The Subaru Rally Cross team has just let the world know that their new partner is lifestyle clothing brand PUMA.  To celebrate the now three car team got chased by a helicopter on a closed course while hooning their 600HP STi’s.  Oh, did I just glance over the three car team thing? My bad.  There are now three drivers under the Subaru/PUMA banner.  One of them is returning drive Dave Mirra.  I will let you watch the video to figure out who the other two are.  You may be pleasantly surprised!

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Recently, two-time Formula Drift Champion and Dodge Challenger pilot Samuel Hubinette announced that he would be taking a break from drifting in 2012, limiting his participation to a few demos and maybe a few professional rounds.  He cited his departure to his sponsors having a “change in interests” and that he would focus more on other motorsports.

There have been rumors for a while that Sam would make a full-time transition to the fast growing sport of Rally X and that Dodge may go with him with the new 2013 Dodge Dart but nothing has been announced or even acknowledged by Dodge Motorsports.

Today,  I got a press release in the ol’ inbox from Chysler’s PR ninjas announcing a live webcast press conference event next monday with the CEO of the Dodge brand Reid Bigland and the CEO of Dodge’s SRT/Motorsports arm Ralph Gilles to announce a “new driver” as well as a “new venture with the 2013 Dodge Dart”.

Could this announcement confirm the rumors?  Is Dodge going to take the new Dart to Rally Cross with “The Crazy Swede”?

Well you can ask the big wigs at Dodge and SRT yourself on March 26th starting at 9:30am E.T. 

Link: http://www.host4video.com/dodge/motorsports/

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A new video by Rhys Millen and the gang has been making the interweb rounds today.  In his latest piece Rhys plays a few holes at a local golf course and uses his rally-spec Hyundai Veloster as the proverbial “golf kart”.  It is a fun little video and worth a few minutes of your time.  Check it out below.

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In the official “WTF” story of the day I got an email from DC Shoes to inform me that Subaru Rally Team and pro BMX legend Dave Mirra is in the process of training for a physical hand-to-hand fight with Ford Racing Rally driver and FMX rider Brian Deegan.  Yes, you read right.  Dave Mirra and Brian Deegan are going to fight each other.  Why? I have no idea!  It does not seem to make a lot of sense for two motorsport athletes to get into the ring with each other but that in no way means I don’t want to see who is going to win!

The two drivers are set to go toe-to-toe this Saturday (September 17th) at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, NV at an event called Ellismania  and the event will be broadcast on FUEL TV (check with your cable company).

Who is my pick? Well as you can see in the video below Dave Mirra has been training hard for the event for a while now and I have seen both contenders in person and from what I can tell Dave has a height and reach advantage.  However, anyone who knows Brian Deegan knows he is one tough son of a shotgun!  So, really I don’t have a pick.  I just want to see these two dudes beat the snot out of each other.  Does that make me a bad person?

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While at X Games 17 this weekend we went out of our way to annoy Top Gear USA Tanner Foust until he agreed to grant us a short interview.  During which we got him to weigh in on the possibility of Rally Cross becoming more popular than drifting.  He also surprised us at the end by mentioning that he is putting fourth an effort to make it into an Indy Car race before the end of the season.  Some digging was done after the interview and it looks like he may be trying to put together a one-off drive for the Las Vegas Indy Car race.  Scroll down to check out the full interview.

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X Games 17 Rally has come and gone but we were on site to bring you as much of the action as possible. We are starting off by answering the question “What do the rally cars do the night before X Games?” The answer: They jump! A special jump session was set up to test out the 50 foot gap jump made entirely from dirt and gravel. We were there to take a few shots and we even compiled a short video of all the jump action. You can see a few pics and the video below. For a full photo gallery just visit our Facebook fan page.

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DISCLAIMER: The following post is purely the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of any other persons associated with MotorworldHype.com.  Should you find yourself angered, offended, annoyed,  harmed, maimed, confounded, confused, frightened, or aroused by this post please see a mental health professional promptly or express your thoughts in the comments. Note that if you include personal verbal attacks against the author of this post and/or other commenters in your comment it will not be approved.  Debates/Arguments are encouraged, flaming is not. 

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Ever since the rise of Rally X (Rally Cross) at X Games last year, many have begun to draw comparisons between Rally X and Drifting.  Some have even gone as far as to say that Rally X may oust Drifting as the “next big thing” as far as youth motorsports.  I have my own thoughts on this and if you have sometime to kill I would like to share them with you.

