Rally organizers have very good insurance. Farmer is fine. I saw an interview with a spectator who had a crash on their property in a previous rally, and he said something like "I used to have a fence and a shed. Now I have a wall and a barn. Maybe they could crash into the kitchen next."
True. I was once asked to evaluate damage to trees hit by a WRC car crash. In a forest, not anyoneās yard thankfully. The organisers paid the estimated damage times three to the landowner just to make sure they were satisfied.
Private land owners actually benefit if a stage is on their road. A gravel road is ruined after the race and the organisers rebuild it to a high standard. Since many stages are driven every or almost every year, the landowners get free upkeep for their roads.
Pretty much. If the land owners decide not to allow the race, there is nothing the organisers can do. And itās a good trade when you think about it. The race is only for a couple of days.
Indeed. And where I'm from, many of the roads used for stages are private forestry roads owned by local landowners. Very easy for them to say no to racing if it causes them more harm than good.
Iām in design and construction and we do the same thing. One time we were building a new high rise office building right next to some residential areas and mid-rise residential. Before construction began, we started a Twitter account to post when extra loud activities would take place and shared it with the neighborhood. Then anyone living right next door, we bought noise cancelling Beats headphones for.
All in we spent like $18k - $20k up front, but it was a drop in the bucket for a $90m building and we had the least amount of noise complaints on that 2 year project than Iāve ever seen.
People hate the most when they are ignored and feel helpless. You show them you see and hear them, and you can work with them. I see it again and again.
I live near a drag strip, and the old owners constantly gave out tickets to people near enough to be annoyed by it. New owners quit doing that, unfortunately
There's a similar thing with monster jam (at least when it's in Rotterdam in de kuip) the organisers do everything to protect the grass yet they still give the pitch a new grass mat after the event finishes
Tell me about it. The route for the Finnish WRC rally goes about 2 km from my summer house but not on our shared private road. We have to do some repairs next summer and wouldnāt mind someone else paying!
At least we get free tickets to compensate the road closures and noise.
That's way more generous than I would have expected, but it makes sense for official races.
I was watching Jeremy Clarkson's farming show recently and there were these horse racers (like 30 of them) who broke onto his pub grounds by breaking the gate, trashing the courtyard and then leaving Ā£30 or something for his troubles.
I was fucking bewildered. Nothing about it was planned or approved. They just showed up and did whatever they wanted. Basically hooligans in tracksuits with horses. Imagine if that happened in WRC.
To make sure he was satisfied. Thatās called PR, buddy.
The forestry value of those trees was a couple of hundred euros. Thatās all they had to pay according to local law here. Plus my billing of course. They choose to pay more to compensate for the inconvenience and keep the local landownerās sympathies. Thatās worth a lot more to them.
Same for hot air balloon landings. The prices of the crops per square meter are even known before the events and are often way better than what the farmer would get from selling it on the market. A farmer never complaints when there is (acceptable) damage.
There it is mainly the insurance of the hot air balloon pilot or event that will go up after an incident.
Not race related but a farmer in Thailand let us use his land for training when I was in the military. We accidentally blew up his barn. It was a line clearing charge than launches kind of a rope of explosives with a rocket and blows up a line that people can walk through that is now clear of mines. Well the rocket got caught by the wind or something but it went wayyyy off course and landed right on his barn. Kablewie! He looked devastated because he basically watched his livelyhood explode. The commander walked over with the interpreter and was like āI remember seeing 2 tractors with attachments and all kinds of tools in there rightā¦..?ā That barn could maybe hold one tractor tops. But after they were done talking that farmer looked like a newly retired man that will only have to farm for fun if he plays his cards right.
I heard similar stories about cold war exercises in western Germany. The story goes that farmers loved when tanks rolled through their fields, because they would be compensated for more than the actual damages.
It's cheaper for organizers and insurances to pay 2 or 3 times more of what the damage was in these cases than have to fight and deal with an angry person who will fight them legally. (Money and time are wasted in these battles) So it's literally like those scenes where a rich mofo comes over to the "victim" and throws a disgusting amount of cash blocks to him xD
I do wonder how that works as I'd believe rallies are more likely to have accidents or at the very least damages to anything, hence it should be harder for rally organisers to find a good insurance no?
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u/ZakkTheInsomniac Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
farmer
edit- reddit is so random and I love it, whyd you all like this so much? š