Talk:Rally GB

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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 Trust me, though, I want to add more historical content, not take it away.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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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.

...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)