:

Remember the incident with the off-road desert racer who landed in a crowd of people?

It looks like there won't be anymore California rallies on government lands. They're lumping any kind of non-circuit racing into the same pigeonhole, never mind that NASA, R-A, and CRS all have much more stringent rules for spectators. And that stage rallies run on actual roads.

But don't worry about that, it's just some people getting their knickers in a twist over a "turf war"...

Now, I'm not trying to stir anything up... oh wait a minute, yes I am.

You want proof this was a E36 M3-show in the making?

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100917/NEWS/9170355

http://www.stephancondodemetraky.com/

http://www.specialstage.com/forums/showthread.php?p=367354#post367354

I mean, I'd say "surprise surprise" but I truly am not surprised. Sounded like a scam from the beginning to the end. Also, those cease and desist orders? They don't mean anything. In fact, unless it is notarized by a lawyer (who these guys probably can't even afford), I do believe it means dick berkeley all. This sort of thing boils my blood, hopefully the fallout to anyone besides Autosports International, Inc. is minimal.

cones Reader The problem and fear is that the public perception of this event is the same as it would be of any safe SCCA, FIA, etc. Rally. To the public, closing off streets and racing car's on it is the same no mater who is running it. Accidents and incidents like these will force cities/areas that were maybe willing to allow these events to run to not, when 10 crazy people get a federal ban on road races "for the kids".

Absolutely and thank you for posting!!

I think all the 'live and let live' people in this thread are being incredibly naive about the way things really work in America. Us, the drivers, the organizers, the fans, etc AS ENTHUSIASTS are NOT the issue here!! The issue is all of those OUTSIDE the enthusiast community, some of whom literally make their names by blowing smoke up the public ass in the name of WHATEVER will get them the most play with john q public.

Seriously folks, dont you understand that motorsport in general is ever-more under siege by government action (at all levels) to smite the few for the favor of the many?

I agree totally with what the OP has said and is trying to say. When it comes to motorsports PR, noone is going to do it for us. When the reputation of motorsport is threatened (or will be, or could be) we should all take up the mantle. And, as a practical matter, we CANNOT make it our PR strategy to discredit or simply dismiss each and every of the million loonies out there who could potentially see some personal benefit from painting us as a target. Instead, what we have to do is limit our exposure to risk and try to keep a pretty face on everything we do.

So, even if it seems like a kind of betrayal, there will always be times when we have to go after the enthusiasts who are exposing us to risk, rather than the non-enthusiasts who just want their leg or their pelvis or their son back.. EVEN IF they signed a waiver, EVEN IF it is their own damn fault, and EVEN IF we all recognize their positions as completely nonsensical. This is just the way it is.

Perhaps one of our resident Esquires will explain it, but it is my non-lawyer understanding that one can not sign away their "right" to sue. So, any waivers you sign at any event are completely meaningless, except that they try to convince you that you gave up your right to sue (even if you didn't). It's all lawyer-speak, so it's all a lie (you can tell because their lips or printers are moving.)

Once wasn't enough. The idiots are trying to get this rolling again.

http://www.robinhoodrally.com/productcart/pc/home.asp

modernbeat wrote: Once wasn't enough. The idiots are trying to get this rolling again. http://www.robinhoodrally.com/productcart/pc/home.asp

Interesting to note that they have moved to a completely different part of the country. Maybe they think that the people in NC haven't heard of their previous debacle.

they need to be shut down....