How will global warming affect motorsports?

[scubasteve]

What do you think? I know that for rally, its a constant battle, when we live with a general theme "real cars, real roads, real fast".

It raises a lot of concern. I mean anyone who has tried to organize an event must be feeling the constant pressure from local municipalities?

How is it going to play out, what can we do to positively influence this change in dynamics?

I am curious what your thoughts are.

[Nicki]

Pacific Forest Rally has a challenge called the PIAA Eco-Challenge, basically it is a competition for some awesome swag donated by PIAA, for the car that uses the least gas but goes the fastest. I have attached the blurb from the PFR website. Last year Aaron Neuman won with his Honda Civic. We really do try to promote people being eco friendly, and doing what they can to not burn more fuel then they have to. http://www.pacificforestrally.com/archives/2008/piaa_ecochallenge_pfr.jpg



In recognition of the need to promote conservation, we have a new award, sponsored by PIAA, given to the team that gets the best time from the least fuel. This award is open to national and regional teams, based on their total scores from Saturday's stages, multiplied by the amount of fuel they consume. This will reward teams who manage their resources the most responsibly while still having great fun behind the wheel.

Teams who wish to register for the PIAA eco challenge may sign up at registration, at no cost, and must place two PIAA decals (supplied) prominently on the vehicle. These teams must start and finish Saturday's competition with a full tank. At the start of Saturday, once the tank is filled, a seal will be affixed to the fuel filler. At each refueling stop, and at the final MTC, the seal will be inspected, then broken to refuel, and a new seal affixed. The team's fuel cans will be weighed before and after the refueling, and this weight will be recorded as a measure of the fuel added. The fuel zone marshals will be judges of fact for verifying the seals and weight of fuel added, and verifying that the tank is full at the finish.
The winner of the 2008 PIAA eco challenge will be announced during the post event banquet at Boston Pizza.
For more information about PIAA racing products, visit piaa.com.

[scubasteve]

PIAA eco-challenge: That's pretty nifty, definitely a good program and a good start towards pointing the sport as eco-aware.

Anyone have any ideas on what to say when you get resistance to road closures and "ripping" up forest roads?

Have any issues ever with that Nicki? Any known solutions amongst organizers? I've heard of rallies having a hard time with all this so I think sharing some good positive direction would be a huge help.

[Nicki]

Most people who have issues, think we are a bunch of red neck hicks that "street race" up these dirt roads. I actually dealt with such a character at the last eventI organized. He almost drove two of my cars into the ditch because he was trying to "spook" them. Real mature eh? When he came down to the bottom of the road, he started to yell at my sweep crew, poor guys really were not expecting it. So I stepped in, and took over.
This guy thought we were racers, and that we were going to kill cattle. After about 20 minutes of talking to this guy, getting yelled at, called many MANY rude names, I eventally got him to calm down, but just keeping calm and explaining what we were there to do. He eventally left, but snap was my heart racing. (Later on I heard he had hells angels stickers all over his truck, and diesel/ plastic black pots in his truck, two of the main peices of equipment when running a back road grow op) Lovely eh?
At PFR last year, people were protesting and broke through the road blocks because they had shot a deer, and injured it and needed to go back and kill it, and us with our loud cars were terrifying the poor injured thing. My thought- aim better next time, and why did you leave the poor thing to suffer for like 8 hours...
There are people in the community that want to see us pay a carbon tax as part of our entry fees towards how much fuel that we burn. However when you look at the big picture, many competitors use smaller cars (on the grand scheme of things) and don't burn that much fuel- say in compairison to a blue smoke chugging turbo diesel, that has not had a tune up for years.
I've never had anyone complain to me about it, but I think we need to stay pro-active with our direction and promote more challanges such as the PIAA eco challange at all national events. We are heading in the right direction!!!