Talk:Wales Rally GB

Merge

Unless there's an objection, I'm going to be merging this article with Wales Rally Great Britain in the next week or so. However, I'd also like to poll opinions on renaming this article and making it a redirect.

Basically, I've been working to improve the World Rally Championship pages (inlcuding the WRC results), and I had to tidy a lot of event articles which were named for their current sponsors. That's no longer the case, but now the RAC Rally - which hasn't been so named in over a decade - is the only race which isn't named after the current race. So, I'd prefer one of the following: (i) "Rally Great Britain", (ii) "Rally GB", or (iii) the same titles preceded by "Wales".

I'm having difficulty getting irrefutable citations to support me, but I think the biggest reason "Wales" is in the title is because of the sponsorship by the Welsh Assembly (source: datagate.net.uk), so I'd prefer not to have "Wales" in the article title. And, according to the WRC's official site, the event's official site and Googlefight, "Rally GB" is preferred to "Rally Great Britain". Therefore, my preferred article page would be Rally GB.

Any discussion to offer in this regard? -- DeLarge 19:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

While I can certainly see your logic, there's a historical aspect which I (& perhaps others of my age) would like considered. To my age group, it was always the RAC Rally (& to many others older & younger, I suspect). Is there any way to retain, under this original title, the part that relates to the years in which it was called the RAC Rally, as that was an evocative and romantic period in UK & international motoring history? The later stuff should be merged, that's for sure. - Ballista 05:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm actually "of that age" myself, so I totally sympathise. I haven't been to a British WRC event since the '90s when they got too scared of coming up to Kielder and started charging for access to stages as well. As I mentioned in a now archived discussion on my talk page, I'm no fan of the WRC's "rebranding" of the RAC, the 1000 Lakes, etc, which are much more evocative and characterful names. However, other events (like the 1000 Lakes) were already redirecting before I got here, and I'm looking to get as much order into what's a fairly chaotic little mini-portal. Trust me, though, I want to add more historical content, not take it away.

What I'd hope to do would be to (a) redirect RAC Rally to Rally GB, (b) move the current content of this article over, and (c) structure the page so that we'd get

• Overview of Rally GB, including previous names like RAC Rally
• Description of event, biggest winners, historical events of note, etc
• List of previous winners from 1932-2005.

Despite the name changes, we're now heading for the 62nd Wales Rally GB, so it has a clearly continuous history. I think the best way to "honour" the old events is to make sure they're not hived off into a different article and left to gether dust. -- DeLarge 07:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Major edit, August 15 2006

OK, I've pretty much finished merging the content of RAC Rally and Wales Rally Great Britain into a single article, I tidied the History section so that the finishing points were included in the winners' table, sectioned off the different history bits, and wikilinked stuff like the cars. I also added a bit about the Roger Albert Clark Rally (and I created a Roger Clark page while I was at it), and slimmed down the Group B paragraph.

Finally, I won an eBay auction for "RAC Rally" by Max Le Grand (ISBN 1870519302), so I'm hoping to fill in the blanks in the results with it. --DeLarge 20:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Nationalities

There's nothing "inconsistent" about the flagicons used for drivers, as they match exactly the flags used beside their names on the cars they drive.

• Colin McRae [1], [2]
• Derek Ringer [3]
• Nicky Grist [4]

...and so on. Rally drivers represent themselves and their teams. If and when they drive for Britain, they can be so listed. I'm therefore reverting this article so that it matches the individual drivers' pages, their categorisation, and the World Rally Championship pages as well. --DeLarge 18:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem with that reasoning is that it contradicts with the consesus reached (on several pages). In that the drivers are registered under the country were they live. Which in the case of any driver from Scotland, England and Wales is the flag of Great Britain. They may be from those states, but their nationality is British, which they must race under.

I certainly think this page needs a major update, to conform with this concensus. Dale-DCX 15:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I used the incorrect terminology. There nation may be England, Wales or Scotland, but they are from the state of Great Britian. I know the general idea is there, I just wanted to be more specific. Dale-DCX 01:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Brunstrom's Cash Machines

When was it they had the problem with drivers being snagged by speed cameras while driving between stages? Kinitawowi 21:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

2005

corrected location of park's memorial in estonia. previously, it said a memorial was set up for markko (martin), instead of park.

Lombard's sponsoring duration not correct?

The article says that Lombard started to sponsor the event in 1974 and they withdrew sponsorship after 19 years, which would make that 1989 as the last year that they sponsored it. But I have the BBC's broadcast (off air) coverage of the event in 1990 and 1991 and it is STILL CALLED the LOMBARD RAC Rally in both 1990 and 1991 (says so on the signs on the large "stage" that the cars start from and also signs on this same "stage" at the end of the event). So someone needs to correct it please. Unfortunately I don't know what year it stopped being the Lombard RAC rally. --Live Steam Mad (talk) 03:11, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

1974+19=1993 not 1989, seems you may have read that sponsoring started in 1970, but the first 4 years were The Daily Mirror not Lombard.Lmcgregoruk (talk) 08:38, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Why did the event move purely to Wales ?

