Rallycross is cool. It's one of the most exciting branches of motorsport that there is.
It was invented by a British TV producer as a special event to fill slots between horse races during their Saturday afternoon sports programmes. The first meeting was broadcast from the now legendary Lydden Hill circuit on Saturday, February 14th 1967 and proved very popular with the viewers, and national championship quickly followed. This format, short car races over a small mixed surface race circuit, slowly grew to be the globally popular motorsport it is today with two major championships. Those are, the FIA World Rallycross, based around motor racing circuits and special Rallycross circuits and the Red Bull Global Rallycross which is US centric and more stadium based.
Then there's SCCA RallyCross, which is totally different. Run by the Sports Car Club of America, SCCA RallyCross differs from the other Rallycross in that cars compete singly, over a short, mixed surface course and try to record the fastest time. Think of it as Autocross on dirt. You can turn up in your own street car, or even your rally car. There are classes to cater for everyone. Indeed, many rally drivers use RallyCross to hone their skills. This was the reason we found ourselves at the Rice County Fairgrounds in Faribault, MN. Many of our friends from the world of rally were there, both competing and organizing. Katherine and Kerry Freund were scrutineering the cars as well as running the timing and being in charge of safety. Then of course, we had interests in three of the cars competing.
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| Paul Johansen and Susi Little and their Audi coupe |
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| Kenn Parps and Emily Burton-Weinmann in "Renner" their Saturn. |
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| Andrew Gawboy and Matt Stone in Andy's Mazda RX-7 |
There are no large crowds at a small affair like this, everybody pretty much knows everybody else. It's really informal and the best part was it was free!
The confines of the fairgrounds also meant that you could be pretty close to the action. Even though we were behind a tall safety fence at the top of a banking we could clearly see into the cars to watch the drivers working the steering wheel busily. If you were situated by the finish line you could even see the drivers reactions to their times on the scoreboard. Some would gleefully punch a clenched fist if they recorded a fast time, others would drop their heads dejectedly as they failed to beat their previous time even by a few hundredths of a second.
The event was divided into before and after lunch sessions. Each session consisted of two rounds. In each round, each entrant got three passes over the course. So the entrants got a lot of track time. It took less than a minute for a car to complete each run, and with cars setting off approximately every 30 seconds action was pretty much continuous.
Scoring is straightforward, and the fastest car wins. However, you do incur time penalties if you knock over one of the cones that mark out the course.
The course was a tough one, a short start straight led into a chicane that then opened out into a fast horseshoe curve. That was followed a sharp hairpin and some sweeping curves over rough ground and two more sharp hairpins before a dash to the finish where the car had to stop in a box marked by cones. Here they could see their times and you could watch their reactions.
When we arrived, the first round of runs had just started. There must have been some heavy rain a few days previously, for the course looked rather muddy with a lot of standing water. Most notably by the chicane, where I saw a couple of cars spinning their wheels, throwing mud in the air, and coming very close to getting stuck. But the unseasonably warm November sunshine very quickly dried everything out and by the last rounds of the day the dust was flying.
As the track dried out, the cars went faster and times fell. Drivers would push harder and harder, and as most of the spectators were friends and family of the competitors there was an atmosphere you don't get at bigger events.
Small children cheered. "Yay Daddy!" When a car went faster than the last time.
As I stated before, you can bring whatever car you like to a RallyCross. So here's a selection of pictures of the cars that took part. Some guys clearly had invested some time and expense in their race cars, and others had just bought their road cars along. A special prize should go to the guy driving the Cadillac who gamely wrestled his car around the course, even ripping the wheel arch liner out from the front of the car as they went too wide and up the bank at the final hairpin on one run.
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| Curran Bishop-Wright's 1990 BMW 325i |
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| Dillon Dunphy ran this 1988 Mazda323 in the modified 4WD class. |
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| Yes, it is a stock 2003 Cadillac CTS. Big kudos to Aaron Conklin for driving all the way from Detroit Lakes to take part. |
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| Brent Reinharts 2001 Hyundai Accent was the sole competitor in modified FWD |
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| Evan Skilling's RallyCross Prepared FWD 2003 Escort ZR2 |
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| Dean Neuville raises some dust in his RallyCross Prepared AWD 2002 Subaru WRX |
You will notice from many of the pictures that there are two people in the cars. It's not a co-driver, (though in the cases of the rally cars, it was the co-driver alongside). No, these were "Ride-alongs" and are common place. Drivers will often take friends along for a ride. All they have to do is sign a waiver, put on a crash helmet, strap themselves in and be ferried around the course. It's a great way to get a taster for the sport if you're curious. I was offered a couple of trips but I declined because, to be honest, I was having far too much fun watching and taking photographs. Perhaps next time I will have a go, because we will, for sure, be back.
