Auto racing is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. In North America, the term is commonly used to describe all forms of automobile sport including non-racing disciplines.
Rallying is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests, navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed time or average speed. Rallies may be short in the form of trials at a single venue, or several thousand miles long in an extreme endurance rally.
The World Rally Championship is an international rallying series owned and governed by the FIA. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the second oldest of the FIA's world championships after Formula One. Each season lasts one calendar year, and separate championship titles are awarded to drivers, co-drivers and manufacturers. There are also two support championships, WRC2 and WRC3, which are contested on the same events and stages as the WRC, but with progressively lower maximum performance and running costs of the cars permitted. Junior WRC is also contested on five events of the World Rally Championship calendar.
Motorsport(s) or motor sport(s) are sporting events, competitions and related activities that primarily involve the use of automobiles, motorcycles, motorboats and powered aircraft. For each of these vehicle types, the more specific terms automobile sport, motorcycle sport, power boating and air sports may be used commonly, or officially by organisers and governing bodies.
An all-terrain vehicle (ATV), also known as a light utility vehicle (LUV), a quad bike or quad, as defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is a vehicle that travels on low-pressure tires, has a seat that is straddled by the operator, and has handlebars. As the name implies, it is designed to handle a wider variety of terrain than most other vehicles. It is street-legal in some countries, but not in most states, territories and provinces of Australia, the United States, and Canada.
The Ford RS200 is a mid-engined, all-wheel-drive sports car that was produced by Ford Motorsport in Boreham, UK, from 1984 to 1986. The road-going RS200 was the basis for Ford's Group B rally car and was designed to comply with FIA homologation regulations, which required 200 parts kits to be produced and at least one road-legal car to be assembled. It was first displayed to the public at the Belfast Motor Show.
ACMAT is a French manufacturer of cross-country and tactical military vehicles since 1958. Known for their reliability, simplicity, ruggedness and their 80% commonality of parts across the entire product line, these vehicles were originally targeted at African and Asian countries who could not afford more expensive vehicles. The ACMAT company built their vehicles based on standardisation, commonality of parts and components, and on interchangeability; parts are interchangeable with vehicles built 30 years ago. Parts commonality includes cabs, structural components, engines and drive trains. ACMAT uses many of the same parts for all of its line of vehicles. They even produce an armoured variant of both the 4x4 and 6x6 versions of the VLRA.
The International Sporting Code (ISC) is a set of rules applicable to all four-wheel motorsport as governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It was first implemented in 1926.
The Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India, abbreviated as FMSCI, is the governing body for motor sports in India and was founded in 1971. It is a long-standing member of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) and Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the world bodies for 2/3 and 4 wheeler motor sport respectively.
M-Sport is a motorsport engineering company headquartered at Dovenby Hall near Cockermouth, United Kingdom. It is primarily known for entering the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) since 1997 in partnership with Ford, manufacturing race and rally cars, and providing parts and motorsport services to customers. The company has an automotive evaluation facility at its headquarters, and a second manufacturing facility in Kraków, Poland.
The European Rally Championship is an automobile rally competition held annually on the European continent and organized by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship has been organized since 1953 and has competed in different European countries, alternating between rallies on asphalt and gravel. It was the first supranational rally championship that was organized in the world and therefore the oldest one. In 2012 it had 60 editions and in 2013 it was renewed with the merger with the Intercontinental Rally Challenge.
Solar car racing refers to competitive races of electric vehicles which are powered by solar energy obtained from solar panels on the surface of the car. The first solar car race was the Tour de Sol in 1985 which led to several similar races in Europe, US and Australia. Such challenges are often entered by universities to develop their students' engineering and technological skills, but many business corporations have entered competitions in the past. A small number of high school teams participate in solar car races designed exclusively for high school students.
Rally raid is a type of off-road motorsport event for automobiles and motorcycles. Along with shorter baja rallies, rally raid constitutes cross-country rallying. Both the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) co-organise a common World Rally-Raid Championship featuring the same events for both types of vehicle.
In relation to motorsport governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, Group R refers to a set of regulations providing production-derived vehicles for rally competition. The Group R regulations were gradually introduced from 2008 as a replacement for Group A and Group N rally cars.
The 2019 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies was the 27th season of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies; an annual competition for rally raid events for cars, buggies, side-by-sides, and trucks held in multiple countries.
The 2020 Dakar Rally was the 42nd edition of the event and the first edition held in Saudi Arabia. The event started in Jeddah on 5 January and finished in Al-Qiddiya on 17 January after 12 stages of the competition.
The FIA WRC3 is a support championship of the World Rally Championship. The calendar consists of the same rallies and stages as the parent series and crews usually compete immediately after WRC2 entrants. Entry into WRC3 is limited to cars that are based on production models and homologated under Group Rally3 rules, although prior to 2022 Group Rally2 cars were used. There are championship titles awarded to drivers and co-drivers. The series began in 2013 and was limited to production-based cars homologated under the R1, R2 and R3 rules, until its cancellation at the end of 2018. The current format of the series began in 2020.
The FIA Rally Pyramid is the collective description and organisation of championships, car performance classes and driver aptitude in international rallying. In 2019 the FIA rally commission presented a radical overhaul to the rally pyramid to introduce common nomenclature and structure of the international championships and car classes used across the sport in a similar way to terminology used in formula racing. At the top of the pyramid, Rally1 describes elite level of driver aptitude and car performance in the World Rally Championship (WRC). At the foot of the pyramid is Rally5, designed for cost effective introductory rallying competition.
Group Rally5 is a technical specification of rally car determined by the FIA for use in its international rallying competitions: World Rally Championship (WRC) and regional championships. National rallying competitions also allow Group Rally5 cars to compete. There are no subclasses of the group therefore all Group Rally5 cars can compete in the same category. 'Rally5' may be used alone with the same definition. The group was launched in 2019 after the introduction of the Rally Pyramid initiative to reorganise the classes of car and championships in international rallying was approved in June 2018.
In international rallying, the Groups Rally are the collective name given to formulae of rally car as defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile for use in the World Rally Championship and the FIA's regional championships. The names were approved in June 2018 and began being used in 2019 in conjunction with promotion of the Rally Pyramid, a reorganisation of rallying nomenclature, car specifications and championships. As of 2020, the groups' names are officially defined as replacing Group R in the FIA's competitions. The numbering used in the names of the new groups align with the FIA sporting classification, Rally1 is in RC1, Rally2 in RC2, and so on. From 2022 the championships will also align to these numbers, WRC2 shall use Rally2 cars whereas ERC3 for example, will Rally3 cars.