I really like Drifting.  In fact, I have been a fan of Drifting before I even realized what “Drifting” really was.  I remember watching videos in high school back in ’98 of cars sliding around corners on mountain roads and thinking it was the coolest thing ever.  Anyhow, after first learning of Drifting as a sport, it did not take long for me to understand what it was really about: style, technique, car control, competition, and fun.  These days there are thousands upon thousands of people who get Drifting and have fallen in love with it.  It is those people who are part of masses that pack grandstands and clog the livestream of Formula Drift (the premiere American Drifting series) events all year long.

Unfortunately, there has been a battle that professional Drifting has been fighting ever since it came to our shores.  While there are many people out there who understand the sideways motorsport there are plenty of those out there who still don’t get it.  The really bad part is that included in the group of people who do not understand Drifting are individuals from endemic and non-endemic companies who control how their sponsorship dollars are spent.  That is tricky for professional series like Formula Drift and teams who are seeking funding to go Drifting on a professional level.  How do you convince a company to sponsor your participation in a sport that they do not completely understand?  That is a tough question to answer.  However, I think the real question is: “What is it about drifting that these individuals don’t get?”

Well the area where most get confused is the area of judging, especially when it comes to tandem battles.  What really gives one driver a win over another?  Even enthusiasts who are very familiar with Drifting seem to be confused by this occasionally.  In fact, despite being around for almost a decade, Formula Drift announcer “J-Rod” still explains the mechanics of drifting and the judging criteria to the crowd at each round of competition.  Although in Formula Drift’s defense this could be because Drifting is still young enough that at each round there are attendees who have never seen Drifting before that event.

Still, this shows that the problem of understanding Drifting is more than just a small annoyance that we thought would go away in after the early years.  Imagine the frustration of a marketing executive who commits a significant amount of his/her budget to a driver/team only to watch their driver lose in the first round of 32 and not understand why.  It is definitely a tough pill to swallow!  Being a member of the media I am usually around the marketing execs and representatives of the sponsor companies that participate in Formula Drift and I have heard more than a few off the record complaints about Drifting from them.  Those complaints have mostly revolved around the fact that Drifting is a subjective sport and how they feel the judging is bull or worse, bias. 

The latter suspicion is fed by the fact that all the judges are former competitors who have friends and acquaintances that still compete.  Formula Drift and the judges will vehemently deny any bias in the judging system and maintain that the judges are 100% professional and can separate business from friendship.  I choose to take them at their word but it would be naive to say that there have not been instances that would make people wonder if judges are playing favorites.  For example the same year (2009) Tony Angelo, a founding member of the Drift Alliance crew was appointed a Formula Drift judge was also the year that fellow Drift Alliance member Chris Forsberg won the title. 

At times even some non-Drift Alliance drivers felt that there was bias in the judgement calls.  In an infamous interview Rhys Millen vented his fustration and suspicions in an interview with GT Channel at Formula Drift Long Beach.  If you skip to the 4:13 mark in the video below you can whitness the awkward moment for yourself.

Now, before I get flamed by all the Drift Alliance fans who will accuse me of being a “hater” let me say that I disagree with any notion that Tony Angelo judged biasly to help Chris Forsberg win the title.  Firstly because I just do not believe he is that kind of person and secondly there are three judges, so even if one judge wanted to play favorites there are two more to balance things out.  However, despite my beliefs even I have to admit that the face value of that situation did not look good for those who defended the fair judging practices of Formula Drift.

Despite this there are still new sponsors coming on board and old sponsors who choose to stick with Drifting as part of their marketing efforts.  Why? Because Drifting still draws a crowd, it is still exciting to watch, and for the most part it still has cars that the kids love albeit most have V8s in them now but at least they still look like the cars we idolized in high school.  Yet, this problem of understanding still looms over the sport.  A few years ago this problem did not really have the potential to drive sponsors away because there was no other motorsport that captured the youth the way Drifting does.

