Global Rallycross Championship 2012

[chunder]

Foust goes where the Rockstar goes!

[rx-guru]

My crystal ball shows Foust doing both, GRC/X Games and FIA (E)RC.

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by chunder

Foust goes where the Rockstar goes!

Originally Posted by rx-guru

My crystal ball shows Foust doing both, GRC/X Games and FIA (E)RC.

Might get to see one OMSE car in Europe then...

[rx-guru]

Originally Posted by tbtstt

Might get to see one OMSE car in Europe then...

But this is your thinking...

[The Eye]

This is a translation from an article from VF that I read yesterday.</SPAN>


“The Kil lad became head of megastar</SPAN>

Just 22 years old and tecnicle chief of one of the world's largest motorsports stars. Joel Christoffersson from Kil living the dream in California - employed by Travis Pastrana.
- It is quite “rad”, says the Värmlander.

All-rounder Travis Pastrana is one of the biggest stars in extreme sports. He is called a legend - even though he is only 28 years old.

A brief synopsis of his career is in its place:

• He broke through as a motocross rider and has managed to win ten gold medals in the extreme response to the olympics - X Games.

• He is a four-time U.S. champion in rallying.

• Action Sports Collective Nitro Circus, which organizes spectacular live shows with a focus on motocross and has released a number of successful films that aired on MTV, cemented his star status.

• His fortune is estimated to exceed 100 million, and he has lots of lucrative sponsorship deals.

• Last year, he began a career in NASCAR and has followed it up with the participation of the U.S. Rallycross championship Global Rallycross.

Travis Pastrana knows how to handle motor vehicle.

And short: He's a megastar, not least in the U.S..

- It's crazy sometimes. It flock’s a lot of people anywhere around him at the races, says Joel Christoffersson.

The Värmlander has become Pastrana's right hand.

As a "crew chief" Christoffersson are incharge of the technical around the rallycross car. A huge task for any 22-year-old anywhere.

• That it is about Travis Pastrana have to do it even bigger?

- Of course. I did not know of him so much before, it's only now I'm starting to understand how great he is here.

Joel Christoffersson lives a childhood dream.

Even as a 13 year old, he began working for the rallycross star Hansen.

- I maintaned the tyres and swept tarpaulins. I had to work my way up.

Before the school the choice was given, it was studies in the contest mechanic at Stjerne School in Torsby. Meanwhile, he continued to work for Hansen and even Honda in STCC.

2008, 18 years old, he was named Sweden's best racing mechanic and the path continues straight up. 2010, he worked for another American big star, Ken Block.

- I did Blocks car in Rally America. But it was a little too much of the U.S. this year, so I moved back to Sweden.

Last year freelanced Joel on the basis of his own firm where he held the rally driver Fredrik Åhlin’s car and worked with Thed Björk at the Camaro Cup.

It was after last year's X Games as Pastrana made contact with Joel. Then he worked for Kenneth Hansen's team as technical manager for the winner Liam Doran.

- It was pretty easy to say yes.

• It is not bad for a young Kil-guy to get that job.

- Haha, no. I could just as well have gone the Main Street in Kil back and forth day after day ..., laughing Christoffersson.

• Is this your dream job?

- I decided early on to become a racing mechanic and have had different goals all the time since I started this job, I want to go forward all the time. But that I would be technical director for Travis Pastrana was nothing I had expected. What would top this is to own my own team in that case.

• Is it just hard work or do you experience some glamor?

- There is a lot of work, so it is. But we've got VIP tickets for some events and we were invited to the premiere of Nitro Circus 3D – but we could not go ...

- There are always some buzz around Travis, just to book a test day is very difficult.

But he is not a diva.

- He is a very nice and down to earth person, behaves really well against us in the team and to the fans.

Joel Christoffersson has lived in an apartment in Riverside, outside Los Angeles with another Värmlander, Tommy Eklund from Torsby, and Adam Johansson from Varberg since april when the mission with Pastrana began. The trio had to build the car, a Dodge Dart, from the ground up for this year's season where Pastrana has proven his talent - but also suffered a lot of setbacks.