I have been watching coverage of the Lombard RAC rally of 1990 and 1991 (see my youtube channel) and would like to know please why in the last decade or so the event stopped being in England and Wales and became a Wales exclusive rally ? Please can someone add a valid reason for this to the main article. --Live Steam Mad (talk) 03:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed move

I think that this article should be moved to "Rally Wales GB" (the official WRC name) and Rally GB be the re-direct. What do others thing? Bjmullan (talk) 21:28, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Event name

I changed the intro on 31/04/11 with extra detail and to reflect the name of the event given in table lower down in the article, however this was all reverted with a reason that my edit was 'wrong' - if the table is in error then please also edit the table, but I think the table was accurate in which case my edit should have been left alone? :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.99.20 (talk) 22:05, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

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Name

To be the nth person to suggest a move to a new name: The event has been dead for nearly 3 years, so perhaps a neutral title would be best with all others forwarding in? Rally of Great Britain would be my suggestion. Rally Wonk (talk) 16:33, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I think it would be better to go with the original name of RAC Rally since the vast majority of the rallies went by that name with or without a sponsor. But I suppose Rally of Great Britain makes more sense than the current title in spite of only being used six times without "Wales". A7V2 (talk) 07:41, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

RAC Rally was pretty much always short for RAC Rally of Great Britain in full at least since the 1st numbered event. (not the rallies of the 30s) (a b c Daily Telegraph 1952). There probably wasn't much need for the full name back in the day. I'm looking for sources but believe it was changes in the World Championship that brought about the full name use along with format changes in the late 90s. (i.e emphasis on Rallies of *nation*, same with 1000 lakes > Finland and Acropolis > Greece) I'd include what I find.

Could also be mentioned that RAC was the organiser, parent of MSA, now Motorsport UK. Rally of Great Britain was always the name of the event which was constant. And of course, Wales, Lombard etc were title sponsors.

RAC Rally could be confused with the Roger Albert Clark rally, or others too. Rally Wonk (talk) 12:50, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Unless there's any further objection I intend to move this article to Rally of Great Britain soon. My thoughts are that if Rally UK ever gets underway then that would probably inherit this article as "the UK's international rallying competition", which is what binds all these titles, events and is what inherits the heritage but is a silly title for an article itself. Rally Wonk (talk) 23:32, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that RAC Rally isn't a suitable title. The primary governing policy is WP:COMMONNAME, and I don't see any evidence that the common name for the event as a whole would be Rally of Great Britain. Prior to changing name it was pretty much exclusively referred to as just the "RAC Rally" (eg Maurice Hamilton's book "RAC Rally" and in the relevant chapters of Martin Holmes' annuals). I also don't see an issue with ambiguity as the historic rally is clearly trying to borrow the original name for this rally when they chose the acronym, and it has far less coverage (and no article on wikipedia). I won't revert if you move it, but I think it would be better to do it via RM. A7V2 (talk) 03:53, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Agree on the ambiguity - not an issue. Whilst I agree it's a common name for the era up to 1997, RAC Rally is too historic as it did not apply to the rallies since 1998 when MSA began organising the events and not RAC.

• "1998 – RAC Rally became Rally of Great Britain"
• "2000 – Richard Burns completes a hat-trick of Rally GB victories" (ie Rally of GB = Rally GB)

Source.

On eWRC the continued series is titled Rally of Great Britain.

That I can probably find a source for any year of the RAC since 1951 that it was always ...of Great Britain in full isn't my chief reason for proposing Rally of Great Britain.

Because since 1998, Rally of Great Britain absorbed the heritage and prestige of the RACs. Further, the attempted Rally UK would then have absorbed the heritage and prestige of the GBs had it happened, and that event was planned to take place entirely in Northern Ireland. We would have probably have agreed to move all this content to that article title.

Realistically, this article is trying to be UK's Premier Rally, that's how Motorsport UK describes it. Source. Splitting the articles up is always an option? But for me not justifiable. Rally of Great Britain would always include the RAC in its history anyway and there isn't enough justification yet for a Rally UK article right now - perhaps in the future.

Rally of Great Britain simply uses the latest iteration without the expired title sponsorship. Rally Wonk (talk) 13:57, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

I've changed the leading sentence to explain "UK's premier rally", so no longer intend to move the article. Rally Wonk (talk) 15:36, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Numbers

Any reason why the numbers jump?

• 1992 40th Lombard RAC Rally
• 1993 49th Network Q RAC Rally

Rally Wonk (talk) 22:26, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I've often found these numberings (in many motorsport articles, not just this one) to be quite questionable, and sources don't always agree. In this case I'd assume they jumped the numbers as they decided that the 8 pre-War events should have counted. I would be happy to simply remove all of these numbers as they don't provide anything meaningful in my opinion. A7V2 (talk) 03:57, 23 August 2022 (UTC)