About a year ago that changed…

Actually, this change was set into motion about 5 years ago, 2006 to be exact.  What happened in 2006? ESPN debuted Rally racing as a new event for Summer X Games.  For those who remember it was quite a debut as Moto X cross-over talent Travis Pastrana just barely beat Rally racing god Colin McRae after Colin rolled his car with two corners left, kept going, and just missed gold by .52 seconds.  Colin would come back to compete in X Games one more time before his untimely death at the end of 2007.  Rally remained a part of X Games from that point on but it did not have quite as much excitement as it did in that first year.  This was mostly because half of the action was taking place outside of the spectator’s field of view and they had to keep up with the action via video screens.  Another reason for the slight decline in interest is the fact that the Rally drivers were on separate courses that crossed over (the jump intersection) and never quite went door-to-door.  This is because at its heart Rally racing is about running against the clock and not crossing the line first.  Still, there was enough mayhem, especially with the jump to keep things interesting for the next few years.  Something to note is that Formula Drift champions Rhys Millen, Samuel Hubinette, and later on Tanner Foust all participated in X Games Rally at some point during this time as well.  The most successful was Tanner Foust who won gold against Travis Pastrana in 2007 which was also the year he won his first Formula Drift title.

Now, let’s fast-forward to 2010.  ESPN moved the Rally and many of skateboarding and BMX competitions from the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA to Los Angeles, CA with Rally being moved to the LA Coliseum.  This presented a unique opportunity for the Rally organizers.  By partnering up with the main brass from the Rally America series X Games decided to switch their format from the head-to-head style to the popular European Rally X (Rally Cross) format.  How was Rally X going to be any different from what they were doing before?  Well in case you have not seen or heard of Rally X until now allow me to explain.  First of all the biggest difference between head-to-head and Rally X is that with Rally X both cars are on the same course at the same time door-to-door in a race to the finish line (no subjectivity to muddle things up here). 

While both head-to-head and Rally X both include 70 foot jumps the way each discipline uses said jump brings us to our second major difference.  In head-to-head each driver takes the jump once and depending on which path they start on the spectators know exactly when each driver is going to take the jump.  In Rally X the jump is set on separate path through the main course its referred to as the “Joker” path.  Now, most Rally X heats are three up to five laps.  In a Rally X heat each driver must take the Joker path (called Joker Lap) and complete the jump.  The trick is that the driver can choose when he or she wants to take their joker lap.  This adds a huge excitement factor for spectators because they don’t know which driver will take the jump at what time.  Will one driver go for the jump right away? Save it for last? Will both go over the jump side-by-side at the same time?  All of those outcomes are possible!

 How did the American people take to this new Rally format? They ate it up.  The crowds went nuts; the Internet was a blaze with videos, comments, forum arguments, rumors and more.  Highlight clips were all over local news stations and sports shows.  Entertainment and marketing wise the event was a huge success.  It did have its problems (many drivers were DQ’d by going off the very confusing and hard to follow course) but the overwhelmingly positive response drowned out most of the criticism. 

This was one of the first moments that Drifting and Rally X were forced to look at each other.  Why? Because once again several Formula Drift drivers including Tanner Foust, Sam Hubinette, and even Drifting grassroots hero Stephan Verdier participated in the Rally X event.  More so, the Formula Drift drivers dominated each event for the most part with Tanner Foust taking gold in Rally X and Super Rally.  To their credit, the brass at Formula Drift were quite happy with this result.  They were proud to see their drivers go into someone else’s yard and put racing shoes to asses.  As a drift fan I was happy to see that too.  Although in hindsight some might say that instead of celebrating, Formula Drift should have been concerned.  Rally X had a successful debut in front of thousands of spectators and a television audience of millions.  Formula Drift’s debut event while successful did not get that amount of eye balls on their first time out.  Formula Drift drivers discovered a new challenge that was also a potentially easy sell to sponsors thanks to its association with X Games.  Could they jump ship from Drifting to Rally X?

At the time Formula Drift had nothing to worry about because there was no Rally X series for the drivers to jump ship to.  Up until 2010 the only way to Rally X in America was to earn your way into the X Games by competing in the Rally America series or to go to Europe (the birthplace of Rally X).  It was pretty unlikely that the Formula Drift drivers would try to do double-duty or ditch it all and move to Europe to try out Rally X so in that respect Formula Drift had nothing to worry about… Or so they thought.