- He took his first victory in July, when he received the reward for the speed he has shown in the past. He is a very talented driver.

Global Rallycross is matched with NASCAR for this year and it has brought enormous time pressure on the teams and Pastrana.

- Sometimes he drove 180 laps NASCAR and it's a ten minute rest before he'll run rallycross, it's tough and has certainly affected part.

One competition remains in the Global Rallycross, in Las Vegas on October 30. Travis Pastrana is currently ninth in the overall score.

• Do you continues to work for him next year?

- It would be fun to continue and we have started discussing it.

• By the way, you will not persuade him to start in the Swedish Rally next year?

- Yes, he loves the rally so he would like to run, says Joel Christoffersson.

Remains to be seen if he manages to attract the superstar to the Värmland forests next year.”

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by rx-guru

But this is your thinking...

Its all so confusing... I think I'm going to stop trying to figure it out and just see who shows up on the grid next year!

Finally managed to track down the highlights programme of Round 5 online, most of which I managed to watch last night.

Programme was very choppy, but at least showed most of the races in their entirety. Echoing the comments from earlier in the thread (and elsewhere on the internet), but the commentary is awful. Despite her background Jen Horsey comes across as clueless. How come you aren't doing the commentary Mark?

Course wasn't quite as interesting as last time out, but the dirt section seemed to be catching a lot of people out. Millen looked quicker then he has in the past and Block looked fast (but got clobbered pretty well in the final). Not a great weekend for Binks either.

[USRallycross]

The course at SEMA looks really good with a lot of dirt. Won't please the purists (never will) but should be a really good course.

I think the ESPN coverage and commentary could have been a lot better and yes, Jen has had a rough year. It is actually a lot harder than you think because you typically are calling to several TV screens while the action goes on in front of you. You want to scream at the director to change camera shots! Then you have the director and producer talking into your headset and quite often the other commentator all while you are talking. I got a whole new appreciation for Murray Walker! Commentating at a race by itself without television is so much easier and so much more fun.

I wasn't available to commentate this year (although was kindly asked back to the Lydden ERC) because I wanted to focus on the team and working with Marcus and David. To be honest I am really glad i did because at X Games I wouldn't want to have had any other obligation than being with Marcus and his family in the hospital.

Yes, it was a very bad weekend for Binks. One of those that you have to write off and pick yourself back up. There is one round left to go and he is focusing on putting all his effort into a good result and pleasing his great sponsor.

There are some quirks re ERC for next year that make it complicated. Think it will take a little longer for the dust to settle......


Mark

[rx-guru]

Originally Posted by USRallycross

The course at SEMA looks really good with a lot of dirt. Won't please the purists (never will) but should be a really good course.

And a true water-splash rather than a shower...

[Matt]

any pictures of the SEMA layout?

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by Matt

any pictures of the SEMA layout?

Care of ERC24.com...



...looks a lot tighter than any of the NASCAR based circuits we've seen this year. I just hope its wide enough to allow some overtaking.

An interesting driver change for SEMA as well:

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...26#post3153726

[NaBUru38]

Pastrana is missing from the entry list. Does anyone know why?

[rx-guru]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Pastrana is missing from the entry list. Does anyone know why?

From Facebook: "Pastrana races that weekend in Rockingham so probably something to do with that."

[rx-guru]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Pastrana is missing from the entry list. Does anyone know why?

Currently not racing.

[NaBUru38]

GRX: Las Vegas Preview, by Speed

(They used GRX, like me )

[rx-guru]

And IMG is going to use 'RX' as their tag in the future...

[tbtstt]

Foust takes the win at SEMA. Amazingly the GRC site seems to have got the story up before any of the other rallycross sites:

http://www.global-rallycross.com/201...fight-at-sema/

Nice to see they have finally woken up there. Second went to Deegan and third to Millen.

