Rallying
Rally is a form of motorsport that takes place on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars. It is distinguished by running not on a circuit, but instead in a point-to-point format in which participants and their co-drivers drive between set control points (special stages), leaving at regular intervals from one or more start points. Rallies may be won by pure speed within the stages or alternatively by driving to a predetermined ideal journey time within the stages.
Road rally
A road rally is a car rally that takes place on the public road. It is a popular sport in the United Kingdom, especially Wales, and has traditionally been the core of the "grass roots" of club-based amateur motorsport. However it has declined in popularity since the 1980s and now stage rallies are probably generally more popular with amateurs. A very similar sport is the 12-car rally, which runs to broadly the same rules.
The attraction of the sport is that it is very cheap to compete, requiring relatively small levels of preparation, and is open to a wide degree of abilities. Its disadvantages are that for safety reasons they have to be run in very remote (generally rural) areas, and late at night. One reason for their decline has been the reduction in areas available for running the events, and the increasing burden on organisers to ensure that the rally will not cause a nuisance to any residents affected. There has also been a considerable number of rule changes since 1988 designed to reduce vehicle speeds, which has not been a popular development with some competitors.