The Global RallyCross Championship series was started by a few individuals with strong connections to both ESPN and Rally America.  The idea was to capitalize on the success of the Rally X debut at X Games 16 and create a 4 round series with the season culminating at the next Summer X Games.  Global RallyCross held their first event at Toyota Speedway in Irwindale back in March.  So, not only was Global RallyCross potentially stealing drivers away from Formula Drift, they kicked off their inaugural season at what is easily Formula Drift’s most popular venue!  The Global RallyCross officials brought tons of dirt into the Speedway’s infield and fashioned a combination course of dirt and asphalt with the 70 foot jump right in the middle.  While it may have appeared so, the first round of Global RallyCross was not the big threat to Formula Drift as some had made it out to be.  In fact it was kind of a flop for a few reasons.  The first reason is that since group behind Global RallyCross got started late, they did not have much time to promote their event which resulted in a dismal turn out in the grandstands.  The second reason is that it did not hold quite the star power that most were expecting.  There was no Travis Pastrana, Ken Block, or even Brian Deegan.  Although Ken Block and Deegan did make appearances as guests, the crowd would have much rather watched them drive.  Tanner Foust did compete as well as Stephan Verdier and Dave Mirra.  The rest of the competitors were mostly European drivers that most people have never heard of unless they were die-hard Rally fans.  Judging by that first event Formula Drift was totally in the clear and had absolutely nothing to fear from the Global RallyCross series. 

I did see something at the event that was quite alarming to me.  In the garage area next to Tanner Foust’s Ford Fiesta was a similarly prepped Ford Fiesta decked out in Best Buy livery.  The driver of the car was Marcus Gronholm, a hero to many Rally fans but virtually unknown to most motorsport fans here in the states.  Yet here he was with a sponsor that Formula Drift teams and possibly Formula Drift themselves have been courting for years!  It seemed as if Best Buy completely ignored Drifting yet they jumped into a brand new (new to us anyway) sport with a driver that 99.99% of Americans have never heard of?  Clearly Best Buy saw something in Rally X that they did not see in Drifting. However, Best Buy is just one sponsor right?  So Rally X got one sponsor that Drifting did not get.  Big deal!  There still no ship jumping from one sport to the other.  Actually, that came to past as well.

Shortly before the 2011 Formula Drift season started, the first and only back-to-back Formula Drift champion Tanner Foust announced that he would be “taking a break” from Drifting this year to focus on Rally X both home and abroad and that he was taking his title sponsor Rockstar Energy Drink with him.  That news was pretty shocking.  Then came the news that Stephan Verdier would also back out of the 2011 Formula Drift season to focus on Rally X.  It should also be noted that since the Formula Drift season started both Rhys Millen and Sam Hubinette have skipped rounds to participate in other motorsports.  OK, is it time for Formula Drift to officially be worried yet?  Perhaps not. Let’s look at the situation.  With the exception of Verdier all the drivers that have reduced their Formula Drift participation are past champions.  They are also a bit older than most of the Formula Drift field.  One could easily conclude that they are just ready to move on to new challenges.

So far, no fresh Drifting talent has expressed interest in leaving the sport to try their hand in Rally X and Formula Drift still holds a strong advantage over Global RallyCross in many areas including experience, event attendance, driver count, number of events per season, and most importantly a fiercely loyal fan base not just in America but all around the globe.  Even though Formula Drift is an American based series in the short time they have been around they have pretty much surpassed D1 as the top Drifting series in the world.  There is also the fact that it is still just as exciting to see two high-horsepower machines sliding sideways at speeds of 60+ mph while only inches apart, tire smoke billowing from both cars all the while.

Both sports have a TV package (Formula Drift on Versus and Rally X on ESPN/ESPN2) and while it may seem that Rally X has the advantage there, the reality is both TV packages are equal in quality and likely in ratings.  Where Rally X really has an advantage over Drifting is its ease of understanding due to its objective nature and the big advantage: the 800lb gorilla known as X Games.  Despite having not-so-stellar turnouts at most of their rounds and an average TV package, sponsors will still clamor to be a part of Rally X just for a share of the millions of X Games viewers. 

So, let us go back to the original question.  Is Rally X a threat to Drifting?  To me the answer is “yes, just barely”.  But if you were to ask me if Formula Drift should be afraid of Global RallyCross I would say “absolutely not.”  If nothing else I think the rise of Global RallyCross should be more of a message to Formula Drift and that message is “do not become complacent.”  For now, Formula Drift is still on top but it could definitely use some tweaks.  Those tweaks should mostly be with judging and curtailing the “invasion of the V8s”.  Currently each car in the top 10 Formula Drift standings has a V8 in it and only a handful of those cars actually came with V8s in their stock form.  I could go on about this but that is a different post entirely.

