Global Rallycross Championship

  • Thread starter Thread starter SuperShouden
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SuperShouden
This is a NASCAR sponsored series and will have 5 rounds:

1. Charlotte Motor Speedway - May 26th
2. Texas Motor Speedway - June 9th
3. X-Games in LA - June 30th
4. New Hampshire Motor Speedway - July 1st
5. Las Vegas Motor Speedway - September 29th


The field consists of a lot of good talent like Tanner Foust, Rhys Millan, Travis Pastrana, Sam Hubinette, Ken Block, Brian Deegan and others.

The first round was pretty exciting. But, I will say it was a little frustrating to see Thomos Heikkinen pretty much turn into a troll racer from Forza. You know, one of those idiots who lacks the skill to when a race fairly, so they just crash EVERYONE they can. Yeah, he took out Travis Pastrana and Dave Mirra and tried to take out the race leader at the very beginning of the race. Luckily, GRC blacked flagged him and he essentially got DQed from the final race, moving him to the back of that pack.

That said....this should be a crazy series.
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Tell me please, What is Global about these events, other than few drivers.
 
I think they want to take the series globally, but first of all, they need to establish an audience. Right now, they're only supporting NASCAR and Indycar events; the series wouldn't be able to survive on its own. But if they start building some interest and get more drivers involved, they can start pushing out to include a more global spread of events.
 
Not to mention, we in the US get to see something we normally wouldn't as there is not only no WRC event in the US, but I'm not sure there is coverage on the WRC here anyway (F-ing FOX, ruining Speedvision).
 
prisonermonkeys
I think they want to take the series globally, but first of all, they need to establish an audience. Right now, they're only supporting NASCAR and Indycar events; the series wouldn't be able to survive on its own. But if they start building some interest and get more drivers involved, they can start pushing out to include a more global spread of events.
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You pretty much got their game plan, they just are trying to use bigger events to gain fans on bigger stage. The problem is true rally fans see it as a fail for them, but actually being at GRC Charlotte it was pretty cool to see period.

The don't think they can compete with Europe though, and should try to either figure out way to add dirt to the events.
 
Once again the fact that there are international drivers doesn't make it a Global series. If that's the case why don't they rename NASCAR to GASCAR because of the foreign drivers (Montoya and Ambrose) or the DTM back to the ITC because of the foreign drivers. It doesn't make sense. Want to make it global? Have some rounds in Europe where it is big, and not in a country where rally as a general sport is ignored.
 
TheBigMan045
Once again the fact that there are international drivers doesn't make it a Global series. If that's the case why don't they rename NASCAR to GASCAR because of the foreign drivers (Montoya and Ambrose) or the DTM back to the ITC because of the foreign drivers. It doesn't make sense. Want to make it global? Have some rounds in Europe where it is big, and not in a country where rally as a general sport is ignored.
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Guys...it's a NASCAR sanctioned series. I don't think NASCAR knows what the world "Global" means.
 
SuperShouden
Guys...it's a NASCAR sanctioned series. I don't think NASCAR knows what the world "Global" means.
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Actually NASCAR has nothing to do with it! It isn't run by anyone related to NASCAR and uses their own people for everything. SMI and GRC agreed to bring it to increase ticket sales.

Most of the track people actually have very little idea of what's even going on as far as how the show is run, found out first hand in charlotte when autograph session was changed 3 times in 5 mins along with pit access after the race no one had a clue.
 
Wilbur
Actually NASCAR has nothing to do with it! It isn't run by anyone related to NASCAR and uses their own people for everything. SMI and GRC agreed to bring it to increase ticket sales.

Most of the track people actually have very little idea of what's even going on as far as how the show is run, found out first hand in charlotte when autograph session was changed 3 times in 5 mins along with pit access after the race no one had a clue.
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But, it's being run on the front straight of all the tracks this year. You can't tell me NASCAR had nothing to do with that. It's also right before NASCAR races...again, you can't tell that wasn't the GRC and NASCAR making a deal. If it's at NASCAR tracks, NASCAR has something to do with it. And wouldn't the autograph session also have stuff to do with the drivers...and they might have been busy fixing their cars.


