World Rally Championship - Why the Bizarre Scheduling?

Have you noticed there are certain motorsports championships that just go out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot? The World Rally Championship certain qualifies with one of the stranger scheduling plans.

The World Rally Championship, better known as the WRC, is comprised of road rallies in different countries. Each rally consists of legs through the roads and terrain of the area. The drivers compete against the clock in each leg. The total time at the end of the legs of the rally establishes who wins and the remaining finishing positions. Each rally usually lasts three days.

As with any motorsports championship, the WRC has its marquee event. That event is the Rally of Monte Carlo. Much like NASCAR, the race typically kicks off the rally season in February each year. In 2009, the rally season kicked off in Wales. Not only did Monte Carlo not start the season, it is not on the schedule at all! Why? It all has to do with the bizarre scheduling of the WRC.

The WRC has a rotating schedule for its yearly rally championship. This effectively means that a rally may be on the schedule one year and not the next. Other motorsports tweak there schedules as well from year-to-year, but not in a wholesale fashion. More importantly, they certainly do not pass over there marquee events!

Think this concept through as it would relate to other forms of motorsport. Can you imagine NASCAR passing over the Daytona 500 every other year? How about Formula One passing over Monaco every other year? The INDYCar series passing over the Indianapolis 500 every other year? The mere suggestion of doing these things is laughable, but it is exactly what the WRC does and it then wonders why it isn't more popular!

The WRC is some of the most exciting racing you will ever find. It is almost unknown in North America with the exception of people playing video games. The racing is intense because the track consists of roads the locals travel in their daily lives. Crashes are frequent and they are spectacular to say the least. In short, this form of racing has huge potential, but seems to be run with the goal of keeping it from becoming popular.

If the WRC wants to truly become a huge form of motorsports across the globe, it need to schedule its marquee events each and every year. To skip them is shear lunacy.