KEY POINTS:
The World Rally Championship series is not the beast it was back in 1979, and driving many of the evolutionary changes is a good old Kiwi bloke.
Rising up through the political jungle and avoiding most of the internecine machinations of a global governing body, New Zealander Morrie Chandler now sits at the top table as one of the FIA's vice presidents and is president of world rally.
Not bad for an Auckland boy.
Chandler appears to have the sport's interests at heart and not his own. It's been a long journey from rally driver to running New Zealand motorsport to running the world rally body.
"Guess they must have been desperate, that's all I can say," says Chandler.
"When my predecessor, Shekhar Mehta, passed away, everyone had their hand up but Max [Mosley, the FIA president], who I worked with on and off over the years, asked for my recommendations.
"Max had already appointed me to run one of the rally sub-groups and one day he called to say we had to talk about the WRC commissioner's job. He told me that even the people who wanted the job were quite happy for me to do it, so he asked why I didn't do it."
Chandler had a big hand in making New Zealand one of the first countries to hold international rallies back at the dawn of time, so it must have hurt to announce a cut-back in the number of world championship rounds, and the Kiwi round having to alternate with Australia.
"Max and deputy president Marco Piccini went to the Acropolis rally in 2007 to have a look and had a conclave with the teams. Max came back and said clearly it was all too hard and expensive so we'd better only have 12 rounds. Personally I would have liked to have seen 14, but it's now 12 with a rotational calendar and it was a hard decision.
"Repco's sponsorship of two WRC events in two countries appears to be unique in our sport. This decision fits well with the rotational policy and will enable Repco to derive benefits in both markets. We, at the FIA rally commission, applaud their initiative."
Chandler is known for his straight shooting and if he feels something has merit, or in his eyes won't work, he will not be put down. One example was the move to central park servicing, which New Zealand was the last place to knuckle under and adopt.
"They wanted to copy Formula One with this central park servicing idea," said Chandler.
"David Richards wanted to make WRC like F1.
"I understood where he was going but I said it's never going to work. The year after we finally gave in, Monte Carlo said, 'This central park service thing is stupid' and they started to separate service parks. I can see it going back to the way it was."
It sort of reiterates the old adage; if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
World rally is in good hands with Chandler who, unlike most administrators, wants the organisers to have a little more say in how they run their events as long as certain criteria are adhered to.
"Formula One is mixing up their formula between street and circuit races more and more, so why can't we do the same? It should be up to the organisers of each event on how they deal with the service issue. Some countries love the central service park; others don't like the idea and want to take the event to different parts of the country. Let them decide."
I bet there are a lot of other sports out there that would love the top dog to allow them to make some decisions of their own.