If Formula Drift makes some changes I think it can co-exist with Global RallyCross in harmony for the foreseeable future.  If Formula Drift chooses to ignore what the sport of Rally X and the Global RallyCross series is doing then I feel there could be a very possible changing of the guard the same way Drifting ousted Import Drag Racing over the last decade.  Formula Drift must not rest on its laurels.  Instead, if they are not already doing so they should be finding ways to shake up the sport and inject some needed freshness into the sport that they have developed into an exciting global phenomenon.

ESPN blew some minds earlier this year when they revealed that instead of returning to the LA Colosseum, all rally events would take place on the streets of downtown Los Angeles.  From that point imaginations were running wild trying to contemplate what streets around the Staples Center would be used, where the jump would be, the ins and outs, etc.  Well today ESPN has answered all questions by finally releasing hard details about the street course including a basic rendering of the layout.  The X Games officials have created a 3,100 foot course (or 6/10ths of a mile for you math geeks) with six turns.  Building the course will require 5 MILLION pounds of concrete barriers, 700 feet of dirt (which includes the 70ft jump for the joker lap), and about 1,000 hours of build time to complete the course.  The course will also require shutting down three streets including Figueroa.  To accommodate the spectators, bleachers will be erected outside of the Staples Center.  We would venture to guess that there will likely be a video screen erected as well to make sure none of the action is missed.  Despite the fact that construction of the course is slated to start soon, drivers will not be able to test the course until the day before competition!

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If you want to see a rendering of the course layout, click the thumbnail below for an image that we blew up slightly.  You may have to squint a bit but you can see all the turns and joker lap path, as well as the course’s position in relation to other land marks such as the halfpipe, etc.

[Source: ESPN]

I first heard this as a rumor at the first round of Global RallyX and I wish I had reported it because it turned out to be true!  It was announced today that the RallyX events for Summer X Games 2011 will literally take place in the streets of downtown Los Angeles!  The exact course details haven’t been released but expect the drivers to go through portions of the Staples Center then outside into LA Live and back into the the Staples Center.  It should make for some pretty interesting pictures!  I can’t wait!

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Press Release:

Enduro X Discipline to Make its Debut; Rally Disciplines Move to Downtown Street Circuit

ESPN will kick off its 17^th annual action sports competition to be held in Los Angeles July 28 – 31 and will debut the new discipline of Enduro X, as well as the first-ever rally street circuit running through the downtown area.  In its ninth year in Los Angeles, X Games 17 will feature more than 200 athletes at competition venues and event spaces including STAPLES Center and Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE in an effort to further consolidate events to one area and better enable fans to catch all the X Games action from downtown Los Angeles.

Enduro X will feature both men’s and women’s disciplines, showcasing riders’ talent on an all-terrain obstacle course. Riders will race through sand, mud, logs, rocks and other terrain features in a blend of motocross racing and traditional Enduro, battling not only each other but also the challenging course for their shot at X Games gold.  The new addition will be one of eight Moto X competitions taking place inside STAPLES Center, while the downtown Los Angeles street circuit will offer a unique and exciting setting for the disciplines of Rally Car Racing on Saturday and RallyCross on Sunday.

“Having RallyCross at last year’s X Games was a huge step for the sport, but racing through city streets is how motorsport began,” said three-time X Games rally gold medalist Tanner Foust. “Being in the car, ripping through streets, cranking the handbrake through intersections while door-to-door and jumping next to buildings is going to be truly epic! I can’t wait!”

ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC will combine to telecast 25 hours of live X Games 17 competition. In addition to the 25  original hours in high definition, the Worldwide Leader in Action Sports will also televise 18 hours of X Games action on ESPN 3D. More than 25 hours will also be distributed on ESPN3.com. Outside the United States, X Games 17 will be seen in more than 121 countries and territories to more than 106 million homes, including live telecasts in Africa, Asia, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Middle East, New Zealand and South America.

Tickets for X Games 17 will be available for purchase June 23 at all Ticketmaster locations and the box office at STAPLES Center.

Additional information on all X Games 17 events will be forthcoming on www.xgames.com

After his magnificant crash at the WRC Rally Of Portugal, Ken Block decided to hop on a red-eye flight back to the states to spectate at the first round of Global RallyCross at Toyota Speedway in Irwindale. I caught up with him to get his thoughts on the event and ask him about his 2011 plans which include welcoming a new hooigan into the world.

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