Hype Rumor: X Games Athlete Shaun White To Become Rally Driver?
According to a tweet by Alyssa Roenigk who is an ESPN Senior Writer for Action Sports. Snowboard/Skateboard double threat Shaun White AKA “The Flying Tomato” has signed a deal with BF Goodrich to compete in Rally Racing in a car built by Vermont Sports Car which further suggests that if this is true Shaun White’s other partner in this deal will be Subaru. This makes a whole lot of sense since Travis Pastrana parted ways with Suby a few months ago to compete in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. With Pastrana going in circles (literally) Subaru needs another action sports hero who is just as popular as Pastrana to stay a favorite among the X Games skater/snowboarder demographic.
Although, I should tell you that so far there is no official confirmation from White’s camp, Vermont Sports Car, Subaru, or any rally racing sanctioning body on this matter. Which means despite this move theoretically making a whole lot of sense, it could all just be talk. If we find out any new information we’ll let you know!
UPDATE: Alyssa Roenigk released a full article with the details of this story. According to the article Shaun’s camp is currently downplaying any notion that he is looking to enter rally racing professionaly. Shaun’s agent was quoted in the article as saying “Ninety nine percent no. The goal is not to compete, but if he takes to rally like a fish to water, who knows?” Shaun’s camp is stating that the deal with BF Goodrich is for a series of commercials featuring White practicing drifting and driving at an abandoned airport in Orange County (AKA El Toro, maybe the Top Gear USA track?). If Shaun does decide to go full-on into rally racing it could be a steep learning curve for him. Shaun himself admitted during the BF Goodrich announcement that “My brother sold me out and told BFGoodrich I couldn’t drive stick.”
It looks like Shaun and his agent would like us to believe that any professional or competition-focused effort in rally by Shaun is highly unlikely at this point. I guess we will just have to keep our eye on this to be sure of that.
UPDATE 2: It looks like BF Goodrich has launched a Shaun White micro-site that has several videos of his “driver’s training” one of which has Formula Drift driver Sam Hubinette showing Shaun how to drift in his Dodge Viper!
[Source: ESPN]
I asked the same question when I learned that a european champion driver was hired to be #2 to Dave Mirra.
So this would mean they are going to run three Subaru’s in the RA championship…Why sign a good rally driver if they were just going to replace him next year with another x-games star?