Not sure what happened to Timerzyanov? I await a full race report and the internet hunt for race coverage begins again...

EDIT: Perhaps a coincidence (or maybe someone is listening), but the complete (restarted) A-Final is avaiable to watch on the ESPN site:

http://espn.go.com/action/global_ral...pionship/2012/

[rx-guru]

Originally Posted by tbtstt

Foust takes the win at SEMA. Amazingly the GRC site seems to have got the story up before any of the other rallycross sites:

http://www.global-rallycross.com/201...fight-at-sema/

Nice to see they have finally woken up there. Second went to Deegan and third to Millen.
http://espn.go.com/action/global_ral...pionship/2012/

Amazingly? No wonder, they are 7 (for you) or 8 hours (for me) behind and at 3.00h in the night I give a sh*t about GRC.

Woken up? I guess they had not been to bed – like me.

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by rx-guru

Amazingly? No wonder, they are 7 (for you) or 8 hours (for me) behind and at 3.00h in the night I give a sh*t about GRC.

Woken up? I guess they had not been to bed – like me.

You sleep? I thought you were awake 24/7, absorbing rallycross news from all corners of the globe!

I say "amazingly" as it took the GRC site several weeks to cobble a news story together after the last round in Vegas, so I was very surprised to see they managed to get an article together within a few hours this time round!

[USRallycross]

GRC had a PR agency working at SEMA so that is probably part of the improvement you saw.

In the re-run of the A Final, Timur had a problem with the differential whereby he had power in a straight line but nothing in the corners. As a result he didn't want to risk the jump and retired the car.

The Best Buy Racing App had great updates all weekend and within minutes of each race ending.


Mark

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by USRallycross

GRC had a PR agency working at SEMA so that is probably part of the improvement you saw.

In the re-run of the A Final, Timur had a problem with the differential whereby he had power in a straight line but nothing in the corners. As a result he didn't want to risk the jump and retired the car.

Cheers for the clarification Mark. Pity about Timerzyanov as I think it would have been interesting to see how him and Foust matched up in identical machinery.

Unlucky weekend for Block as well. Looked like he was flying in that car... and then it caught fire!

I see the complete re-started "A" Final is now up on You Tube, so you can watch it without the adverts on the ESPN site:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3t31-cucxE

Have to say I really like the track layout. Painfully bad commentary again from Jen Horsey though. Sorry Jen: but you need to go!

[tbtstt]

Excuse the double post but I just spotted this on Facebook and thought it was posting in here: Ford promo from the SEMA GRC round, just wait for the Block onboard shot...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl2EYvqurwc

..toasty!

[FIRE]

From all tracks this season this was the best.

Shame for Timur.

[USRallycross]

You guys know this in Europe but boy is Timur a total professional and a very real guy to sit in Marcus' car. Fantastic attitude - this was no end of season holiday, always looking to find time, working to understand the limits of a totally new car and so on. Also a fantastic professional out of the car.

Knew he could drive from the last few years but he is the real deal in and out of the car. It was a real shame he couldn't show his best as I do think he could have beaten Tanner, which is why after all I wanted him in the car!


Mark

[tbtstt]

Watched the full SEMA coverage over the last couple of night and, I'm sorry to say it again, but Jen Horsey was just awful. Actually a couple of good races in there, though quite a high rate of attrition amongst the cars. Some great driving from Timur as well, he seemed to be getting the car extra sideways as they came onto that corner after jump.

Watching the first run of the final Block actually looked like he was pulling away from Foust, unlucky for him and rather fortunate for Deegan that it was restarted, as he was lagging in the first final.

Extended video of the Block onboard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8roRkCYE-8

He must have really wanted the win, because I'd have been out of there at the first sign of flames!

[Down F0rce]

Somewhat off topic, but can anyone tell me what a typical GRC event weekend is like, schedule wise? The 2013 X Games at Barcelona are being held the same weekend as the F1 race, it would be cool to try and go to both.