Following on from my previous WRC blog a few things have become apparent,

Since the unfortunate loss of Colin McRae, Richard Burns and the retirement of Marcus Gronholm and Tommi Makkenen, things have never been quite the same. Our only slight saving grace at the moment is Peter Solberg, but again never been the same since Subaru pulled out of the world championship. The Fin does his best though and we love him for that.

For those of you who have read my previous blog regarding the WRC (Part 1) would have noticed my nomination to save the sport as Ken Block, not everyone agreed with me. Comments included; great stunt driver, requires a different set of driving skills, just not fast enough and finally too old (not my point of view). At this point I decided to have a bit of a re-think, I managed to come up with two more possible savouris Travis Pastrana and Valentino Rossi.

First I will start with Travis. Unfortunatly this idea may end before it’s even begun, as from the start of the 2012 NASCAR season Travis will be competing full time for Waltrip Racing. The 27yrs would just about be young enough to hone his skills to begin an assault on the WRC. The American has shown early promise in the rallying world , securing the 2006 Rally America National Series. The important thing is that Travis has a huge following just like Ken Block, but would that be enough to raise the WRC profile?

My second idea to save the failing WRC is the most successful motoGP rider ever, Valentino Rossi.
The Italian has openly admitted his love for rallying and has often been linked with a switch to the WRC. The Ducati motoGP rider has competed in a few rallying events with varied successful, in 2002 Rossi crashed out of the first proper stage of the Rally Great Britain. A more notable effort includes the 2006 annual Monza Rally, In which he managed to win by 24 seconds. This was an even better achievement considering Didier Auriol had entered and had been clearly outpaced by Rossi in a Ford Focus WRC M-Sport prepared machine.
The other side to Rossi, is his absolutely huge following worldwide and would they follow him into the WRC?
I think a lot would, me included, although it would take a top team to tempt the moto GP ace. I’m sure a Fiat WRC team would fix that but the likelyhood of that happening is slim as Fiat have made no suggestion of such plans.

If neither of the above happens then my final thought is, send your CV’s in and hope for the best. Lets hope someone comes from the depths of the Rallying world and saves the sport, as it deserves to be saved.