A sad/happy day for rally.

[Superhatch]

The 2014 WRC started yesterday. VW and Hyundai are fielding cars, but no Japanese manufacturers are. The day when Hyundai and VW would be in WRC but Subaru wouldn't is something I couldn't fathom 6-7 years ago.

On the plus side Robert Kubica had the first day of his full drive in WRC.

[Frost]

I stopped following WRC for almost 4 years now - ever since they started changing the rules and team budgets and tightening up how many engines they could use for how many races, it became waaaaay to silly for me to keep up with.

Sad day indeed... I miss the ol' 555 Subaru WRC car. I grew up watching Colin McCrae in that sucker.

[kludger]

Yeah sad not to have any Japanese factory cars though I bet many of the privateers at each event that fill the roster will still be running WRXs and Evos.

I stopped watching WRC when it quit being broadcast here in USA and Sebastian Loeb dominated every single damn event... glorious amazing driving talent that he is.

Now that Loeb retired and will go dominate something else and Kubica is on, I will have to resume finding the coverage and watching, thanks for the heads up.

I watched a couple of the European Rally Championship from last season and Kubica was a fast badass, can't wait to see what he will do in a WRC car.

[Bristecom]

Originally Posted by Frost

I stopped following WRC for almost 4 years now - ever since they started changing the rules and team budgets and tightening up how many engines they could use for how many races, it became waaaaay to silly for me to keep up with.

Sad day indeed... I miss the ol' 555 Subaru WRC car. I grew up watching Colin McCrae in that sucker.

Exactly. They kept dumbing down the sport with all the rule changes. The cars are not even remotely based off of the production cars and there is basically no innovation happening anymore. I loved watching Mitsubishi, Subaru, Toyota, and Ford duking it out from the 90's to the mid 00's but once Mitsubishi dropped out, and especially when Subaru dropped out, I was done with the sport. It really was awesome while it lasted though and Subaru and Mitsubishi learned A LOT from it.