Okay, firsts things first. I thought of this all by myself with my (very) limited brain capacity and smallish exposure to rallying in terms of years of experience. So I'm asking everyone to just bear with me a little here.
I'm not 100% sure what other Rally folk out there find, but personally, I've noticed there is very little knowledge within the general public about the sport of rallying at a grass roots level
(ie: club level competition such as the majority of us are involved in).
Now it's virtually a constant discussion within the bounds of the forum as to how we as a community can increase the popularity of rallying and bring more spectators (and potentially competitors) to our events.
The recent invitation for a display at the Summernats Car Festival is a really good starting point for where I'm attempting to go here.
Coming from somebody who lives quite a distance from the typical rallying 'hotspots' I have come to realise through various discussions around the bar at the local pub (among other places), that there is little to no knowledge at all about grass roots club rally competition. I tell people "I'm a rally navigator" (insert 'easy left, easy right' response here ) and I typically receive one of two responses:
"That must cost thousands!"
"How did you get into that?"
Funnily enough, when I tell the Rus speak version of how it all came to be for me, I'm using getting back some variant of: "I'd love to be able to do something like that".
It got me thinking of potential ways to attempt to increase knowledge within the general public about our sport, and perhaps bring some much needed spectator numbers back to club competition. Here's what I've come up with:
* Firstly, How much does it cost to build a car?
Fro built his Excel on a shoestring (around $4k last I heard), so why not promote it? Sure, not everyone has access to a network of able-bodies that can bring costs down for specialised items like cage-building/seam welding, but there is also enough of us getting it done to know what sort of money it's worth, and what the best ways to go about things are.
Why not document it? I'm aware there's a few competitors out there at the pointy end of the field that would prefer not to disclose such information, but find a willing body to document exactly what it does cost to run at a bare minimum for a season, and put it out there for Joe Public to see, and I'm sure people will be surprised at just how affordable the sport can be.
Likewise with licensing/PPE (suits, helmets etc).
We have the best tool (this forum) to do it with, it just needs to be done.
* Similarly, put peoples actual personal experiences in writing; ie: ask the questions I get asked: How did you get into rallying?, make an interview of it, and back it up with some 'steps' of how to go about obtaining club membership, and a CAMS license.
We need more officials at events, so why not ask a few officials while we're at it...
* Hold an information day somewhere, get a few cars out of the shed, dust them off, and get some people to stand around, answering all the silly questions that people have.
If possible, hold it somewhere that we can physically put bums in seats for a 'nav' round a khana-cross course.
I'm aware ideas like this take money (to properly promote), much planning, and like everything, utilises more of our already stretched and valuable time, but I believe with proper planning, it could be a good kick along for the sport we all know and love so well.
If you've made it this far, and you're feeling a little let down/ripped off, I'm sorry, I guess I owe you a few minutes of your life back! If I've helped kick anybody else's constructive thought patterns into gear, by all means, lay it down. Constructive criticism is also welcome, maybe this has all been attempted before and failed dismally. Like I said to begin with, I'm very green on the grand scale, having only rallying for two years now. I apologise in advance if I'm beating somebody else's drum.
Idea: Rallying and the general public
: Take your pick.... 
Reasonable rates and Professional service
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