Rallying
Rallying is also unique in its choice of where and when to race. Rallies take place on all surfaces and in all conditions: asphalt (tarmac), gravel, or snow and ice, sometimes more than one in a single rally, depending on the course and event. Rallies are also run every month of the year, in every climate from bitter cold to monsoonal rain. As a result of the drivers not knowing exactly what lies ahead, the lower traction available on dirt roads, and the driving characteristics of small cars, the drivers are much less visibly smooth than circuit racers, regularly sending the car literally flying over bumps, and sliding the cars out of corners.
A typical rally course consists of a sequence of relatively short (up to about ), timed "special stages" where the actual competition takes place, and untimed "transport stages" where the rally cars must be driven under their own power to the next competitive stage within a generous time limit. Rally cars are thus unlike virtually any other top-line racing cars in that they retain the ability to run at normal driving speeds, and indeed are registered for street travel. Some events contain "super special stages" where two competing cars set off on two parallel tracks (often small enough to fit in a football stadium), giving the illusion they are circuit racing head to head. Run over a day, a weekend, or more, the winner of the event has the lowest combined special and super special stage times. Given the short distances of super special stages compared to the regular special stages and consequent near-identical times for the frontrunning cars, it is very rare for these spectator-oriented stages to decide rally results, though it is a well-known axiom that a team cannot win the rally at the super special, but they can certainly lose it.
Road rally
In the mid-1980s, road rallies were starting to cause a good deal of concern for the police and others, who felt that speeds had become too high. At this time, road rallying was still very much based on speed and driving skill with much less emphasis on the navigation than there is today. A variety of proposals were discussed in the motorsport press for a number of years about how to address these concerns while keeping the sport viable. These included a proposed maximum engine capacity limit. In the meantime, cars were being prepared to an ever-greater degree and speeds were rising. Commercial sponsorship was permitted and despite the sport's relatively low profile, many of the top crews did acquire sponsorship. Police started to monitor events more closely, and in a series of highly publicised 'fact finding' episodes, revealed that some cars had been regularly 'clocked' travelling at over 120 mph (190 km/h), and in one case, 150 mph (240 km/h) on rural country lanes. While the police made no arrests regarding this, they did voice their concerns publicly and insisted that the MSA do something about it. Proponents of the sport argued that the police's case was weak, since in practice accidents were extremely few, and where they did occur rarely involved members of the public not involved in the event. Third-party property damage was already fully insured under the existing rules. Injuries were extremely uncommon, since most cars featured the same safety devices (roll cage, full harnesses, firewalls, etc.) as fully prepared stage rally cars. Insurance for competing crews was cheap and easy to obtain, reflecting the good safety record of the sport.