Info: "Why Do Finns Rally?"

[tth]

- This was posted by "Riitta" @ www.specialstage.com (American rally forum) and gives excellent info to all foreigners about rallying in Finland.
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Dec-05-05 10:45 AM by Riitta

First some corrections (or are you talking about a certain group F that applies to US, if so...then I apologize for beeing stupid) – Group F is only in Finland, Sweden has group H which is quite similar but not exactly the same. These two can be put to same line in a sense but there are also huge differencies. Group F cars must have been homologated at some point but the homologation has to be outdated but this same does not apply to Group H which can also have cars without homologation (e.g. Volvo 940). So Finns and Swedes cannot go and just drive in the same competitions across the gulf. Sweden also has more classes that are suited for “clubman” but Finland is following FIA rules more than the average driver would want. Estonia allows even more freedom in their classes…

The group F rally cars are very very rarely (=never) driven to the event places…or if they are there must be a very short distance from your garage to rally the HQ. Usually you need a car-trailer and a van so you can tow your rally car to the competition and also the van is needed so you have all your stuff for servicing the rally car with you. And usually you have two “mechanics” with you. (So most likely you will need also another car so your service can get to the place…some vans are allowed to have more than 3 seats, but everyone does not have them in Finland).

We have shorter distances than what you guys have…a lot shorter. The longest tow I do once a year is 750 kilometers one way and the average tow for me is about 250 kilometers (one way). But I know a person who tows his car over 500 kilometers one way to nearly each event. On the other hand, our gas price at the moment is for diesel about 1 euro per liter (for the van) and for the gas for the rally car it is apprx. 1.20 Euro per liter. And euro is about 1.17 dollars.

I do not know what you mean by rookie rules…we have some rules for drivers starting rallying (no 4-WD cars, no recce events, mandatory rally “school” day) but if you are fast enough you drive one year in the rookie level and then go up one level (we have 3 driver levels).

There is no such thing as an average F-group car ….you might get something that you can race just for fun with no hopes for winning…and with a lot of fixing with apprx. 5000 Euros. The top cars in group F cost around 40 000 euros. A good competitive F-group car is somewhere between 20 – 25 000 euros. If you now would start building a top F-group car which at the moment is BMW M3, it should be imported from Germany and paying something like 10 000 euros. Then you dismantle it, do the bodywork and install all the goodies and safety equipment so you end up with a lot of costs. During year 2005 there are 36 group F BMWs and about 10 of those are built to top specs. Starlets and Escorts are starting to fade away from group F because you just cannot find body parts or the whole car and they start to outdate also otherwise (and some return to historic rallying). Also the new F2 group is coming starting next year with new outdated homologations so new regulations will be done for those (there are some kit-cars etc. and they are not allowed to have same amount of freedom technically as the oldies).

Group F is not only for young and rising stars, there are people who have driven with this group as long as I can remember and they just do not want to drive anything else. Some of the top drivers in F-group could easily get an older group N/A/WRC 4wd car (and be really competitive) with the price they spend on their F-group car per season…but they just do not want to do it. Some new drivers go straight to group N cars and never even try group F cars. Group N car might come even cheaper than a top F-group car and the junior championship series is solely for group n cars (and I mean 2wd group n not the 4wd). So why bother with group F, even if that would be the most popular group for spectators and for most of the drivers – the big audience doesn’t even know such group exists. Group F has zero visibility in media (but I guess only Finnish rally championship series gets visibility; with 4wd driven WRC, group A and group N cars) so for youngsters who want media coverage they aim to something else than F-group. The “little n” car is closer to JWRC and other intenational series cars than an F group car. Then there is Historic class gaining more competitors each year (a lot cheaper than group F) and the cheapest choice would be the under 1400 cc trophy for cars homologated in groups a and n (Suzuki Swift, WV Polo etc.).

Only the top teams in group F get sponsors that are worth mentioning…others get some or none (but this goes for the whole Finnish rally scene not really depending on what group car you have). Most drivers and co-pilots pay driving from their own pocket (we could say at least 60 % of crews, or they get 1000 Euro for the whole season, which is close to nothing). And most are from low or average income portion of people. One very common thing about the drivers is that most of them build their own cars themselves…all weldings etc. or have good friends to help. Only few of the drivers can afford someone else to build/service their cars entirely. Then you might do so that you build the car “body” and someone else does the engine but you put it all together.