On another note, Travis and Mirra won't have to worry about Toomas at the X-Games at least:

 
Half the race on three tires and still did as well as he did? I'd say he deserves the "driver of the day" title.
 
His day was probably made easier by the way the organisers filled in the jump and removed the joker lap requirement from the proceedings.
 
prisonermonkeys
His day was probably made easier by the way the organisers filled in the jump and removed the joker lap requirement from the proceedings.
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I was wondering what happened to the joker lap, now I know.

The course sucked big time if you ask me! It was way too tight, and didn't allow any clean passing as we saw the starts. As much as I am glad they are trying to find some new fans, places to hold events, they are causing less exciting racing.

There are places they could do these events with dirt and better racing.
 
The tight parts of the course were clearly designed with a joker lap in mind. They're deliberately made to be narrow, so as to force the cars to run in single file.
 
prisonermonkeys
The tight parts of the course were clearly designed with a joker lap in mind. They're deliberately made to be narrow, so as to force the cars to run in single file.
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I understand that but since they changed the way they wanted to do things after 2 big wrecks. It just seemed they would have reworked things a little bit better, but overall I'm not sure anything would have changed the results.

I have to say someone needs to go back to drawing board with both the Subaru and Dodge, because they really seem to have issues with any bumping. Dodge has been knocked out everytime with similar issues, which by now I'd figure they had things fixed.
 
Here's Travis's bad luck:



He cannot catch a break, at all. I hope Andy was penalized for that move. I mean, if Toomas was DQed for shoving Travis into a wall, Andy should get DQed for it, too. And now, Travis is out for blood. That boy is going to take someone out in one of these races.

Also, if you notice, Andy Scott took out three cars with that move including his own. The Ford behind him had nowhere to go 'cause Andy was too busy shoving Travis into the wall. The only reason the guy in the Subaru avoided it was because he saw the stupidity happening and got out of the way.

EDIT: Andy Scott was NOT DQed for this...or the following jumped start. But he apparently damaged his car a little too much as he lost his LCQ. Officials deemed what happened to Travis a "natural racing incident." Apparently, they just got done watching a demolition derby, though. In the end, it was still a stupid move by Andy Scott. I don't know what he was trying to accomplish from that spot directly behind Travis. Perhaps, Andy had seen the other 3 heats and wanted to push his way at least into second to prepare for a nice battle with Travis, and the Subaru and Ford looked like they were fine taking up the rear, but...maybe Andy forgot he was in a big Saab. I don't know.

Those Darts are fast. Every once and a while you get to see a little smidgen of what they can do just before something happens...but haven't yet gotten to see them actually fly.
 
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So, for Round 4, they let the Nationwide NASCARs run first, allowing the GRC to setup some dirt on the track. Not a lot of dirt, but, still, it makes it a little more Rallycross-ish. That's the smarter way to do it. They need to do that next year: let the NASCARs go first so they can add some dirt elements to the course.

Also, it looks like Toomas and Gronholm are still out of the competition due to their injuries sustain at X-Games. This probably means Tanner Foust will win the Championship. But...I'll still catch the final round at Texas just to see what insanity happens there.
 
Right, Vegas. I meant Vegas. Thanks for the correction. :) And yeah, I rather liked the New Hampshire track.


EDIT: Congrats to Travis and Dodge for FINALLY winning and having a couple good, non-damage inducing rounds. I think the key there was...all the people Travis was having issues with...weren't there to give him issues. Toomas is in Finland recovering and Andy Scott was at the very back of the pack, allowing Travis to get some good, clean and clear racing in. We saw hints that the Dart was fast and Travis finally was able to show just how fast.

EDIT 2: BTW, I don't know what's up with those darts, but they need stronger axles 'cause Travis keeps breaking them. He broke a couple the first round, broke at least one in the second round, broke one at X-games and broke another one at New Hampshire while doing the Preview Lap. It can't be cheap to keep replacing those axles and it's quite obvious that the axles are the Dart's Achilles's Heel...They've gradually gotten better it seems, but...they're still breaking them. Sure, it makes things interesting, but...they still need to stop.
 
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