The sport of rallying is one of the most interesting and exciting in the world of motor racing, with cars that are road carsthat have been slightly modified in the lower national formulas, to run on the surfaces that make up the rally stages. These surfaces are usually tarmac, gravel, dirt, snow and ice. In the higher worldwide formulas of rallying, the cars are custom built rally cars that are based on road cars, but apart from their shape they have little in common with the road cars that they resemble. Rallying is liked by vehicle makers as the cars look like the ones you can see in the showrooms, and as a result success on the rally races result in sales in the showrooms. This makes rallying a very high-pressure sport, which demands performance from the entire team including the cars, the co-drivers and the drivers. It can be expensive to run whilst staying within the lower national formulas, and these money needed only as do the demands of the sponsors, who pay for everything as you go up the formulas all way to the worldwide championship events.

The world of motor racing is controlled by the Federation International automobile, their main roll is to set the rules and enforce them, from each of the types of motor racing from F1 to GT racing and others in between such as rallying. They usually set every rule such as how many points are awarded for each place finished, and the specifications the cars are designed to. Nowadays, these rules are very restrictive and cover most things. The rules cover the size of the engines, the minimum weight, and even the type of fuel used in the crash test that the cars have to pass before they can take part in races. It seemed that everything except the type of wiper blades that are used is in the rules, or has a rule dictating the size. Most of these rules are in place for safety reasons and without these rules, designers would make cars that were so fast it would be impossible to race them safely, on even the safest racetrack, never mind on gravel during a rally event in the middle of the Welsh woods. The other main thing the rules do is to try to control the costs involved in motor racing teams, and manufacturers will spend millions and millions of dollars trying to win, so the FIA have introduced caps on spending in some of the higher formulas.

With all these rules to control the design of the vehicle, it is vital that the driver can do their job to the best of their ability, which is why the right wiper blades are vital to keeping the windscreen clear when it rains or muck is thrown up from the road. In the past on some of the very dirty and wet stages, it was importance to change the wiper blades between the stages, so replacement wiper blades needed to be carried in the rally car, as they were no service parks between them. This was far from ideal, as these replacement wiper blades added to the weight of the rally car, and this undid some of the designer’s hard work at decreasethe weight of the vehicle, as a lighter vehicle is a faster vehicle. This problem was solved by switching from traditional rubber wiper blades, to a flat wiper blade made from silicone. These are much harder wearing than traditional rubber there are an equal ones, and therefore could last a couple of even the most demanding rally stages. Also, the flat wiper blades are lighter, as they have no metal frame and work better, as they guarantee an even cleaning along the entire length of the blade. Also the flat wiper blades have an aerodynamic advantage, because of their frameless design, resulting in a faster rally car.

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