I do not know how the part prices are compared to US but they are not cheap here either. Just to get safety equipment (roll cage, seats, harnesses, helmets and suits and of course most have to be FIA approved) cost easily over 2000 euros and all cars&crews must have these. A good gearbox for a group F car is over 3000 euros, a good suspension is again easily over 3000 euros (these are the top parts – you can also get something for less) and at this point we have not even talked about the engine or smaller things such as brakes etc. which also add quite a bit to the costs. One thing though…in Finland you do not need to figure out all this alone, usually other competitors/car builders are keen to help and tell eagerly what they have discovered and where to get parts. We have good sources of knowledge and where to get parts because of the long tradition with this sport. (There are at least 7 dedicated shops around Finland who sell this stuff and now with the web age – you just go to the net and shop where ever you want – and save bigtime even with transportation costs – e.g. UK). Then you might have modest suspension but a good gearbox (so you can get away with a mix of good/average parts)….but I guess only about 5-10 % of all group F cars are built to the top specs, 60 % are a mix of good/average and the rest are just built for having fun.

Then someone wondered about the costs for events and what kind of prizes we have. An average entry fee for an event is around 180 euros and prize money – what is that? We get a trophy (cheap ones) and sometimes tyres or some other merchandise, but quite rarely. In some cup-series you get money if you are good enough, but you also have to pay money to get into the series. F-cup is a series for group F cars and entry fee for the cup is around 500 euros and on top of that you pay each event entry fee separately which was the already mentioned 180 euros (6 events belong to the cup). And you might get something like 5000 Euro back if you win the series. We build good cars for ourselves in order to enjoy driving them hard – it is not to get money or “glory”. And of course – the better the car the faster you can go and also the more you can challenge your own driving skill! The events are usually 6 – 8 stages long (stage length might vary from 6 – 40 kilometers) lasting about 1 day. (Again some corrections; we do not have 25-30 events a year near Jyväskylä area, or then Jyväskylä area is the whole Finland :-)

If we calculate a bit, the must things cost around 10 000 euros for one season (and this is a very low budjet including tyres, fuel, entry fees for 6 rallies + F-cup series entry fee, insurance and rally licences). Then you need to have the rally car + spare parts (suspension, brake etc. small parts and in worst case a new motor and the whole car) + service car + trailer (or you can borrow from your friend’s van&trailer) + service crew (they need at least food and perhaps sometimes accomondation) + tools to do servicing (also used in your garage) and the garage where you build and store your car, so you end up with a lot of euros for just one season (some costs are more long term costs but anyway…you need the stuff in order to do anything). And if you have seen the F-group as part of Neste rally Finland (WRC event) you have not really seen how these guys drive. It is not what you see in that event (that event is about having fun and not about a really serious competition)... all of the F-cup series events are “blind” so you do not have recce. On F-cup events they drive the max speed they can and therefore a lot of rolls happen during the season. If you do not drive a bit over the limit (and hope for the best) you will not succeed…so, on a blind jump you put the pedal to the metal and hope there is not a 90 degree turn after the jump or you just added some costs to your season…if you do not take the risk and there is straight road after the jump…you just lost your chances to win because someone else took the risk and it paid off.

Getting roads for rally events is getting harder and harder (so no-one is offering their roads to be used as stages as someone claimed in this forum earlier). Our amount of rallies has dropped quite a lot since the happy 80’s. Also organizers are getting tired and older and new members who would arrange rallies are rare. So we are starting to struggle on this side also. It is usual nowadays that an organizer needs to pay average of 150 Euros/kilometer for getting a stage….and rally marshals are also hard to get. There are so many things to do other than standing on a forest road for a day without pay.

One thing I’m just wondering…why would you go with our rules? You must have cars that would be OK for rallying even they are not homologated. I mean cars build in the US…just make technical rules for those and you might see growth if you include cars that are common over there. If Volvos, Starlets, Escorts or GT Corollas are not “usual” in your country, why even bother to look at those…or if most of the old homologated cars cannot be found in the States just forget the homologation. After you get the guys hooked up – they will never go away but start building WRC/A/N cars when they understand what it’s all about…We have a new class called 1600 original – the cars do not need to be homologated and you have certain technical issues that you can/cannot do, safety equipment are mandatory but otherwise the specs are quite easy to monitor...just to make the sport more accessible and cut the costs. This is done in order to get new people involved in rallying. The amount of drivers is dropping so new people must get somehow interested.

And if you need statistics from Finalnd…here are few from year 2005: amount of license owners is 3855 persons (a proven fact so we are nowhere close to 10 000 persons as was claimed in this forum), number of goup N cars is 222 so 13% of all rally cars, 278 group A cars meaning 17% of all rally cars, 1008 group F cars meaning 61% of all rally cars and finally 247 historic cars meaning 15% of all rally cars. If you want, you can see more statistics from 2005 in address http://www.mantta.fi/yritykset/tenab/rafu/lkm2005.htm
(just look for the number yht= total number (otherwise divided to a-b-yleinen driver levels)
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