Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

The 1980 World Rally Championship
WE WOULD be less than honest if we were to suggest
that the selection of qualifying events for the 1980 World
Rally Championship was based on merit. On the other
hand, the Statute Book rather prevents us saying what
we would like to say, so you must draw your own
conclusions.
In the eyes of the FISA the World Championship
for Manufacturers is more important than the World
Championship for Drivers, but happily most other
people take the opposite view. When they dropped the
Swedish Rally and the Rally of the Thousand Lakes from
the manufacturers’ series they were snubbing two highly
significant events held in the two countries which have
produced more of the world’s leading rally drivers than
the rest of the world put together. However, the FISA
threw what they considered to be a few pacifying crumbs
in the direction of these two events by including them in
the drivers’ series which, ironically, is now considered
the more important of the two series — and rightly so.
The World Championship situation, then, is a
twelve-event series counting for drivers’ points and a
ten-event series for manufacturers’ points, a list of which
appears in these pages.
The international calendar as a whole contains 305
events spread through the territories of 45 countries. As
usual, the most popular time for rallies is the Autumn.
September and October containing 75 international
rallies throughout the world. However, more interesting
than a calendar division is the way these international
events are divided between the various countries.
International status is costly, for FISA fees have
to be paid, as well as higher insurance rates. Some
countries are therefore content to run large programmes
of national events, for it would be false economy to go for
the prestige of international status if it is not likely that
foreign competitors will be attracted.
In Kenya, for instance, the only international
rally is the Safari, but there are many other events in
the Kenya calendar which, by reciprocal arrangement,
are open to competitors from neighbouring countries.
Another is New Zealand, where the Motogard Rally
stands out as the only international event in a series of
nationals.
Occasionally one notices a change of policy by
national clubs, and whereas a country may have only
two or three internationals one year, it has a whole string
of them the next. Sweden has gone the whole hog this
year and has put no less than 59 rallies up to international
status, whereas last year they only had a small handful.
France comes next with 41, then Germany with 38, Italy
with 22, Belgium with 18 and Spain with 16.
Britain, which probably has more rallies than most
countries in the space of a year, only has seven registered
with international status, whilst in Eire there are only
two internationals even though there are plenty more
nationals.
In the USA there used to be just one event at
international status, for very few US-made cars have been
homologated, and it would hardly be right to expect US
competitors to use only imported cars in order to comply
with the FISA’s homologation requirements. However,
this year the number goes up to twelve, and there are
twelve more in Canada, plus three in Mexico.
South Africa, where extremely good rallies are
often contested by European professionals engaged
to drive for local works teams, has five of its national
championship events at international status, the Soviet
Union still has one in the list, whilst a completely new
one is the Himalaya Rally which India is organising in
October. The latter offers some pretty exciting potential,
for the terrain is extremely demanding and has never
before been used for an international rally, although a
few of the trans-globe events have passed through India
on their way to distant destinations such as Sydney.
For the travelling rally man who prefers competing
elsewhere than in his home country, the calendar offers
events which can satisfy almost every taste, and a
complete list was published on January 17 in our weekly
stablemate Motoring News. — G.P.
All the events listed are qualifiers in the Drivers
Championship, and all but the Swedish and the 1000
Lakes are qualifiers in the Manufacturers’ Championship.
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