In the U.S., it's possible to experience the joys and terrors of road racing on the cheap with Lemons and ChumpCar. I've done both and have loved it. 
I have some interest in rally. But, since being bitten by the wheel to wheel racing bug, racing against a stopwatch seems frankly... pretty damn dull.
Top Gear UK did a piece years ago about grassroots rallycross in the UK. It was actually w2w racing! I'd be very excited about this kind of thing. Youtube - TopGear Rally on a budget
What's the LemonyChump of rally in the U.S.? Why don't I know about it? Is it stealth? Or am I just spending too much time with my road race buddies?
Lof8
Reader
10/25/13 2:20 p.m.
I LOVED the looks of that rally event on TopGear. To my knowledge, we don't have anything like that here. The "Back 40" and X-games are both out of most of our' range.
stage rally or euro rallycross?
for stage the closest that you'll come in NASA rallysprint in a box, or the Latin American rally group that runs at Summit Point. Their course is about a 3 mile loop reaching 70+ mph with hairpins. Cages are required.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Latinamerican-Rally-Racing-USA/207385835940630
For Euro rallycross, This starts tomorrow
http://www.americanrally-cross.com/
Nashco
UberDork
10/25/13 2:52 p.m.
A local guy that was involved in ChumpCar tried to start this up, but never got it running enough to have an event:
http://www.dirtcheaprally.com
Bryce
The problem with rally is that it requires a lot of space compared to most track events, and can only have a limited number of cars since they can't be all together....so if you have 100 cars you are starting them majorly spaced out and then you have a really long event. Plus rally takes a lot more course workers and support people (who are usually volunteers) than many track events do - especially if you get a bunch of amateurs out there in cheap cars that are probably going to break or explode after cresting a jump or something.
But I'd say the closest to it, as mentioned before, is Bolivian RallySprint, which we have here at Summit Point. It's rally, but on a shorter course and with less stringent safety and class regulations. And then there's always rallycross.
You may think that "stopwatch" racing isn't fun, but everyone who comes out to rallycross thoroughly enjoys it.
Besides, stage rally is stopwatch racing too. It's not like you're pulling off constant passing or going down forest roads three wide. It's just longer courses/stages.
EDIT: just noticed you're talking about euro rallycross, which isn't really "rally" at all. It's just w2w racing on a course that has some jumps and maybe some dirt sections.
