>talks of wanting to 'get it out there in some free manner'.
If they REALLY want it out there like that, they could simply put up a free-rom download site like Gaelco's World Rally, tied with either a simple single emulator (like Sil's Single Emulators), if not just hand a dump over to MAME to begin with. There must be reasons they are holding back.
EDIT: BTW MAMEDev website still could benefit from a link to the World Rally download.